Baroness Trumpington, the 89-year-old Tory peer didn’t take too kindly to having her age mentioned by Lord King of Bridgewater:

A great spot by Total Politics…

Not normally one for Hansard trawling, Guido had to chuckle at Conor Burns’ argument for reforming the House of Lords. Closely allied to Maggie, he is almost her unofficial PPS, Conor saw a good opportunity to shaft an old foe:

Thomas Docherty (Dunfermline and West Fife, Labour)
Perhaps the hon. Gentleman is not aware that his noble Friend Lord Heseltine has not even made his maiden speech in the House of Lords. “Part-time” would not be a good adjective to describe him. Can the hon. Gentleman think of one?

Conor Burns (Bournemouth West, Conservative)
I can think of many, and it is not often that I am accused of being on the same side as Lord Heseltine. I remember telling Lady Thatcher a couple of years ago that he had not made his maiden speech, having been in the Lords for nine years at the time. Her reply was, “Well, look on the bright side, at least we haven’t had to listen to it.” Lord Heseltine is a very good example of my point—he says that he took his membership of the other place because he wanted the honour, but he did not want to participate. He has participated in fewer than 20 Divisions in the 10 years that he has been a Member of the other place. That was why I found it absolutely disgraceful that he came in the other night to vote against the referendum lock in the European Union Bill, which is going through the other place. Such examples show that the other place needs some reform.

A compelling case…

Is anyone actually surprised by the fact that 81% of peers are opposed to reforming the House of Lords? Ironically that’s the figure that will end up being elected if the Coalition Agreement is implemented.  The Times thundered this morning that Clegg’s plans were facing a revolt. What did they think was going to happen?

With only four hundred peers actually doing any work, or even turning up, regardless of whether you think they should be elected or not, it’s time for a cull. In other news, public sector workers don’t like spending cuts…

The 792 peers have decreed that the upper chamber is too full. They have asked the PM not to ennoble anyone else as they have run out of  coat hooks and headed paper. Just a fraction of this 792 are active working peers who devote themselves to their constitutional role as scrutineers. There is no denying there is plenty of deadwood and corrupt expenses fiddlers who got away with crimes far worse that Lord Taylor. It’s a job for life though.

Here’s a simple idea, if there are too many Lords theen there should be a system in place that can see the bad ones kicked out, and the good ones rewarded, by keeping their jobs. New people could put themselves forward and the public could support them. Think there’s a name for this process… Ah yes, an elected chamber.

Many Peers barely make it through an afternoon session in the Lords, but somehow they have managed to pull an all-nighter to debate a mere three of a possible two hundred amendments put forward to the Bill that must be passed by Friday if the AV referendum can take place on the 5th May.

However it is the coalition’s rebalancing of seats, to make them of equal size, that Labour is finding hard to swallow. Days like this that highlight just how flawed our constitution is – we have unelected and unaccountable peers breaking convention in order to block a move that will make our representative democracy fairer and more balanced. You couldn’t make it up…

UPDATE: The FT’s Jim Pickard highlights why Labour’s claim that they are not filibustering out of party interest looks ridiculous:

Lord Harris of Haringey, Lab, 01.45:

“So what were the reasons for choosing 600 (MPs) as opposed to 650, 630, 575 or 585? I was tempted to say that there was some sort of arcane numerology about this. Noble Lords will be aware that 650 is the product of three prime numbers: two, five squared and 13; 630 is of course the product of four prime numbers: two, three squared, five and seven. I defy anyone to find a similar formulation or number that involves five prime numbers. Maybe my noble friend Lord Winston, or some such person could come up with something.”