Bagehot | The smell of rot

摘要

WALTER BAGEHOT,a Victorian editor of The Economist, celebrated the House of Lords as the more dignified of the two Parliamentary chambers. "Dignified" is hardly the word for the bumper bucket of new peers-36 in all-that Boris Johnson has just created. The list includes the son of a Russian KGB-agent-turned-oligarch who owns a couple of newspapers in Britain and a party castle in Italy; an ageing, irascible cricketer who supported Brexit; a former Revolutionary Communist Party activist and IRA apologist who also supported Brexit (the balm that washes away all sins); the prime minister's brother; and sundry party donors, bag-carriers and hangers-on. This from a government that acknowledges the Lords is absurdly bloated, now with over 800 peers.