Letter: End of the peers

Sir: Michael Johnson (letter, 10 June) advocates an entirely elected second chamber to replace the House of Lords. However, this would merely replace the old rotten system of hereditary power and life peerages as political favours with a different kind of rotten system - no one capable of getting themselves elected should on any account be trusted to rule.

Why not select members of the second house at random from the population, as juries are selected? People who are not prepared to take a year's sabbatical from their jobs to serve their country could be allowed to step down.

We would then have a parliamentary body of people who were not interested in power or political manoeuvring or vote-hunting and could therefore do what is right, not what will best benefit their own political careers.

BEATRICE J PURSER

Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire