WITH the big political focus just now around the role of Westminster in approving Brexit and the right of Holyrood to be consulted, parliamentary democracy is under scrutiny.
The Brexit decision of the Supreme Court was about government being accountable to those elected by us, the people.
Protecting democracy and ensuring our elected representatives have the final say in important matters is a principle worth defending.
But in all of this love for democracy there is the biggest of all elephants in the room. A big ancient, bloated, archaic elephant laughing at the rest of us.
This week an inquiry has been launched by the Lord Speaker of the House of Lords into reducing the chamber’s number.
It currently has 800 plus members, that’s more than the House of Commons and Holyrood combined and not a single one of them is elected by or accountable to the public.
The Earl of Glasgow (who he?) has been there since 2005 after inheriting his title from his father, but some have been there for decades.
Take Lord Brabazon of Tara, a peer since 1976, never elected but was in Margaret Thatcher’s Government in the 1980s. 
When there was a cull of Hereditary peers in 1999 he was one of the 92 who managed to cling to the gravy train.
He is a relative whippersnapper though, compared to Lord Carrington, who first slipped into his ermine robe in 1941. 
Yes, since before the Queen ascended to the throne and the Second World War not even at its halfway point, Peter Alexander Rupert Carrington has had a place in a legislative body and not a single person has the right or opportunity to remove him.
He served in government under several Tory Prime Ministers including Thatcher as Foreign Secretary and Winston Churchill, but never stood for election.
When he lost out in the hereditary Peer vote he was made a life peer to allow him to continue and aged 97 he is still there.
There are 26 Bishops in the Lords, every one of them from the Church of England, god alone knows why they are in there.
There are also criminals, like Lord Mike Watson former Glasgow MP and MSP convicted fire raiser and sent to jail.
Lord, Jeffrey archer convicted of perjury also sent to jail and in the minds of many guilty of crimes against literature. Both upon release were able to waltz back into the House of Lords.
During the EU debate we heard much about protecting our democracy and taking back control form unelected Brussels bureaucrats telling us what to do.
Well, here in our own country, making laws and wielding power and influence, many using it purely for their own self advancement is the biggest political disgrace.
The majority are life peers, appointed by one political leader or another, many in return for favours either political or financial.
The very idea of a House of Lords on this basis is corrupt.
So I have my suggestion for the Lord Speaker’s inquiry. Reduce the Lords in number, right down to zero. Disrobe the lot of them.