Like the Bene Gesserit in the Dune franchise, hereditary peers measure their plans in centuries, leading to a class of legislators invested in social and political continuity, in the preservation of a nation and its identity, argues Andrew Lomas

De Tocqueville wrote of democracy that “it makes each man forget his forefathers… conceals him from his descendants and separates him from his contemporaries.” In a slightly more colourful fashion, J.D. Vance – Trump’s pick for vice president – recently lamented the fact that the US was “effectively run… by a bunch of childless cat ladies” with the result that the country had been handed over to “people who don’t really have a direct stake in it.” But what does any of this have to do with hereditary peers – a species that Keir Starmer’s first King’s Speech seeks to make extinct?

The essential argument against hereditary peers being able to sit and vote in Parliament seems to be........

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