Arise Lord Sugar of Clapton!

Yes another one joins the House of Lords for life. Alan Sugar is yet one more Labour appointed member of the Upper House pushing the number of peers well beyond the 700 mark.

On the very day that Justice Secretary Jack straw announced modest ideas for reform, Sugar’s arrival made no mention and paid no regard to the claim that the House of Lords is about to be reformed.

If it is being reformed why continue to put people in there for life who will have a casting vote on their own removal and will almost certainly cost money to dispose of ahead of any wholesale reform?

Any examination of Labour’s ‘plans’ for the House of Lords reveals almost no desire to produce much beyond a wholly appointed chamber. Indeed the Tory leader in the Lords Lord, Tom Strathclyde has said as much.

Recently the surviving 91 hereditary peers held an election to replace one of their dead members. Old Etonian, Lord Bledisloe was voted out by the grim reaper, Lord Aberdare (5th generation), also an Old Etonian was voted in with a majority of 27. We are not allowed to know how many of the 91 hereditary peers voted.

Jack Straw wants rid of the hereditary peers, not in an overnight coup, but by ending these elections. Some of these men and women are in their thirties and forties, so it could take half a century to get them out.

David Cameron has described Lords reform for the Tory’s as a “third term priority”. For Labour it is not even proving a fourth term priority.

This is UKPLC in the 21st Century. The message from the political classes seems to be that the problems in the House of Commons are bad enough without knocking the hallowed House of Lords about.

Pull one brick out and the whole lot may come down.