Abolish the Lords! And lose all the creeps and dodgy donors

LET’S abolish the House of Lords. I never thought I’d say that, but when the facts change, I change my mind. And they have changed. Before the Blair revolution, the Lords was full of independent minds, who owed nobody anything and could not be pushed around by Downing Street. There was no logic to it, as there often isn’t in this country, but it worked.

It was such a good idea that even revolutionaries used to envy it. Until 1913, the US Senate was modelled on it – and so was not elected. I can’t see any signs that America has been better run since they started electing Senators. And I can see plenty of signs that Britain has been worse run since the Blairites took over her.

Now it seems you can only get into our Upper House after crawling to the big parties, or after giving them piles of cash, or both at once. It’s just a coincidence, of course, that crawlers and donors get peerages, but it’s so.

As a result it is now a worthless and rather shameful relic, stuffed to the rafters with exactly the sort of people who should have nothing to do with power.

IHATE it because I can remember what it once was. I can also recall the derision and mockery I received for warning that change would make it worse, and for defending the old hereditary system. am pretty sure that the next Government will sweep it away and replace it with an elected senate. Unless we combine to thwart them with a better idea, this will not be an improvement.

Because such a senate will be picked by the big parties, and guess what sort of people will be at the top of their lists – why, donors and crawlers, of course.

Just as in the House of Commons, you’ll be presented with bland, obedient pre-chosen candidates and invited to approve them in elections decided by big money and big media, in which independent minds won’t stand a chance.

They will then do what the Government tells them to do, in return for salaries and expenses that most people could never dream of. This is what we in this country call ‘democracy’.

The best thing would be to get the old hereditaries back, but our media and political classes are too stupid and malevolent to allow that.

So how about an elected British senate, but one utterly unlike the servile House of Commons?

Here are a few suggestions: Anyone who has belonged to or given money to any party within the past five years, to be absolutely disqualified. Any senator who later joins or gives money to a party, or receives any kind of pay, favour, title or post from the Government, to be automatically and instantly unseated.

I’d urge a minimum age of 50 and special allocations of seats to full-time mothers, war veterans, crime victims and pensioners, all despised and ignored by our existing Establishment.

But above all, we must destroy the tyranny of the three Zombie Parties, Labour, Liberal Democrat and Tory, who speak for nobody but themselves and have wrecked the country.