Bill Carmichael: Undemocratic freeloaders without peer on Brexit

Just one question – for how much longer are we going to put up with
this?

We have been putting up with it a hell of a long time so far – plans to reform this feudal relic began in 1911 and in more than 100 years we have scarce made any progress.

There are still 92 hereditary peers, there simply by virtue of birth, and 26 Church of England bishops in the House of Lords, there simply by virtue of the job they do.

As for the rest there is an unedifying a mixture of failed politicians, party cronies, rich donors, crooks, charlatans and expenses fiddlers.

Why should a millionaire who bungs a few quid to one of the political parties be rewarded with a key role in our democratic process for life, whether the voters like it or not?

As to the size of the chamber, it’s simply beyond absurd. Bloated doesn’t even begin to describe it.

Currently, there are more than 800 peers, making the House of Lords by far the largest legislative chamber in the world, after the Chinese People’s Congress.

The equivalent upper chamber in
the US – the Senate – makes do with
just 100 members, all elected, for a population that is five times the size of ours. If that works for America, then why not for us?

We are often told that the House of Lords brings unrivalled expertise and the sort of high quality debate we do
not often see in the House of Commons, to which my response is “Oh do come off it!”

For evidence just look at the Brexit debate in the Lords this week in which bitter Remainer peers screamed ugly abuse at Lord Tebbit simply because he suggested that the government should put the interests of British citizens
first in any negotiations. Oh the
horror!

Peers behave just as badly as their counterparts in the Commons – the only difference is we can’t vote them out of office.

Any vestige of credibility that remained in the House of Lords was swept away by the expenses scandal that exposed the squealing little piggies pushing their snouts into a trough replete with public money.

In any other walk of public life, such theft from the public purse would have resulted in a long prison stretch, but the peers are still shamelessly turning up to claim their £300-a-day expenses, subsidised fine dining and unlimited alcohol courtesy of the poor, bloody taxpayer.

It’s enough to turn your stomach.

In a BBC programme aired earlier
this week, Baroness D’Souza, a former Lord Speaker, admitted that while there is a core of peers who work incredibly hard “there are, sad to say, many, many, many peers who contribute absolutely nothing but who claim the full allowance”.

She told how one peer kept a taxi running outside the House of Lords 
while he popped in to claim his £300 expenses and then went straight back out again.

Another peer, Lord Tyler, described the House of Lords as the “best day-care centre for the elderly in London” where families can drop off relatives safe in the knowledge they will be looked after and enjoy subsidised meals.

This at a time, let’s not forget, when social care for ordinary elderly people is being cut to the bone.

I suspect that peers have little idea of the fury they will unleash if they continue to defy the will of the people.

We should harness that anger and use it as a tool of democratic renewal. Once Brexit is out of the way we should turn our attention to another blot on our democracy – the House of Lords.

The whole, stinking corrupt edifice should be abolished and replaced with an entirely elected chamber of no more than 100 members.

It would be slimmer, fairer, less expensive and more efficient and accountable.

And if peers are anywhere near as brilliant and hard working as they keep telling us, they’ll have little difficulty in getting themselves elected.