To threaten the continuation of the medieval institution of the House of Lords is to threaten the continuation of the un-elected head of state and her fabulous salary and open expense account.
If it were to happen I’m sure we would get a true understanding of how sincere Mrs Windsor’s consideration, compassion and concern is for her subjects.

This issue should be determined upon perusal of the empirical facts and not such nonsensical claims as are made in undergraduate textbooks written by lazy English politics academics who standardly make the unsubstantiated claim that Britain is the "mother of Parliaments" and that our constitutional arrangement of "checks and balances" between the H. of Commons and the H. of Lords is "the envy of the world".

In fact I can trace only one major piece of transnational comparative political research into the issue, conducted by a British academic. The late Professor, Lady Baroness Wootton, who was a Head of Department at the London School of Economics, sat in the Lords and served at one time as a moderate minister in a Labour government.

She concluded that all bicameral systems of government are obstructionist, superfluous or both.

In any case it is significant that so few younger nations have chosen to emulate our bizzare undemocratic arrangements.

We should reform the House of Lords in the same way they reformed the Russian Monarchy. Then we could reform the House of Commons so that it does its job, namely representing the common people and holding the executive to account. Then we can start thinking about the monarchy. We could have an elected monarch. I'd vote for Tony Benn.

Eminently sensible proposal from Mr Benn.

I think the review committee proposed by Mr Benn could be chosen by lottery, along the lines perhaps of Jury service, thereby avoiding the dilution of legitimacy that a second tier of elected mandate would undoubtedly produce.

I couldn't agree more. The built-in gridlock of American politics, with its bicameral setup, is a salutary warning on this issue.