Seriously, though, how are you supposed to describe a house that completely defies all description? And what does “house” mean anyway? A cathedral of politics, a Victorian fever dream of power projection, a museum to the empire right in the heart of London, with every stuffy square inch packed with damask, brocade, exotic woods, gold leaf and creatures of myth. Hogwarts looks positively pedestrian by comparison.
It is a building with a grotesquely over-embellished plenary hall in which laws are discussed by people who descend directly from slave traders and fascist leaders – or, better, discuss laws
because
they descend directly from slave traders and fascist leaders.
The body has never been elected – or, at least, its members have not been chosen in elections that could be remotely described as free and democratic. Some of those who hold seats have lounged on the red-leather benches for four decades and longer without ever having felt the need to say a word. Others have on occasion blithely admitted that they have no idea why they are there – aside from costing taxpayers millions of pounds each year.
It is a place that makes even the royal family look like a modern hipster commune, a group that has always been old, white and male, and has always seemed outmoded – or at least for the last 200 years, to be on the conservative side . It is a place that regularly makes a mockery of itself, as again recently when a 30-year-old received a lifelong peerage for her life's work – even though no one really knows what it consists of, aside from spending a couple of fateful months in close proximity to former Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Which would count as a rather amusing vignette if it all weren't so serious.
It is a place that is impossible to grasp. It is incomprehensible. And it's existence can in no way be defended.
Or can it?
Only the National People's Congress in China is larger
So, the House of Lords. The largely powerless second chamber of the United Kingdom's parliament is an eternal irritant in British politics. With a current roster of 800 members, it is the second-largest body of political representatives in the world, even though only around 400 of them actually fit into the chamber, if they were all to suck in their stomachs. Only the National People's Congress in China is larger, although China doesn't make for a particularly flattering democratic comparison. Perhaps more commensurate would be the US Senate, with 100 members, the second chamber in India, the Rajya Sabha, with 245 members, or the upper house in France, with 348.
But here in Britain, a body that should actually be shrinking continues to grow. Built long ago on swampy ground, this House has for years been shamelessly flooded with washed-up party allies and slavish lackies by a revolving door of fleeting prime ministers. They are now rubbing elbows with nobles who, through an accident of birth, are the great-great, or great-great-great-great-great grandson of some random duke, marquess or earl. Which is why Paddy Ashdown, himself a lord, once grumbled that you can only become a member through cronyism or if your "great-grandmother slept with a king."
Which is really only a slight exaggeration.
As a matter of fact, however, there is also a third group of members, one made up of people from all walks of society. They, too, were not elected, but at least they do bring along a quality that is of some importance for a functioning polity: expertise.
Olympic Winners, Starchitects and Actors
All in all, the cast of this most enduring of all democratic theatrical productions has always been filled with A-listers. Musical composer Andrew Lloyd Webber, Olympic champion Sebastian Coe, starchitect Norman Foster, actor Richard Attenborough: All of them former lords.
Tory eminence gris Michael Heseltine is still a member today, as is a recently added former prime minister, David Cameron, who is now serving as foreign secretary. He sits together with writers, artists, media tycoons, former secret service members, economists and scientists – the overwhelming majority of whom are men.
In its better moments, the House of Lords is a kind of council of elders, where the polished word and cogent argument have a home in a place where politics is more than an exercise of Slavish obedience in the interest of climbing the career political ladder. It is a bulwark against populism, which is also flourishing in Britain – as seen in recent days with the government essentially suspending the right to asylum.
In its worse moments, the House of Lords is derelict ruin occupied by upstarts, party donors and lobbyists for whom nothing is further from their minds than true democratic rule. And in the already divided kingdom, the worse moments of late have heavily outweighed the better ones.
Reform? Long overdue, to be sure. Indeed, pretty much every government – both before and after the world wars – has promised to do so. There have even been a number of attempts. But they have never really amounted to much.
Chronicle of a Phaseout
But now it is 2024 and elections are approaching in the United Kingdom, to be held in winter at the latest. And the Labor Party is knocking on the door of 10 Downing Street. Sir Keir Starmer, the head of Labour, has said he intends to eliminate the House of Lords. And replace it. But how and when? And with what? An elected senate? A chamber of the regions? Is: “Who cares, as long as it’s different” a viable answer?
