Abolition of the Lords, that house of cronies, toadies and donors, can’t come too soon | Andrew Rawnsley
GuardianDec 11, 2022
The UK government is suing a company that supplied it with personal protective equipment (PPE) for £122M after the company had been recommended by a Conservative Party House of Lords member, Baroness Mone.
The company, called PPE Medpro, was awarded a contract to supply 25M sterile surgical gowns in June 2020. Officials rejected the equipment after a review once they arrived at the NHS depot in Daventry; the Department of Health and Social Care is also seeking to recover the costs of storing and disposing of the gowns.
The undemocratic and overpopulated House of Lords is a place of cronies, toadies, and donors. They serve not the public interest but themselves, as seen with Baroness Mone. The behavior of Mone should be added to the extensive list of regrets that former Prime Minister David Cameron should have, and reform and scrutiny must immediately be placed upon Westminster's upper chamber.
The issue of PPE Medpro has often been a cliché-riddled fury at government spending without much real value. However, the Baroness has not addressed the House of Lords since March 2020, leading to good questions about the relevance of "peerages" in today's society.
There's a 50% chance that most members of the House of Lords will be directly democratically elected by July 2039, according to the Metaculus Prediction Community.