Yesterday's spectacle

The spectacle was, of course, that of Lord Mandelson in all his finery in the House of Lords.

We have become used to the government of the day using a peerage to reward or remove an MP and use his seat for an aspirant. We had even slept through Blair creating more peers in his first few years than Thatcher did in he whole period of office. It is an admittedly small gravy train, and some members of the professions in the Lords actually make significant contributions, but it is a dog's dinner.

But is a peerage, and therefore "democratic" power for life, appropriate for a party hack or for someone like Lord Mandelson, a failed MP, just because it suits the prime minister of the day? The PM already arguably has too much power in running the elective dictatorship via the whipping system.

Another question raised by yesterday is that of peers who are ministers in the cabinet but who are not permitted to appear in the Commons to answer questions and be accountable to MPs generally and thus to the electorate. What democratic right do they have to sit at the "high table" in the cabinet room?

The (usual botched) Blair constitutional change in this case has surely gone on far enough. We have a Prime Minister and cabinet pouring out ill-prepared bills which become laws which suffer one of two destinies - regular amendment and correction or else to languishing unused on a shelf somewhere.

The completion of the Lords reform cannot be permitted to continue much longer. How long can it go on being less and less representative of our society and being the personal patronage of the Prime Minister.

The question which reformers must resolve is not whether the Lords should have some elected elements. There are some who see election as giving the Lords democratic power as a dangerous thing, as it might challenge the governing party rather than being a general puppet as it is currently. Why not let it challenge the government? The US constitution is deliberately arranged to allow challenge and countervailing power, and the Senators are elected - there are no "jobs for life".

Does anyone really support the "jobs for the boys" present situation, with all its abuses? There are so many different conflicting proposals for reform that the status quo survives as a kind of compromise.

However a new fully democratic chamber is elected, - with what constituencies and at what intervals, our elective dictatorship must be challenged. The mother of all parliaments is no longer so admired, especially by us the electors. How much longer can we let it drag on as an incomplete reform but a tool of the prime minister of the day?