Grow up, democracy

Despite my general opinion of Piers Morgan as something of a Banker with a W, as they say, I have to admit I was very amused by the little anecdote he contributed to Question Time last thursday. Along the lines of, "I once had lunch with a Lord... he fell asleep into his soup" as if this clearly justifies the notion of an all-elected House of Lords, perhaps based on the argument that appointed Lords are inevitably a bunch of narcoleptics? Or just old, conservative and senile? I thought it was cash for honours and Blair cronies factor people found most offensive.

A certain MEP was this week the unfortunate victim of a rather caustic attack from one of the Lords, via the intermediary of a UKIP member, after merely making a few helpful suggestions about acheiving reform and improving democratic performance. He didn't take it too well. I would love to quote it, but it might get me into trouble. I'm terrible with sensitive information, like when my MEP goes "...if the Press gets hold of this all hell will break loose." Which is really the wrong thing to say to someone who's the child of two journalists.

Anyway, the point is the exchange clearly testified to the rather sensitive & volatile nature of the whole debacle, and this poor unsuspecting chap just happened to fall fowl of the obviously nervy & highly irritable current disposition of one amongst many other Lords, I imagine, perhaps to be taken as an indication that they feel they're on shaky ground.

However, I don't think this particular Lord (whose reponse contained some rather offensive not to mention unoriginal accusations about the EU - oh because we've never heard the one about "a country called Europe" before) or indeed any of his colleagues need to be losing any sleep over this. To me it seems more like a palliative measure, going through the motions of adressing the question.
Stranger things have happened, but let's be honest the UK isn't exactly famous for radically renovating its more archaic institutions. All this business about needing a "mature" democracy might be rationally coherent, but against the hefty weight of institutional pomp, precedent & tradition, I don't think it has a prayer.

MPs back all-elected house of Lords - BBC News