Lords of misrule

A few days after the general election, I bumped into one of David Cameron’s longest-standing political allies, one of those who had helped him get selected for Witney back in 2000. I remarked that he must be delighted that Cameron had now won a majority. To my surprise, he glumly replied that it would only be significant if Cameron were to create a hundred new peers. Without them, he warned, the govern-ment’s most important measures would end up bogged down in the Lords, where Labour and the Liberal Democrats combined comfortably outnumber the Tories.

Now, normally when people urge the Prime Minister to create new peers it is because they hope that they will be on the list themselves. But this source was one of those rare Westminster beasts with no interest in a peerage and his fear is now being borne out. Since May, the government has lost more than 70 per cent of votes in the Lords.