No debate about it: time’s up for idlers in ermine

THE Lords are taking the mickey out of the rest of the country, whether by trying to thwart Brexit or just turning up, signing in, collecting their £ 305- a- day expenses and then traipsing off without making a contribution to running this country.

Root- and- branch reform is needed, but here are a number of changes that could be put in place straight away.

To qualify for expenses, Lords should have to spend at least six hours a day in the House.

This allowance should be subject to tax and be adjusted in line with average London pay.

And any Lord who doesn’t speak in a debate for three consecutive months should be thrown out. Frank Haddock, Doncaster, S. Yorks. A SECOND chamber is essential to encourage MPs to do their homework and not make costly errors. However, the present House of Lords is incapable of asking searching questions because so many of them are failed MPs or their bag-carriers.

Most are like the bunch of 13 new ones we got this month, without a background in technology.

The House of Commons has former lawyers, accountants, bankers and insurers, but lacks scientists and industrialists.

The House of Lords is the ideal place for such people to be appointed for five to ten years by an all-party committee.

Inventor James Dyson, Wetherspoon’s Tim Martin and JCB chairman Anthony Bamford would be well worth their £305 per day.

G. M. GIBSON, Okehampton, Devon. I’VE never had a moat cleaned or set fire to a hotel, so is that why I’m not in the House of Lords?

JIM GEE, Norwich, Norfolk. WE DO not directly elect the leaders of our political parties, so what gives them the right to reward their own favourites with high honours and patronage?

Mrs L. HUGHES, Newton abbot, Devon.

Lesson learned?

I WAS so sad to read about Pamela North, who died after doctors failed five times to diagnose bladder cancer (Mail).

For a year, my wife was fobbed off by her GP, who passed off her symptoms as various stomach complaints. She became so ill that

a. STOKES, Saltdean, E. Sussex.

I took her to A&E. A scan was done and she was operated on the next day for bowel cancer.

When she had a recurrence two years later, it took four visits to the doctor before she was referred again for surgery.

She died earlier this year after a third battle with cancer, but if there had been no delays when she first became ill, would her prognosis have been different?

In the case of Mrs North, the NHS trust apologised and said lessons would be learned and procedures would be improved — these are pledges we have all heard so many times before. I didn’t even get an apology. TERRY NEWMAN, Tunbridge Wells, Kent.

World Cup duds

Why are we building up our World Cup footballers as great players? Can’t we accept that the England team is not good enough?

When it comes to the crunch, even the likes of Harry Kane and Jamie Vardy will be outclassed. Where in this country is the next Ronaldo or Messi?

J. COLLINS, Rugby, Warks.

Air Force Boris

BORIS JOHNSON has called for his own plane to help him drum up trade after Brexit (Mail).

A better idea would be a new Royal yacht. Britannia was a floating symbol of the best of British, a floating ambassador.

TERRY McDONALD-DORMAN, Middleton St George, Co. Durham. THE money for Boris’s plane would be better spent on police on the beat, more nurses and a better care system.

Who does Boris Johnson think he is? The U.S. President on Air Force One?

STEVE GERRARD, York.

Open-and-shut case

WITH all the bank branch closures in towns and villages, why can’t the financial institutions rally together and open a banking hub they could share?

My nearest branch is now 15 miles away. Still, they did apologise for the inconvenience.

E. CHANDLER, Radstock, Somerset. I AM not especially computerliterate, but I’m happy to do my banking online.

In fact, I haven’t been inside a bank for ten years, so why should I be interested if it has been decided to close my local branch?

JOHN COLLINS, Chelmsford, Essex.