‘The House of Lords’ remarked Clement Attlee is ‘like a glass of champagne that has stood for five days.’ But there’s more vim and vigour in the current vintage and now peers are fizzing with righteous anger. The source of the outrage? Recent efforts by certain staff in the Palace to usurp what many feel are the traditional rights of members of the Upper House.
A virtual Parliament with the advent of Covid has given self-styled modernisers the ideal chance to mount what traditionalists fear is a hostile takeover on the Palace of Westminster. Peers have already been subject to the indignities of the ‘Valuing Everyone’ sexual harassment training at taxpayers’ expense – a move which saw the nonagenarian Betty Boothroyd probed by a parliamentary watchdog.
Now though the latest row is the decision by the House this month to abolish full uniform and horsehair wigs for its parliamentary clerks, following an initial suspension in April 2020.
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