Yesterday, we learned that four Labour peers had been caught asking for "consultancy fees" in exchange for proposing amendments to laws. Today, we learn that 139 peers act as paid consultants while performing their legislative duties. The conclusion is inescapable: the House of Lords is a rotten house, in which corruption is both pervasive and accepted.
Which is just one more reason to abolish it. It's not as if the UK needs an upper house - despite devolution, its still essentially a unitary state rather than a federal one, and the Lords do not represent regional interests in the same way as e.g. the US Senate. Instead, they represent hereditary privilege and cronyism - an anathema to democracy. That is reason enough to get rid of it; the fact that they are corrupting the legislative process for private profit is simply the icing on the cake.
