Because, With All Their Faults, They Love Their House of Peers

There will never be an all-elected House of Lords.
As far as I'm concerned, there will never be a mostly-elected House of Lords either.
Neither should there be.

Don't get me wrong. I like Jack Straw. I like his choice of name. I even happen to like democracy. But I can't see any good reason whatsoever for having two elected houses in a Westminster system, and I can't see the British political establishment allowing it to happen.

First, the practical. The Lords will undoubtedly turn down the proposals from the Commons when they vote later to-day, and they will be more than adamant about it if asked again. By the time a second vote occurs, the Labour leadership coronation will be grabbing all the headlines, followed promptly by a new round of cliquish Blairite infighting and/or David Cameron saving the planet with a reanimated Marget Thatcher and his personal anti-racist hit squad of suave Etonian ninja-huskies. That'll just leave Tony Benn and company shouting from the opinion pages and backbenches for an invocation of the Parliament Act or some sort of half-cocked referendum campaign, which won't help anything or get Gordon Brown anywhere. Besides, the Bishops wouldn't hear of it.

Now, the moral. The Lords are deeply flawed, and they do need to find a new place in the modern constitution. They also serve a very important purpose, as the chamber that provides the "sober second thought" that can only come though a process of apolitical appointment. We saw this with the "Counterterrorism" legislation last summer. The answer rests in reforming the appointment system by actively involving the Leader of the Opposition and perhaps other party leaders in the negotiations that choose peers, and giving them veto power over a certain proportion of the appointments. This can ensure that only the more respected and sane elements from both sides take up seats, and it can significantly dampen patronage by intimately involving opposition politicians in the selection process. It's beyond me why it isn't already done this way.

For now, we are stuck with the slumgullion of old-timers, Machiavellian political appointees, venerable representatives of the parsonage, dignified gentlemen, and retired politicians that we've been used to, all because the "serious" House of Parliament is busy with this Blair-Brown nonsense.