Two hereditary peers retired from the House of Commons this year. Both were members of the Privy Council, and one was a former Cabinet Minister, while the other had been Deputy Leader of the Conservative Party, albeit in Opposition. However, neither was given a life peerage, as one of their fathers, also a disclaimed hereditary and a former (as well as a future) Cabinet Minister, had been.
In Douglas Hogg's case, was it because of his moat? That might be the official excuse, but it is always worth repeating that, as with Sir Peter Viggers's duck house, not a penny was ever paid out for Douglas Hogg's moat. No, the real reason was Hogg's opposition to the Iraq War.
It is possible that Michael Ancram declined a peerage. But it is vastly more probable that he, too, was deliberately snubbed because, although he had briefly run with the wrong dogs in his time, he had come round to the expression of sensible, classically Tory views on Trident, Afghanistan and the Middle East. And we cannot have any of that. Can we?
Striking that hereditary peers (however in pectore they may appear) are prominent among those on the Tory side who maintain sufficient independence of spirit to hold this view. Striking, too, that a Prime Minister who shares much of their background may be slowly moving in that direction. (We can but hope.)
ReplyDeleteAs for their peerages, they cannot be taken away, and I regard their enforced leave of absence as a naked example of power over right. Restore the constitution, I say, and redeat ille magnus genius Britanniae.
It was as wrong to silence the voice of the aristocratic social conscience by abolishing hereditary barons as to silence the voice of organised labour by abolishing trade union barons. One way or another, both of those voices must be heard again.
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