End of the peer show is overdue

STUFFING the House of Lords with mates and big-money funders – as David Cameron did in his resignation honours list – isn’t just helping them queue-jump for a table at a posh restaurant.

The Lords is part of our parliamentary system so all those new peers, like the hundreds who came before, decide the laws that govern us.

One of the key points made by the leaders of the Brexit campaign was that the EU is not democratic. Yet they said nothing about a far more undemocratic organisation, whose members are picked by the Prime Minister to reward a favoured few.

Some peers have a lot to contribute from their varied experiences and specialist knowledge. But their importance to the nation is dwarfed by the mass of place- men (and women) appointed to the Lords for no good reason.

ELECTED

Today Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, in answer to a question from a Sunday Mirror reader, pledges to scrap the current system and replace it with a properly elected second chamber. That will not come before time.

There have been promises to reform the Lords before, but changes have been minimal and meaningless. In fact it has continued to grow until it is the second biggest legislative chamber in the world after China. And that was before the latest outrageous Cameron list.

The House of Lords has been an undemocratic anachronism that is wide open to abuse for decades. David Cameron is only the latest prime minister to take advantage of that – but he should be the last.