Thanks - I'd forgotten the Macmillan example. Before Margaret Thatcher revived hereditary titles it had seemed that the British Constitution was proceeding along its evolutionary path and allowing the hereditary principle to atrophy. A clear exanple of this was that when the Queen's sister married, her husband was immediately given an hereditary title (Lord Snowdon). After the election of the first Wilson government in 1964, it was stated that there would be no more such elevations and this situation continued under the Heath government. When the Queen's daughter married, her husband did not receive a peerage and at one point the fourth in line to the throne (Peter Phillips) was a commoner. Then Mrs Thatcher resurrected what most people thought was an archaic practice......

One final (pedantic) point - I remember the Toronto Globe and Mail pointing out a few years ago that if the UK moved to an elected upper chamber, Canada would be the only country left with one whose members were appointed. How embarassing said the Globe and Mail.