This week we’ve heard that a committee of Lords and MP’s have rejected reducing the House of Lords from nearly 800 ‘working’ Lords to 300. Apparently they think 450 are needed.

Weirdly other western democracies find everything from 69 to 321 members of second chambers work perfectly well:

Australian Senate – 148, Canadian Senate – 104, French Senat – 321, German Bundesrat – 69, US Senate – 100.

I suspect 450 has more to d0 with maintaining the atmosphere of the UK House of Lords being a fine gentleman’s club with only enough work for members to need to attend part-time. But we know what happens when politicians have to go touting for work elsewhere. Either they rarely attend and of the near 800 ‘working’ Lords only 400 are apparently regulars or they get caught asking for cash for questions.

I really do hope the coalition government ignores this self serving report. We need a proper professional chamber that will not be prone to the corruption we’ve witnessed from the Lords. Equally the Houses of Parliament should not remain a club of entitlement pontificating about the welfare state while clinging onto their very own gilt-lined version of it.

They also think more of the future Lords should be appointees not being happy with the outrageous 20%. More jobs for the boys without the bother of convincing the electorate. Please, this really wont do in the 21st century. We can’t purport to be a democratic western country while maintaining the absurd anachronism of appointed Lords.