The House of Lords is beyond redemption. While recent scandals have brought this issue to the forefront of politics, the reality is that the Lords has been an outdated and defunct institution for over a century. At the last election Labour proposed to replace the Lords with an elected Senate representing the regions and nations of the UK. However, calls to reform and indeed abolish the House of Lords have been proposed by the Labour Party since our foundation.
The Lords is a chamber of privilege and patronage. There remains the old guard of hereditary peers granted their position by accident of birth as well as the theocracy consisting of 26 bishops of the Church of England known as the Lords Spiritual. Alongside privilege sits patronage, with failed and retired politicians sitting beside party donors granted their position based upon their ability to sign a cheque.
For centuries the liberty of the British people was grounded upon the concept of negative liberty. People held the freedom to do as they wish up until they were limited by statute.
With the Euro getting ever nearer to collapse, the world economy moving deeper into recession, unemployment in Britain predicted to surge above three million and the IMF warning that we are facing a decade of depression unless the government does a massive u-turn, there are definitely more important matters to deal with than House of Lords reform. The recent Commons vote was a political game designed to give Nick Clegg a little more credibility in his coalition dance with the Conservatives. It did not work. 
