Michael Brown: The case for peer pressure

The extraordinary spectacle of "our right trusty and well beloved counsellor" Baron Mandelson of Foy and Hartlepool, clad in ermine, receiving the sovereign's "greetings" in the House of Lords was, at first glance, enough alone to make the case for an elected and reformed second chamber. As a senior cabinet minister, Lord Mandelson has no electoral legitimacy of a parliamentary constituency and has been forced to resign twice from previous cabinets amid swirls of scandal. But, notwithstanding his lavish perks and financial compensation, his ennoblement is the final straw for many voters.

He joins a long list of dubious placemen down the ages, however, who owe their perks and salaries to the whim of prime ministerial or party political patronage. Nothing could illustrate better the case for an elected chamber than this apparent flagrant disregard for democratic accountability. While the onset of economic recession will devastate MPs' constituents, no one in the Commons will be able to challenge the Business Secretary in debates. If it were not for the financial crisis of the past fortnight, the Mandelson ennoblement might have dominated the headlines thereby bringing back to life the stalled debate on Lords reform.

And yet – on the very day that this model, New Labour crony, took his seat – the Lords, in its current incoherent, chaotic, illogical and undemocratic form, has proved more equal to the task of calling the Government to account than anything seen in the Commons.

For while we may be fulminating at Lord Mandelson's resurrection, we were treated, minutes later, to the glorious spectacle of another New Labour placeman, Lord Falconer, eloquently defending British liberties and playing his part in restraining the worst excesses of untrammelled government power regarding the extension of detention without charge.

Lord Falconer was similarly parachuted into the Lords, in 1997, to become a mere junior minister. He had failed to secure a parliamentary seat in the Commons because he was not prepared to compromise with a local Labour selection committee that demanded he send his children to state schools. But I thank God and old-fashioned Blairite cronyism for one of the most gifted guarantors of British liberty, now answerable to no one but his conscience.

Indeed, the recent crop of similarly undemocratic appointments, which have included Baroness Manningham-Buller and Baroness Neville-Jones, have done more to improve parliamentary scrutiny than anything cooked up by party selection committees that now decide, more than voters, the composition of the lower house.

Never has the country been better served by the incoherence left by Tony Blair's "unfinished business" regarding Lords reform. Meanwhile, the party front-benches continue to wrestle, publicly and privately, with joint parliamentary committees, contradictory votes for appointed peers and varying proportions of elected peers.

It looks as though the Prime Minister has, in effect, given up on any proposal to reform the Lords during the remaining 18 months of the current Parliament. But all parties will commit themselves to some kind of elected upper house in their forthcoming election manifestos. Perhaps the lesson of this week, however, is that the constitutional muddle, represented by the present upper house, is proving to be the better servant of protecting democracy than the elective dictatorships served up by the Commons.

mrbrown@talktalk.net