And might there actually be some elements of this anachronistic madhouse that are worth holding on to? Something that even serious politicians from elsewhere in the world might choose to emulate? It's a discussion worth having.
First, though, it is perhaps best to start with an author of political thrillers who isn't just a member of this venerable institution, but who so ably describes other political houses, with their intrigues, liaisons and power plays, that first the BBC came knocking, and then Netflix and then, ultimately, global fame.
Michael Dobbs – apologies: Baron Dobbs of Wylye in the County of Wiltshire – is already waiting on a rather middling winter evening at the Peer's Entrance. It is, if you will, the less important entryway to the Palace of Westminster, this neo-Gothic marvel on the banks of the Thames that the two houses of parliament have called home since the 14th century: the House of Commons on one side, and the House of Lords on the other. The relationship between the two has not always been frictionless.
The Lord Who Dreamed Up "House of Cards"
Media pass in hand, past a pair of heavily armed guards and through a rotating door – and the tall, silver-maned Dobbs is already standing there, waiting for his guest. Once described as "Westminster's baby-faced hit man" because of the acid-tongued speeches he used to write for Margaret Thatcher, it was the "House of Cards" trilogy that made him famous. Yes, it was an English invention.
The lord is in high spirits as he gently ushers his guest to his left side. His right ear, his sight, both have seen better days. “But still a razor-sharp political mind,” jokes Dobbs – who, with his 75 years, is only slightly older than the average among the honorable lords and baronesses.
He dashes ahead through this fabled maze with its 1,100 rooms, which are, it is rumored, occasionally haunted. Up and down stairs, across heavy carpeting and through endless hallways filled in places with the smell of cooking oil. He greets the women with pecks on the cheek and pats the men on the shoulders and grabs their elbows. Dobb's is not afraid of a bit of physical contact.
A brief stop for tea in the Pugin Room, named for the man who, before he succumbed to madness, transformed this palace into a neo-Gothic wet dream after the great fire of 1834. It is surprisingly full at this time of day, with small groups of courtly men and women sitting together, the occasional burst of a champagne cork in the background. One starts to understand why detractors refer to this place as "the best daycare center for the elderly in London."
It is a depiction of which Dobbs is not particularly fond, given that the entire building, along with its occupants, is slowly disintegrating. Water frequently sees through the roof, plaster is crumbling here and there from the ceiling – and "if it weren't so busy in here, you'd probably find mice scuttling across this floor."
Global Santa Claus Congress
And then he's back on his feet, leading the way directly into the real heart of the building, the Lords Chamber, where he sighs: "I love the place. It was built out of ruins with the conviction that we can do anything."
You really have to see this almost sacred space with your own eyes. This stone, stained glass and precious wood expression of past – and, since Brexit, current – megalomaniacal ambition. The frescoes that symbolize law, religion and chivalry. The leather benches worn smoothly by honorable backsides, arranged in an arena-like setting, home to legendary wars of words.
In the middle is the plumply filled "Woolsack," looking a lot like a fold-out sofa for a quick nap. It is from here that the Lord Speaker, the master of ceremonies in the Lords Chamber, guides the proceedings. As tradition has it, he does so from his perch on a sack full of wool from all of the empire's colonies – including, of course, from the faraway Falkland Islands.
Behind it is a throne of the child that otherwise only makes an appearance in the imaginations of children and perhaps in the series "Game of Thrones." Beneath a gold-leaf canopy, the throne takes up almost the entire front of the hall. Millions see this seat of power every year on television or the internet when the monarch settles into it to open parliament once a year, a sea of elderly figures before him in crimson robes of satin topped with collars of ermine – a gathering that always looks a little bit like a global Santa Claus congress.
Throne and Broom Closet
What cannot be seen so clearly on the screen is just how delicately crafted this picture-book throne actually is. Covered with inlays and symbols, including the English lion, the Scottish unicorn and this strange motto from the Middle Ages, back when England's ruling class spoke an extremely French-sounding dialect of Old Norman: "Honi soit qui mal y pense" – shamed be whoever thinks evil of it.
"Do you see the golden doorknobs to the right and left of the throne?" Lord Dobbs asks, interrupting the moment of reverent contemplation. He himself only saw them one night several years ago when he was wandering through an almost empty palace with a friend. "What do you think they are?" the friend asked. Dobbs responded: "A communications center perhaps? Or an escape tunnel?" The friend said: "Why don't you open the door and find out?"
