On reading the comments here I feel that any 2nd chamber should have experts appointed to it.

Few young people can cope with the Lords as it is currently constituted – part time, unpaid. You need to have reached that stage of your career when you can choose what work you do and when, and to have abandoned or achieved work-related ambitions. Of course we could go back to that reservoir of the rich and unemployable, the hereditary peerage.

The Lords is not a place which runs the country, but a place of advice and calm consideration. Ambition and command belong in the Commons.

As for the Government in Japan my experience is one that even though there are elections it is a very undemocratic institution. The politicians act like parents to the general public. Telling them everything is in the best interest of the country. It is already been said that if the two houses disagree then nothing gets done and this is no way to run a country.

Personally the only trouble with the Lords and the Commons is that people do not retire early enough. Countries should be run by young people who still have vitality.

The United States Congress is a legislature which is wholly divorced from the executive. It has its uses, but the main problem I see is that legitimacy and sovereignty in this case is divided between Congress and the directly elected Executive. In times of standoff between the two, despite the mechanisms in place for Congress to override the President (which are hard to activate), normally paralysis takes place as both refuse to back down. Equal legitimacy both divides and cripples good government.

Most countries have parliamentary government, where the government is mostly or wholly comprised of members of the legislature. This has the benefit of allowing the rest of the legislature to question the government ministers directly. It also means the legislators have a direct stake in the contituity of good government. In times when Parliament is at loggerheads with the government, an election can be called. Whichever party wins the election has won the argument. The popular will wins.

I understand your concern about the unelected voting on laws, but I feel such a strict interpretation of democratic theory is completely impossible. As Freud would say, logical worlds only exist in the mind.

Scrutiny of course can take place anywhere. It takes place on the Today programme, for example. Why not separate it from the legislative process? Lord Norton, does any country do this (i.e. have an arena for scrutiny made up of non-legislators)? Have I just happened across a novel idea?

My concern is not with the unelected scrutinising the Government (I can scrutinise the Government and quiz ministers by getting into the Question Time audience, and I have never been elected to anything), but the unelected voting on laws… but I take your earlier point about the final word resting with MPs.

This does not, however, mean that those that scrutinise the Government should also be elected. Scrutiny should be done by those most able, not by those most popular. In the British system, both the elected Commons and the unelected Lords do this – and it’s the Lords who do the best job.

I am not sure I agree with you however on your criticism of democracy not necessarily rewarding able candidates. If I had to choose between, on the one hand, an efficient dictatorship of the most able, fair-minded and intelligent people in the land and, on the other, an inefficient democratic government made up of less able, less fair-minded and less intelligent people then I’d choose the democratic one every time.

America is a case in point. A child separated from its parents at birth and left to its own devises in a hostile new world. What a fine strapping youngster it has become. I say this tongue in cheek because Americans are fascinated by Monarchies with their nobilities, pomp and ritual.

Their founding fathers had difficult choices in what to base their new democracy upon. They chose the Roman model. This is interesting in itself because the Roman Empire devolved from a republic to an autocracy.

Can we sensibly expect to see an ‘Emperor Bush’ or the like at some time in the future? Will a returning army cross the Rubicon?

The Spanish model is interesting too in that it devolved from Monarchy to dictatorship and then returned to Monarchy. Why did they do this? Continuity I suspect.

Something else not alluded to is the role the House plays in international diplomacy. I don’t really know why this works but it must be something to do with the high respect that the House carries internationally.

One rather scary thing you said was “It fulfils effectively the reflective role”. Does this mean that you have a doppelganger somewhere?

As you say in your conclusion, “Second chambers will continue to be the subject of dispute” but as recently stated in the House, Lords Reform is not something that ordinary people necessarily have a view upon; least ways not down at the Dog and Duck or at the dinner table.

The problem with election as well is that it makes the assumption that intelligent, and able people are popular. This is not anywhere near close to reality. Election for a 15-year term would not prevent the electorate from looking at personalities first, and the bloody, disgusting smear campaigns which would be launched. The Appointments Commission (which should be made statutory in my eyes) does a good job of ensuring able people who wouldn’t necessarily be electable in any case are appointed.

If this were extended to cover party political ‘working’ peers also, we’d be in a good position.

It’s a balancing act between consent of the people through election, and ensuring ‘sober second thought’ from a group of (mostly) acknowledged experts who are immune from the fads of this present-tense society we live in. There is such a thing as too much of a good thing after all!

This hybrid system works well in addressing this.