The Guardian view on David Cameron’s new peers: government of the club, by the club, for the club | Editorial
Editorial www.theguardian.com
<strong>Editorial:</strong> The prime minister’s packing of the Lords is egregious. Whether or not it is the intention, this shoddy show of patronage will undermine the house
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the Guardian
David Cameron once described House of Lords reform as a “third term” priority. Well, before the election we learnt that he would serve only two terms – and then found out on Thursday that his second-term priority was packing the red benches with cronies. The prime minister who once promised a new politics is revealed as a shameless practitioner of the tawdry old art of government by patronage.

Britain likes to imagine itself as governed by wise rules, slowly ripened by tradition and experience. But when it comes to who gets to write the law of the land, there are no rules at all. Prime ministerial whim determines not only who gets to sit in parliament’s upper chamber, but also the political mix and the total number of legislators. It is a power that screams “abuse me” to its holder, and it was roundly abused on Thursday.

Every detail of the dissolution honours betrayed contempt for the public. Voters are firm in the view that the political class is too big and expensive, and yet Mr Cameron – who has already greatly expanded Europe’s largest legislature – casually created another 45 legislators for life. Among the Tories, Douglas Hogg, whose date with the voters in 2010 was cancelled after an inconvenient expenses claim for a moat, and whose name was vetoed by the Lords appointment commission the last time it was put forward. The ration of coronets dished out on the advice of the other parties was little better. Despite May’s rout, and the strong representation they already enjoy in the Lords, the Liberal Democrats got another 11 peers, a couple of whom were personally given the boot by the voters a few months ago. Why? Was this a case of debts being paid to erstwhile coalition allies, or an active attempt to undermine a house in which government defeats are expected? The Labour list included Gordon Brown’s fixer, Spencer Livermore. Even the closest newspaper readers have only encountered him twice before – once when he fell out with his old boss over the election that wasn’t in 2007, and then again when he returned for Ed Miliband’s doomed campaign.

The political class looks after its own, as was confirmed by the showering of an alphabet of honours on ambitious young Conservative operators from Nos 10 and 11 Downing Street. Gongs have long been part of the retirement package for fiftysomething civil servants, but CBEs and OBEs for partisan advisers and speechwriters with long careers ahead is a decidedly dishonouring Cameronian innovation. The simultaneous issue of the British empire medal – a lowly award which John Major had discontinued, but Mr Cameron has reintroduced – to No 10’s cooks and gardeners, didn’t improve things.

Imperial orders and class-graded acronyms are absurd, but the flattering of friends is of no more constitutional consequence than the membership roll of the Bullingdon Club. The Lords is another matter: the slipshod way in which peers are created warps the operation of parliament. The British people should, as a matter of principle, be free to choose all those who legislate in their name, a responsibility that citizens of mature democracies elsewhere shoulder perfectly well. But after Mr Cameron acquiesced in trashing his own coalition’s plans for an elected house, there is no point in holding out for that soon. There is, however, ample – and urgent – scope to improve an appointed house, through incremental reforms which nobody without a vested interest in the status quo could possibly object to.

First, rules on the party balance must be agreed. Mr Cameron protests that his new blue barons are needed to bring the Lords into line with the Commons, but he neglects to mention that the Tory share of partisan peers is already higher than their general election vote. He ignores, too, the one in four voters who plumped for a party other than Labour, Lib Dem or Conservative, who are represented by only one lord in every 50. Second, the grotesque size of the chamber must be gripped, for example by waiting for two retirements or deaths before every new appointment. Finally, on top of the tests for skulduggery – which alarmingly crossed several names off Mr Cameron’s original list – there must also be a quality check. Crossbenchers have long had to demonstrate their eminence. Until the partisans are required to do the same, defensible political nominations will come alongside rewards both for failure and for slavish obedience.

These are modest proposals. But to anybody who cares about sound legislation or accountable power, Mr Cameron has given a powerful lesson in why they are important.