In defence of hereditary peers

As the former editor of a Sunday newspaper, I know their front pages can be rather confected. There is sometimes a shortage of news at the weekend. But I was nevertheless stunned by the front-page splash of the latest Sunday Times. ‘Revealed’, it said in red letters, ‘The truth about the peers who are born to rule’. This ‘investigation’ showed there are currently 85 hereditary peers in the House of Lords, their average age is 71, 46 per cent of them went to Eton, none is a woman and they or their predecessors have claimed £47 million in ‘expenses’ (actually mainly allowances) ‘since 2001’. It was the ‘since 2001’ which rather gave the game away. The peers are there because Tony Blair’s government left them there in that year, and never completed its promised reform. No fact in the story was new. It was almost as if the headline had said ‘Revealed: Queen is unelected’.