‘Noble rot’? No, ignoble twaddle

“Accident of birth is no reason to be handed a seat in the House of Lords”, says The Times editorial Noble Rot. What follows is an impassioned rant, as opposed to a reasoned argument, in favour of an elected upper chamber.

Actually, if the writer had a modicum of constitutional understanding, he’d know that ‘accident of birth’ is the only valid qualification for the Lords. But since such understanding isn’t to be found at either the left or the right end of the political spectrum, the House of Lords is under attack from both ends.

The rubbishy editorial has two gripes against the Lords: first, it’s undemocratic; second, its members are old. Yet both putative minuses are in fact huge pluses.

Being ‘undemocratic’ is the whole point of the upper chamber, not its drawback. Its historical function is to counterbalance any possible excesses of the Commons, keeping it on the straight and narrow.

In theory at least, their Lordships are impervious to partisan pressures – their appointment doesn’t necessitate currying political favour. They therefore can pass judgement only on the basis of their conscience and vested interest in the country their families have served for many generations.

This isn’t to say that an elected upper chamber can’t work. It can, elsewhere. For example, the US Senate, loosely modelled on the House of Lords, is a reasonably functional institution born out of necessity. After all, all titles of nobility were abolished immediately after the colonies became independent.

But introducing a replica of the US Senate in Britain is tantamount to mocking and abandoning centuries of constitutional tradition. Advocating such a measure is a sign of gaping ignorance enhanced by trendy anomie.

According to the editorial, Blair’s subversive reform of the Lords wasn’t subversive enough. After all, 92 hereditary peers still kept their seats. We don’t want that. We want spivs like Blair and Cameron to inhabit both chambers.

The other gripe, that their Lordships are too old, is another example of left-leaning idiocy. After all, it’s councils of elders, not youngers, that are the oldest form of government, and with good reason.

Few people acquire at an early age the wisdom required for statesmanship, something even the revolutionary framers of the US Constitution realised. That’s why they introduced minimum ages for all political appointments, 35 for the president. I’d suggest that, what with the average life expectancy now being twice what it was 200 years ago, no one under 60 should be qualified for high political office.

We may argue about the specific cut-off points, but not the general principle: in affairs of the state, age is an asset, not a detriment. This principle, however, doesn’t cut much ice with our paedocratic modernity promoting infantilism as a political tool.

If there’s one common feature among different tyrannies, autocratic, totalitarian or democratic, it’s their accent on youth. Tyrants realise that impetuous, unformed brains can be putty in their hands, mouldable into any shape. Brainwash them early, and they’re yours for life.

For example, Trotsky once described young people as “the barometer of a nation”. That may be true, but history shows that the barometer inevitably falls off the wall and shatters, with grown-ups cutting their feet on the shards of glass.

Democratic tyranny of the majority, in Tocqueville’s phrase, is just as paedocratic, and for the same reasons. Wiser, older heads may just notice that a modern politician can pack even a short speech with solecisms and every known rhetorical fallacy. People in their 60s are less likely to scream themselves hoarse with cretinous gusto every time a democratic tyrant utters a meaningless platitude.

If a formerly respectable paper is attacking our constitution from the left, good people on the right do their bit too. There’s even a petition making the rounds on Facebook calling for the abolition of the Lords.

My Brexiteer friends are aghast at their Lordships’ two rulings clearly aimed at slowing and diluting Brexit or, ideally, killing it stone-dead. The rulings are indeed abominable, but the proposed treatment is worse than the disease.

Calling for the abolition of an ancient institution because it has done something we don’t like is neither grown-up nor clever. My fire-eating friends should ponder why they want to leave the EU in the first place.

If the idea is, as it should be, to restore the ancient constitution of the realm, then they must see that what they’re proposing will destroy that constitution with even greater finality than anything the EU can muster. Emotions, however laudable, are a poor guide to political judgement. The mind works much better, chaps; you should try using it.

My zeitgeist-bucking proposal is to reduce House of Lords membership to hereditary peers only, ideally to those whose peerages go back 100 years or more. As a parallel measure, I’d recommend raising the voting age to 25, the minimum age for MPs to 40, 50 for cabinet members and 60 for prime ministers.

This won’t improve our politics appreciably – things have gone too far. But at least it may slow down the decline and delay a gruesome end.