Why does Labour want to ban these 15 peers?

Following last week’s manifesto launches, Mr S has been looking into the fine print. As part of Labour’s plans to reform the House of Lords, Starmer says that he now wants to forcibly retire British peers at 80 years old when – he believes – they will be unfit for public service. But Steerpike is rather sceptical of how Sir Keir’s grand plans will go down with the second chamber, given the Labour leader will be turfing out some rather high-calibre comrades. 

Labour’s manifesto states that ‘at the end of the parliament in which a member reaches 80 years of age, they will be required to retire from the House of Lords’. As 83-year-old Labour peer Professor Lord Winston – a pioneer in gynaecological medicine –  put it: ‘It’s rather like saying a member of the House of Lords has to be a certain height.’ Quite. Among those whom Starmer would push out include Alf Dubs, 91, a vocal campaigner for refugees who himself was one of the Czech children rescued from Nazi Europe in the Kindertransport.