Value of wisdom

Reform of the House of Lords is a pointless distraction while the financial crisis grinds on. The government should be concentrating on issues that genuinely concern the electorate rather than politicians’ hobby horses and the British people categorically showed in the AV referendum that there is no appetite for constitutional change.

I presume that, because he proposes to pay an elected “Senator” a lower wage than an MP, Nick Clegg does not wish to challenge the primacy of the Commons and that primacy means there is no democratic deficit, no lack of accountability.

There may well be a lack of trust in politics but this will not be solved by having more politics and requiring a second chamber to be elected will only politicise it further.

The upper house will remain a revising chamber and its greatest asset in this regard is its collective wisdom, the expertise of its members. If it is to continue, wisely, to amend and advise on legislation it must surely remain a body composed of people who know rather than those who believe. There is, furthermore, no need to reduce the numbers as that would reduce the pool of knowledge. If anything, an independent body (to rectify the perceived lack of public trust in politics) should appoint more people of genuine merit and achievement from outside politics.

Nick Edwardson

Innerleithen

Peeblesshire