A Better Wei

With Lord Wei off to spend more time with his money, the question is not so much the umpteenth relaunch of the Big Society, as the umpteenth relaunch of House of Lords "reform".

For some unknown reason, it has been decided that appointments to that House should reflect the proportion of votes cast for each party at the preceding General Election. This amounts to the same thing as election from party lists, but without the bother of elections; STV, meanwhile, is party lists by another name, and assumes voting patterns so tribal that, as in the Irish Republic, most people who lose their seats lose them to members of the same party as themselves. Seriously.

So a ballot of the whole national electorate should be held, at public expense, since this would be to elect parliamentarians in order to conform a House of Parliament to government policy. Say that a party was entitled to 15 new peers. It would submit to this ballot twice that number, 30, being the 30 who had received the most nominations from its branches throughout the country, including those of affiliated organisations in Labour's case. Each of us would then vote for up to five, one third of the requisite number. At the end, the highest-scoring 15 would be ennobled.

Why ever not?