So Dobbs opened the door to discover – a broom closet. He laughs out loud. "Right behind the throne, there is a vacuum cleaner and plastic bags full of the day's rubbish! Who would dream up such a thing?"
On the other hand, who would think up all of the other ludicrous stories that are associated with this house – a place which, deep into the 19th century, when the United Kingdom definitely embraced democracy, was not just the more powerful of the two British houses of parliament, but possibly the most powerful in the world?
Please Don't Die!
Several books could be filled with anecdotes of lords who began their speeches full of nervous trepidation before the Woolsack, calmed their nerves with a few sips from the flagon – only to collapse into a drunken stupor two hours later.
Or others who never revived, which is viewed with some distaste today. "You're not supposed to die in here," says Dobbs. It is, after all, a royal palace, and it is considered rather unseemly to inconvenience the monarch's coroner with one's untimely passing. Those who nevertheless break this unwritten rule are discretely brought across the Thames to the nearby St Thomas' Hospital, where they are only then declared dead.
Then there is this: In 1979, the first parliamentary debate about UFOs in the world. A shining moment for planetary parliamentarianism – but one which unfortunately was not engaged in with the necessary gravitas. Lord Davies of Leek, for example, an altogether too worldly Welshman, informed the packed chamber that a behemoth standing 8'6” with webbed feet was waiting outside for permission to park his flying saucer in the House of Lords parking lot. Ultimately, the international investigation into the existence of aliens, as demanded by the House of Lords, never became reality.
At least not that we know about.
National Embarrassment
It has always been rather simple to poke fun at the House of Lords, an institution that has somehow always seemed close to collapse and yet apparently unwilling to take steps to improve its prospects for survival. BBC legend Jeremy Paxman once referred to it as a "source of national embarrassment," adding that it was "like a bad smell that has been left by history."
Though changes have been made over the centuries. In 1958, for example, the Lords Chamber opened its doors for the first time to women who were not part of the cleaning crew. Not even 40 years later, shortly before the turn of the millennium, at a time when the House of Lords included fully 1,330 members of the aristocracy, young Prime Minister Tony Blair passed a law slashing the size of the body by more than half. In 2014, a law was added allowing peers to retire or resign should they so desire.
Still, the reforms did not actually transform the chamber into a model of democracy. Fewer than 30 percent of its members are women, just 6 percent are not white, the vast majority received private-school education and the average age is 71 years.
For a country of immigration and, well, a model democracy, it seems like a bit of a farce. Even if the ruling Conservatives appear eager to remove the "country of immigration" appeal.
Parliamentary Ping Pong
"Who would start with a blank sheet of paper and come up with the House of Lords?" Dobbs demands, before answering his own question with a resounding: "Nobody!" Then he pauses for a moment before saying: "But it's a world that works by and large." Honestly? Well, Dobbs says, it is helpful for the sake of comparison to take a closer look at what the career politicians over in the House of Commons – "the other place" in the somewhat snobbish parlance of many peers – have produced of late.
Under a rapidly revolving door of changing prime ministers, the House of Commons has pushed democracy to its limits. It has hammered together laws described even by government ministers as "likely illegal," a judgment that has often enough been confirmed by a court of law.
And the lords? Burned the midnight oil to remove at least the most obvious imperfections. They haven't had the power to actually strike down laws since 1911, but they can make additions, amendments and cuts – which then must be voted on once again in the House of Commons. Then, the lords take another look, and if they aren't yet satisfied, the entire game starts again from the beginning.
"Ping pong" is how they describe this back and forth, which in theory could continue ad infinitum. In recent years, the lords have remained at the table deep into the night on a number of occasions. In one case, the deputy speaker – despite being 78 years of age – led a debate lasting more than seven hours without a single pause to speak of, a feat that ultimately resulted in a congratulatory telephone call from his physician.
Old, but tough
In just the two years between 2019 and 2021 alone, a period during which the human wrecking ball Boris Johnson held sway in the House of Commons and in 10 Downing Street, the valiant lords pushed through hundreds of amendments, preventing even worse outcomes. And they did so even though the Tories – the Conservatives who have run the government for the last 14 years – are also the largest group in the House of Lords. But what does it matter when it comes to crafting a law?
