Today the Labour government as most of its predecessors is committed to class warfare. Hence it became the first elected government in European history to tax education. It plans to make a number of similar moves, one of which is now quite advanced. That is to remove all the 92 hereditary peers in the House of Lords. This number was agreed under a previous Labour administration. The House of Lords Act of 1999 removed the right of most hereditary peers to sit and vote in the House. During the passage of the legislation an amendment was accepted, enabling 92 hereditary peers to remain until further reform was proposed. The Labour government has now proposed such further reform and it is to remove the right of all the remaining hereditary peers to sit and vote in the House. What is interesting is that they have not tried to remove the right of bishops to sit in the House of Lords of which there are 26. The reason is simple. Most bishops tend to vote Labour. Most hereditary peers tend to vote Conservative. In other words it is not just about class warfare, it also about grubby politics.
 

At no stage that I'm aware has Labour acknowledged the massive contribution the hereditary peers have made over several hundred years. There seems to be an assumption that there is something wrong with the hereditary principle but there is very little wrong with it. It applies nearly everywhere not just in politics and certainly in most families. There are a number of Labour political families with a  proud tradition of service passed on through the generations.  Perhaps the most famous of these are the Benns. Many of us would not agree with Tony Benn’s politics but we would all acknowledge that he was a great politician. His son Hilary inherited those skills. Now his brother Viscount Stansgate is one of the hereditaries facing removal. Some families have a long tradition of military service. The Wellesley family - Dukes of Wellington- can trace their military service back at least 10 generations.
 

There will be families throughout the country of different professions whether doctors, dentists or dock workers. One generation after another has served their communities in similar ways so we should at least be asking why what we do if it works in all walks of life doesn't work in parliament as well. We shouldn't of course criticise someone because of their birth and certainly socialists would be highly offended if anyone was criticising someone for their working-class background but it's absolutely fine for people of the left persuasion to just criticise someone for his or her noble background. None of us whether working class or upper class were able to choose the station of our birth.

One of the things that works well in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is that we have a number of traditions that might be hard to defend but they just work. Not everything should have to be driven by logic and modernity. Some things can just be traditional and comforting.

I also think we will miss this group of politicians who did not get there by telling lies in political campaigns, or knocking on doors and telling more lies. They did not get there by being chosen by some rather questionable process which I have personally witnessed which is highly dubious. They did not get there without having any practical experience of the real world. Hereditary peers have immense experience with the real world because through the management of their inherited estates they learned how to work with the common people on the farm or whatever it was and did so for generations. As a result their contribution to Parliament was of significantly higher quality. There are Nobel Prize winners in the House of Lords. I don't suggest these are among the hereditary peers but among those who have been made life peers. Many of them have reached the highest levels of success. While there are a number of people in the House of Commons who have a degree in science there are almost none who have practised science at a high level.

The quality of debate in the House of Lords is vastly superior to that in the House of Commons.  On occasion the House of Commons becomes little better than a school playground. In fact that’s insulting to school children. It’s worse.

A hereditary peer doesn't need to seek political advancement because he or she was born in an advantaged position. They're not particularly ambitious but they get on with the work. They serve. The British monarchy is also hereditary. Fortunately the British monarchy and aristocracy have for centuries been motivated by high ideals of service and duty to their communities. That is partly why they survived when their French counterparts faced the guillotine.

The British Parliament and therefore the British nation, will be poorer without the expertise, industry and deep historical reach of the hereditary peers.