Mary Ann Sieghart's negative article on Lords reform ("A fight that Nick Clegg will never win", 27 February) needs a response. Constitutional governance may be a boring subject but poor governance, if ignored, can have devastating results (such as the French Revolution).

The Children's Commissioner has said it would have to “consider” a possible review of how rescued trafficked children are cared for before agreeing to take it on.

Britain is in the thick of an acrimonious debate about secularism and religion. Religious belief and church attendance have been shrinking for decades, yet religion continues to play an important part in our national life. Prayers before council meetings may have been banned last week by a judge and an increasing number of our city churches have sad, decapitated spires and are put to sound secular use as indoor ski slopes or apartments. But there are still bishops in the House of Lords, prayers are said at the Cenotaph, the communal celebrations of Christmas and Easter are yet to become taboo.

The House of Lords is a sedate place where little disturbs the calm, but there are two major issues currently endangering their lordships' blood pressures.

Five mentally ill people are dying in hospital every week on average amid claims that failures are being covered-up and lessons not being learnt.

Prime Minister told that changes could be made to NHS 'without the need for legislation'

Good grief! Your editorial about bishops in the House of Lords (26 January) read like something out of the Sunday Express circa 1962. Bishops should stick to their pulpits; the "privileged" Church of England having a voice in Parliament because it's the established church. Those arguments became boring many years ago.

Christmas cheer thin on the ground as Government is made to pay for big fat lies over London 2012

Peers today dropped a challenge to the lifting of a ban on gays and lesbians holding civil partnership ceremonies in churches.

The Government is being pressured to reconsider a plan to charge single parents fees to obtain child maintenance payments from ex-partners.

A Political Life

The Government has reversed plans to scrap the Youth Justice Board as part of its much-publicised "bonfire of the quangos". In a second U-turn in as many days, the Department of Justice said that the board – which oversees the detention and rehabilitation of young offenders – would be reprieved.

The foundations of formality are shifting.