Modern is British Prime Minister Tony Blair's favorite word. Blair is forever telling us he wants a modern country with a modern democracy. Unfortunately, he finds himself in charge of a very old-fashioned nation. So he has set himself the visionary target of "rebranding" Britain. Instead of enjoying this country of nice old things, he wants to create a new "cool Britannia." Little surprise, then, that his passion for the modern has spread upward from Britain's House of Commons into the 700-year-old House of Lords. Under plans unveiled last week by Baroness Jay, the Labour government's leader of the Lords, Britain's 700 hereditary peers are about to get the chop. Twenty-one generations of Lord Fauntleroys influencing the affairs of the nation will come to an end. They will continue to have the right to call themselves Baron this and the Earl of that, and so will their firstborn sons. But they will no longer be admitted to the gold-and-crimson chamber of the upper house of Parliament.
The idea of noble blood is an anachronism that most of us would willingly ditch as we enter a new millennium. But there is a certain nobility in the independence of the Lords. The hereditary peers owe their position to no living person. They are therefore free to think and act as they choose. In British public life,which is heavily dominated by political parties, that is a valuable asset.
This does not, of course, make the Lords a particularly energetic arm of the government. By one count, listening to Baroness Jay's speech last week, there were 76 bald heads, 16 mustaches, five walking sticks, three ear trumpets and one eye patch. The Earl of Longford, who carries an enormous magnifying glass, has been sitting in the Lords for 53 years.
Such a deeply unmodern institution must be top of the list for Blair's reforming zeal. But however much one may agree with him, one must surely admit that the Lords provide a venerable spectacle, full of idiosyncratic character. The sight of the Lord Chancellor in all his forbidding finery, slumped on the woolsack adjusting his wig, listening intently to the sound of sweet and reasoned discourse (mixed with the occasional grunt and snore) is civilized, faintly amusing and surprisingly effective in terms of its legislative product.
All right, this may all be very old-fashioned, but these Lords have one quality that is inspiring and not at all modern: they are remarkably wise. Evidence? They will indeed vote for the abolition of all their privileges. This will be a very British, very stiff-upper-lip revolution. The Lords--who vote by crying "Content!" or "Not content!"--will feel profoundly discontented, and yet will say the opposite.
Of course, there will be one or two rebels, and they will have a few procedural tricks up their sleeves to make things hard for Baroness Jay. Chief rabble rouser will be the seventh Earl of Onslow, who has declared, "I will have no hesitation in stamping my foot, throwing stones, making the government's life absolutely beastly by forcing divisions, by putting down motions on standing orders. What fun to go out as a hooligan." But even Onslow had the good sense to add, "Any house which has me in it needs its head examined."