It is a lesson that then-Prime Minister Gordon Brown had to learn when his plan to lure away terror suspects for 42 days without charges never got past the stubborn resistance of the lords. In the case of current Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and his law on illegal migration, the peers pushed through 20 amendments on a single day a few months ago, setting a new record in the process. Not a good omen for Sunak's hope of being granted the right before the next election to summarily deport Rwandan asylum seekers without fear of legal challenge.
The unelected peers, Sunak recently grumbled, should respect "the will of the people." The lords calmly ignored him, with the majority demanding humanitarian guarantees from Rwanda before they would take another look at the law.
They might be old, these lords and baronesses. But they are also quite a tough lot.
"We are parliamentary worms," says Dobbs. "We take all the shit from down the other end – and a lot of it is just that – and for several months, often in the dark, we work through it. And in the end, what comes out might not be perfect, but it's much more fragrant and fertile and useful." When measured against that outcome, the expense allowance they receive – 342 pounds for each day they are in session plus transportation costs – is hardly worth mentioning.
Standing Up to the Chamber of Horrors
And the whole thing works, says Dobbs, only because among those who actually put in the work – and only around half of the 800 peers actually do, to be generous – an atmosphere of collegiality is carefully maintained. No matter what party a lord or baroness belongs to. "We treat each other with dignity and respect," says Dobbs. And a Tory like himself isn't wont to like another Tory simply because he or she is a Tory.
It is all on full display whenever the House of Lords is in session, in the completely silent Lords Chamber, a place where the business of politics is carried out the way it was likely first conceived. Where people don't just deliver self-satisfied orations but occasionally actually say something. Where peers listen to each other instead of looking for opportunities to attack. Where voices of reason are not shouted down just to score a populist point.
The height of emotion here is a disapproving "tut, tut."
The result is often boring and exhausting, and it is a far cry from the extraordinarily telegenic chamber of horrors into which the neighboring House of Commons has transformed. But who knows if perhaps the puffed-up egos and eternally histrionic bickering of the kind seen in the House of Commons is a reason why a growing share of the populace in Britain as elsewhere is turning away from politics in disgust?
Learning from America?
The advantages of the House of Lords are clear to see, says Dianne Hayter, who led several charitable organizations before she was nominated by the Labor Party for a peerage 14 years ago as Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town. "We're old. Our careers are finished. We don't have to follow a party line. That gives us independence."
And that is why this slender woman with a blonde bob is, contrary to most members of her party, opposed to transforming the House of Lords into an elected chamber. "We would only duplicate the House of Commons," she says.
Suddenly, the 74-year-old fears, the upper house would also be full of malleable opportunists with an uncontrollable urge for sermonizing. Suddenly, party discipline would become paramount. And if one party controlled both houses, there would no longer be a correction. And if the two houses were controlled by different parties: standstill.
"Look to America," says Hayter, who spends our entire discussion battling with a recalcitrant earring made of an upcycled bicycle tire. "When you get gridlock, there is at least a president who can negotiate and still do something. Who would be able to do that here? King Charles?" Then, the earring again hops away – and a few seconds later, the baroness follows suit. Appointments, you know.
Defending a position
Arguments like the one posed by Hayder are commonplace here. Which is understandable: Nobody wants to cut their own position. But the argument also has merit. Because places where people are regularly allowed to vote in largely free and fair elections do not necessarily always develop in a positive direction.
On the other hand, it is impossible to ignore the fact that in roughly the eighth century after its establishment, this unelected lawmaking body is resting on an alarmingly rotten foundation. There are simply too many absurdities that are incomprehensible to the modern citizenry of Britain. Such as, for example, the fact that 26 seats are reserved for bishops from the Church of England. That's not just an affront to the members of the clergy who represent Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus or even the Church of Scotland, but in an increasingly non-religious kingdom, it is difficult to justify at all.
And then there are the hereditary peers, the 92 members who inherited their seats but were allowed to stay anyway in 1999, despite Tony Blair's law throwing out most other representatives of their species. The fact that 92 was spared was initially supposed to be a temporary compromise that Blair, leader of the Labor Party, negotiated with the Conservatives, which has traditionally been the political home of the aristocracy.
A quarter century later, they are still here. The British press, rather unsurprisingly, has done the math: Accordingly, hereditary peers have spent a total of 19,000 years in the House of Lords since records began.
