In a deep, drunken conversation with a government press officer last night, I suddenly discovered I am passionate about the House of Lords.I don't want Jack Straw to bugger it all up with nonsense about party lists and elections and nonsense like that. Let us consider for a moment what we have before we chuck it in the bin.
Every time I sit in the gallery of the House of Lords, two things strike me. First, there is something really useful about having people involved in the democratic process who are not elected and therefore not in a position to be bribed or intimidated by party whips.
The fact they cannot be removed makes peers much more likely to stick to their principles - vital in a revising chamber whose specific role is to rein in the mentalness emanating from this government.
The second thing is that we have in the UK probably the best educated, most experienced, most widely read chamber in the world. When the Lords discuss Iraq, we are treated to the expert opinions of former Chiefs of Staff, Foreign Secretaries, Defence Secretaries, specialists on Iraqi culture, scientists, senior doctors, former ambassadors, and experts of every discipline.
And what do we propose to replace this House with? What does Jack Straw and the rest of that mob in the Cabinet think would be the best way to replicate the unique brilliance of the Lords? A chamber full of people appointed because of merit and appointed for life?
List systems. Bloody regional lists. Party hacks who were too mediocre to be MPs are kicked into a list of "reliable" candidates.
More elected party fodder, this time even more boring, gray, mediocre people. This lot with even less ambition and drive than the shower of backbench nobodies we already have wasting our time and money in the Commons.
More elections, less choice. All the talent that is present in the Lords will be lost, for this one simple reason. The Lords whose experience and talent we need the most are exactly the sort of people who don't bother joining political parties.
Like most people in Britain, they think politics and politicians are a lower form of life, along the lines of not wanting to join any club that will have them as a member.
But no, the New Labour vandals are ready to rip apart the only bit of Parliament that is working effectively and in the interests of the nation as a whole. To replace it with more expensive party yes-men, to give them complete control over the process from start to finish. No more irritating Lords amendments.
We must stop them! I propose that we just keep the present arrangement. Let the heriditary peers slowly die out. Cut the bishops from 16 to 8 and give the new seats to the other religions. Then appoint people. For life. And make sure it is the same sort of person. The Lords is one of the last things we have against the onslaught of a one party state.
