Experiences: The House of Lords

I had seldom given much thought to the House of Lords. Like most people on the left, I saw it as an undemocratic anachronism, consisting almost entirely of people who were there because of the deeds, or commonly the misdeeds, of their ancestors. I well recalled Lloyd George’s denunciation of them as ‘five hundred men chosen at random from amongst the unemployed’. Even with a growing minority of life peers (and the admission of women), they hardly seemed to be a living part of the constitution. I had noted that Lord Addison, leader in the Lords for six years, had