Part of the journey of conservatism is to maintain or restore the natural balances within the Constitution. One of the greatest of these was a bicameral system, whereby a second chamber could overrule the first, if deemed appropriate. Bicameralism was abandoned during the constitutional crisis of 1910 to 1912 when peers threatened to veto the budget, overruling the elected government of the day. At the dawn of mass politics, this diehard reaction was viewed as the spasm of a landed class opposed to redsitributive taxation.
Yet, a second chamber that merely advises or delays is a hundred years old. The Parliament Act served as a statute to enshrine unicameral supremacy within Britain by augmenting the Commons. Such overweening power was last taken upon themselves by the revolutionaries in 1649.
The Diehards, as the peers who wished to retain their veto were called, offered a model of a second chamber in 1910. The peers would elect 100 members, the Prime Minister would appoint 100 members and a final tranch of 100 would be directly elected. The retention of the veto was directly linked to the democratisation of the chamber.
With the reforms proposed, democratisation would be achieved in a diluted and anodyne measure. Lords would be elected with little power, and only the most mediocre of party apparatchiks would desire to end their career in those halls. Public service as a motivation would be overshadowed by placemen, sinecures and cronies; we have seen enough of this pollution under New Labour.
To overcome the power of patronage and appointment, the triumph of the party machine and weak part-timers flattened by the Commons juggernaut, we should look at Lords reform afresh. A balance of tradition, appointment and democracy, infused with the power of veto, would spell deadlock or balance. Best that representation holds the edge over the other two elements, but overturn this dangerous innovation that has lasted a century and return to the bicameral system that fully expresses the genius of our antient constitution.