How the greasers and deadbeats in the Lords plan to block everything Britain voted for

BR I TAIN has voted, a clear result was obtained and a new Government is being formed. Isn’t it exciting? The democratic process has been swift, in some cases brutal, and most of all it has been decisive. Now begins the work, say the gleamy-eyed Conservatives. We have won a democratic mandate and a majority in the House of Commons. We will govern!

To which a group of unelected Left-wingers at the far end of the Palace of Westminster are about to say: ‘Not so fast, you Tories. We intend to try to block you every step of the way.

‘You may try to govern, but we will stymie and frustrate and tie you up in legislative knots at every turn. You may have won the election, but we, the losers, intend to prevail.’

By ‘the far end of Westminster’ I talk of the House of Lords, the so-called ‘Upper House’ which is really nothing of the sort, being unelected and secondary in importance.

Ignoble

At Westminster, we sometimes refer to the Lords as ‘ the red benches’, for that is the colour of their leather upholstery, yet red is also a fair reflection of their political make-up.

Who are these peers? Once they would have been a mixture of hereditary aristocrats, former ministers and distinguished academics and business people.

Now they are, increasingly, former journeyman MPs, many of decidedly patchy character. They are polytechnic lecturers, charity executives with an agenda, local council sweats and party donors.

They call each other ‘ noble lord’ and ‘ noble lady’, but in many cases they are decidedly humdrum and often, in fact, demonstrably ignoble.

Yet they are now poised to hold our new Government to ransom.

Although the country has just given a clear vote for David Cameron, the Conservatives are very much in a minority in the Lords.

There are at present 779 sitting peers, and the Tories have only 224 of them. Labour has 213, the allegedly neutral Crossbenchers have 179 and — mark this, voters of Britain — the Liberal Democrats have 101.

Yes, the Lib Dems, who have just received the most amazing spanking from the voters of this kingdom and have been reduced to a risible eight MPs, have more than 100 parliamentarians tucked away in the Lords. I doubt you would recognise more than a handful of them. As Life Peers, they are untouchable. Isn’t it maddening?

UkIP, which bagged four million votes last Thursday, has only three peers, while other affiliations, such as Ulster parties and Anglican bishops, account for the rest.

If many of these Lib Dem peers intended to turn up only occasionally to make speeches about areas of personal specialist interest such as medicine and science, and perhaps use Parliament’s riverside terrace bar (as glorious a place as any in London to tilt back Champagne on a summer’s eve), I guess we could live with this.

We might not begrudge them the fancy titles they have been given. We might overlook the blatant hypocrisy of these Lib Dem grandees, most of whom have long campaigned for the abolition of the House of Lords, sitting in the very same Chamber and claiming the £300 daily allowance given to peers, even if they turn up only for a few minutes of the sitting day.

We would not like it, but we would let it ‘go through to the wicket-keeper’.

But that is not their intention. No, siree. The word at Westminster is that the Lib Dem peers intend to behave in a friskily political manner. They intend to cause trouble.

In the last parliament, they sat on the Government benches and (sometimes, though not always) helped the Conservatives to push through controversial Bills. Now that the Coalition is over, the Lib Dems are in vindictive mood.

They were nearly obliterated in the Commons by the Tories, and they’re sore about it. They want revenge: on the Tories and, arguably, on the voters who so rudely sent them packing.

Last Thursday, the electors of Britain made plain their assent not only for continued reductions in Government spending, but also for the Conservatives’ manifesto.

That included, for instance, a commitment to hold a referendum on our membership of the European Union and extending the right-to-buy policy to housing association homes. Those proposals, to take but two, would not have been easy to push through the House of Lords even in the last parliament, when the Government could call on the combined Tory and Lib Dem peers.

Now that the Government will be down to a ‘mere’ 224 peers, it is hard to see how the votes will ever stack up for David Cameron in the Lords.

Even if their lordships eventually observe the Salisbury Convention, which since World War II has permitted a Government to pass laws it listed in its election manifesto, there are still games that can — and will — be played.

These involve delays and latenight sittings, fiddly amendments, compromises, various little stich- ups, committee palavers and all the silly feints and beggarations of ‘parliamentary ping-pong’ (as they call it when Bills bounce between the two Houses of Parliament).

Let it be repeated: a General Election has just been held and the Conservatives won; yet in the unelected Lords, they are likely to try to confound the Commons and prevent muchneeded reforms being passed.

I say all this as a romantic who, until about three years ago, was pretty comfortable with the mainly appointed House of Lords.

Vindictive

The behaviour of Labour peers in the Coalition years changed that. They used every petty, puerile trick in the book to frustrate the Government’ s attempts to cut back quangos.

The Government was defeated in the Lords more than 100 times, and often the most shrill opposition to the necessary spending cuts came when they affected the judiciary. Ah yes, the law. The House of Lords is stuffed with Labour lawyers and crossbench judges.

When Bills came before them proposing cuts to spending on lawyers and constraints on lawyers’ power, they moaned and wailed like keening widows in a 19th-century Irish play.

Did we ever hear them declare their financial interests in these debates, admitting that as lawyers they might have had a pecuniary benefit if, say, Legal Aid spending continued at a high level? We did not.

I now find myself firmly in the camp of those who think the Lords should be an elected Chamber.

Imagine how hard it will be for this Conservative Government to push through, say, changes to the Human Rights Act.

Consider the caterwauling we will have from this Left-leaning Lords if the Government tries to trim the size and power of the BBC.

As for Europe, the Lords is extraordinarily pro-Brussels. Its members have not caught up with the shift in public opinion on ‘ever-closer union’ and immigration. Is it any wonder that our politics are held in low esteem?

Bloated

What can David Cameron do to address this threat to democratic delivery?

The Lords has ballooned to an absurd size — it has become a gross, giant hernia on the Body Politic — and it is an open secret that the Chamber has become a dumping ground for favours.

The granting of peerages often stinks of corruption. The House has become packed with placemen, bunglers, failures, deadbeats, greasers, TV showoffs, single-issue lunatics and tokenistic appointees with almost nothing to offer Parliament. No wonder the Church of England bishops, when they go there, wear their crosses!

Mr Cameron could propose a ‘Shrink the Lords Bill’ or something like that, but clearly the peers would never vote for it. The Prime Minister would, however, surely be entitled to refuse to appoint any Lib Dem peers in the next Honours List.

That might mean refusing peerages to senior figures such as the respected Sir Menzies Campbell, the pitied Charles kennedy and Vince Cable, but, well, tough.

Don’t forget the Lib Dem peers include one Lord (Richard) Allan, once a minor backbencher in the Commons.

When he was sent to the Lords there was surprise — until we all twigged that he must have been elevated to make way in his Sheffield Hallam seat for Nick Clegg.

It is beyond parody that the Lib Dems, who have so long demanded an end to the Lords, should continue to send their grandees and failed politicians to this Valhalla for the Venal and Vainglorious.