Absurdistan
It is true that for people with a certain penchant for British eccentricities, the House of Lords is a wonderful time sink. Among the 92, for example, is a certain Scotsman, Merlin Sereld Victor Gilbert Hay, the 24th Earl of Erroll, eldest offspring of Sir Iain Moncreiffe of That Ilk and Diana Hay, 23rd Countess of Erroll.
This earl also claims to be related to the "Countess Dracula," a 17th-century, Hungarian mass-murderess. On the side, the 75-year-old Hay also runs the exclusive and private Puffin's Club, officially only open to those whose ancestors fought 500 years ago in the Battle of Flodden, "or would have had they been there."
But as absurd as it may all seem: This man now examines laws that deal with the revocation of EU rules, the right to peaceful assembly and the inhumane treatment of asylum seekers. And that only because remnants of the blood of a lord from the Middle Ages are flowing through his veins. There is pretty much nowhere else on earth that grants such privileges to the descendants of nobility. Just one place, in fact: the Kingdom of Lesotho, where clan chiefs occupy 22 seats in the country's parliament.
On top of all that in Britain is the fact that the vast majority of the titles held by the nobility are still today passed down according to the principle of male-line primogeniture – from male to male. It is a principle that has even been eliminated in the British royal family. But in the case of the 85-year-old Lord Arthur Gore, the 9th Earl of Arran, it means that because he unfortunately only had two daughters, his title will most likely be inherited by a certain William Henry Gore. His fifth cousin. Who lives in Brisbane, Australia.
Flooded with Benefactors and Acolytes
But those who think that inherited seats are the greatest indignation in this place should take a brief look at the well-oiled practice of almost all recent prime ministers of flooding the chamber with all manner of benefactors and acolytes.
The Honors Act of 1925 actually forbids the buying or selling of a seat in the House of Lords, which in addition to prestige also offers an instant ticket to the most rarefied of societal circles. But for the past several decades, it has been an open secret that generous party donations greatly boost the benefactor's chance of being blessed with the title of lord.
It's not easy to prove direct quid pro quo deals. But it is certainly difficult to ignore all those who have been catapulted into the upper house. According to the
Times
of London, for example, since 2010, when the Conservatives moved into 10 Downing Street under David Cameron, 22 of the most prolific Tory donors have ended up in the House of Lords. In total, those donors have entrusted over 54 million pounds to the Conservatives. Though it could, of course, just be a coincidence.
A host of shady business folk are now allowed to waltz in and out of the palace. And many of them use their privilege to lobby brazenly on behalf of their pet projects, be it oil, gas, tobacco companies or perhaps even such bastions of democracy as Saudi Arabia, China or Russia. An investigative report compiled by the lower house cautioned back in 2020 of the growing influence of the "Russian elite" on the state and society – a warning that came after a former lord mentioned Russian President Vladimir Putin as a potential Nobel Peace Prize candidate.
Boris Johnson's Shenanigans
That, of course, did nothing to prevent Boris Johnson from bestowing a peerage upon his "friend," Evgeny Lebedev, the son of a former KGB spy and the owner of several British newspapers. British intelligence, for its part, noted that Lebedev represented a potential "threat to national security," but why should that have been any concern to Johnson, a welcome guest in Lebedev’s Italian villa? "It is very, very, very important that this should not turn into a general sense that we are against Russians," insisted Johnson, who these days never lets an opportunity go unused to pose as a Ukrainian freedom fighter.
Lebedev doesn’t say much in the House of Lords. But he does have an especially nifty title: Baron Lebedev of Hampton in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames and of Siberia in the Russian Federation.
In his three years as prime minister, Johnson herded 90 peers into the House of Lords. Rarely has anyone so openly lavished wealthy supporters and loyal minions with seats in the legislative body. And there is little that the House of Lords Appointments Commission can do about such shenanigans. The commission is allowed to warn against candidates who might bring the body "in disrepute," but it is up to the premier alone whether he or she chooses to listen. And the Appointments Commission itself is only allowed to grant peerages to two experts each year.
A council of the wise? Yes, in part. But it is also a council of sycophants.
Twenty-Five Million Pounds – A Bargain
Darren Hughes, head of the Electoral Reform Society and one of the most passionate opponents of the House of Lords, is almost grateful to the ex-premier in hindsight for so much shamelessness. "Boris Johnson’s appointments have really pulled the curtain back. He has unwittingly done a great deal to promote the cause of House of Lords reform." He means: elimination.
