Peers fight for a place in the House of Lords

IT IS the most exclusive of elections. Those standing are an array of earls, viscounts and even a duke. It is also one of the most surreal. One candidate’s manifesto suggests an analysis of whether his future colleagues are “right-brained” and creative or “left-brained” and analytical. (“I personally can only offer...my right-side of the brain.”) Another brief pitch ends: “Flexible working hours allowing attendance. Politically independent.” A third mentions his presidency of the Noblemen and Gentlemen’s Catch Club, a society for glee music. Welcome to the world of by-elections for hereditary peers in the House of Lords.

These by-elections are a modern quirk in a place of more ancient anachronisms. Tony Blair pledged to abolish hereditary peers, who pass on their titles, from Britain’s unelected second chamber. As a compromise to get the policy through the very body that he wanted to overhaul, 92 were kept. Rather than dwindling as a result of death or retirement, their numbers are replenished in by-elections. This was supposed to be a stop-gap until further reform. But two decades on, that has yet to arrive.