The Spectator’s Notes | 21 July 2012

Having asked around, I can fairly confidently report that the government’s efforts to push ahead with some even slightly elected House of Lords will not work. The rebels are quite rightly holding their ground. Only if the Labour party comes to the government’s rescue can the plans get through, and why should it? People are coalescing, however, round a collection of reforms not involving elections which they see as modest and sensible. Perhaps that is good politics, but I would argue that a wholly unenlightened position is preferable. If you look at these changes — reducing the numbers, getting rid of the hereditaries, formalising systems of appointment, kicking out peers with criminal convictions and inviting peers to retire — they all tend to the same effect, which is to impose conformity. The hereditaries are the last element not subject to patronage, and it is the disappearance of most of them which has made the House so appallingly London-centric.