That is, as mentioned, also the Labour Party view. Theoretically, at least. In practice, should the party really win the elections, it will inherit a country where the coffers are empty, the hospital waiting rooms are full and the challenges immense. A ramshackle upper house may not be tops on the priority list. Particularly given the fact that an elected body would likely cost far more than the current estimated price tag of around 25 million pounds a year – rather a bargain when compared to the lower house.
It is thus rather possible that Keir Starmer, if he does anything at all, will limit himself to cosmetic alterations – such as reducing the terms of lifetime lords to 15 years or finally turning out the holders of the inherited seats. Or, who knows, he might take an entirely different tack and first grant peerages to a couple dozen of his own confederates in an effort, after 14 years of Tory cronyism, to establish a kind of parity in Britain’s upper house.
Which would, of course, be rather distressing. But also nothing new. And it would offer yet more proof that this haunted house on the banks of the Thames is simply indestructible.
A Mountain of a Man in Pinstripes
And that would even be to the liking of a man of whom one might not expect it. We catch up to him in the rather prosaic River Restaurant, one of those eateries in this parliamentary labyrinth that you can walk past year after year without ever taking note of its existence. On an overcast day when the House of Lords is in session, John Bird is ensconced in his favorite corner, a mountain of a man in a pinstriped suit, thinning hair and a dour looking face dominated by a nose that has been broken several times.
On the back of his right hand is a tattoo of three interlaced flowers, a motif that everyone in his family has had for the last several months. "You’d have to get one too if I adopted you,” Bird says by way of greeting. And no matter how you may have pictured an honorable British lord in your mind’s eye, you likely didn’t picture this.
Bird, who is now 77 years old, managed the trick of growing up in a Charles Dickens novel and ending up in a P.G. Wodehouse novel. Along the way, he has accumulated vastly more experiences than can fit onto a few pages of a magazine.
The child of Irish parents, Bird grew up in Notting Hill back when it was still a malodorous slum. He ended up in an orphanage when he was seven before becoming a slaughterhouse apprentice and then homeless. He dabbled in the underworld and had several encounters with the police before then founding The Big Issue, which is today one of the most successful street newspapers in the world. It is that last achievement which garnered him not just a membership in the Order of the British Empire, but also a seat in the House of Lords.
From Dishwasher to Visionary
If someone had told him as much back in summer 1970 when he got his start as a dishwasher in this House, Bird likely would have burst out in his rasping, baritone laugh. That job, though, didn’t last long. As an upstanding comrade in the Workers Revolutionary Party, he sought to incite the cooks and waiters to rise up against the establishment – and was thrown out after just a few weeks.
Now, though, Baron Bird of Notting Hill in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea has had a seat in the palace since 2015 – a place he describes as a "monstrosity,” before adding with a scatological flourish: "The building represents the defecation of power and a shriveled empire.” He really is a maestro of imprecation. But when asked if he actively sought appointment to this place so he could attack the system from within, he asks in surprise: "Why would I?”
The House of Lords, he then says, is the most egalitarian place he knows, and the only place he has ever felt a sense of belonging. The working class, the Marxists (“all middle class!”), the inmates and, during his later career as a publisher, the business people – none of it was for him.
But in the House of Lords, "I am not judged by my class, my beliefs, my social position. They judge me by past performance. The House is thirsty for examples of usefulness.”
An Idea for Saving the House
People like Lord Byron, for example, who over 200 years ago sought to protect the luddites, who set out to destroy automated weaving machines to save their own jobs. "A lord who fights for working class people in his maiden speech! Where else would you find that?" demands Bird, who clearly also sees himself as a positive example. “I’ve got a Napoleonic complex.”
And the House of Lords is, of course, packed with all manner of busybodies, parvenus and nitwits. But from Bird's perspective, that description applies even better to the kingdom's true center of power, the House of Commons – which, he says, is overflowing with "well-educated fools" who are merely "rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic" while the country is gradually going to the dogs.
The real question, he says, is not whether members are appointed or elected, male or female, young or old – but whether they are useful or useless. If it were up to me, Bird says, "I would go around the House of Lords and say to people, 'fuck off unless you actually can prove how useful you are.'”
The benches in this odd legislative body would, it is tempting to assume, rapidly begin to empty were one to do such a thing. But those who remained, Bird says, could form a solid foundation for the future of Britain.