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Colby Cosh: The death of another British tradition — hereditary peers

The British have turned the House of Lords into the ... Canadian Senate

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Let us pause today and send congratulations, ironic or otherwise, to the United Kingdom. On Tuesday, they finally became a grown-up-enough country to have their own version of the Canadian Senate. The U.K. House of Lords voted to complete the sorta-kinda-democratizing reforms of Tony Blair first initiated a quarter-century ago, and to eject the last remnant of the purely hereditary peerage from the chamber.

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Blair had left room in the House for 92 voting hereditary peers, who have been selected in the meantime by election within the Lords. Once Keir Starmer’s new bill is given royal assent — no trouble in that quarter being expected — these representatives of old families will be thrown out on their ears, with the exception of a few “hybrids” who will be chosen by the various political parties to receive meritorious life peerages to brandish along with their unearned, inheritable ones.

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