At present Lords are not paid although there is an attendance allowance. This militates against Joe Average sitting there.

We have seen the disaster that appointment can make of the US Supreme Court. Do you really trust TonyB Liar or that warmongering maniac Thatcher with the power to appoint the entire upper house with wheelhorses lke "smuggins" Lawson?

We have seen the total breakdown of civilised and rational debate in the Commons. We have seen the effect of the "dictatorship of the majority" - the government like Thatcher or Blair that has no effective opposition doing steadily and unstoppably more and more harm. An elected upper house would play straight into these faults and remove pretty well the only effective moderation of commons idiocy (for example the Lords was the only place that got any sensible changes, and even then not many, into the Licensing Act).

A "Jury service" chamber would be at the mercy of the civil service - the "Yes Minister" effect.




I tend to think the present upper house works surprisingly well, although there are some four star sycophants like Brenda Dean and Baroness Amos. However Waheed Alli sometimes makes sense. The obvious changes are likely to be worse than the cure. I think I'd go for:

Disqualification on conviction of serious offences.
Remove the God-botherers.
20 paid seats (to replace the bishops) elected by PR UK wide - elections to be at mid-term of commons.
Seats to be physically allocated in alphabetical order or drawn from a hat to stop party blocks.
A new criminal offence of attempting, directly or indirectly on behalf of a political party, to influence the vote of a member of the House of Lords (to stop party whipping).

Otherwise fairly steady as she goes.... No change to the Parliament Acts, maybe remove or water down the Salisbury convention (Lords not to oppose a direct manifesto commitment of the government).

Some of the robes and stuff could disappear.