Off With Their Hereditaries

BIG READ! The Count Binface Peer Review

Hello humans!

Have I got some bumper special Lifting the Lid for You? YES!

Have I still got to get my head around rhetorical questions? You betcha.

As the schools break up and holidays beckon, I am delighted to share with you a Count Binface Big Summer Read. The opening salvo is free to read for everyone, and then the whole thing is a special treat for full subscribers.

If you’re not yet one of those lovely peeps who’ve signed up to my full substack monty, why not give yourself a summertime treat and UPGRADE HERE! - to indulge yourself with some prime-cut intergalactic satire! When even the mighty Stephen Colbert can fall prey to corporate bastards and political muting, JOIN ME. My Substack is the precious elixir to Earth’s growing rivers of political shite.

Colbert - My future VP pick?

So what I have been up to?

Firstly I’ve been enjoying seeing the Labour government announce that 16-17-year-olds will be given the vote at the next election. This is yet another Binface manifesto pledge being stolen by the so-called mainstream. All we need now is for the rest of my policy to be adopted: capping the voting age at 80! Is it fair? No.

How else have I been spending my time? Well, other than rewatching the Lovejoy box set (again, because it’s a masterpiece), I’ve been taking a good long look at The House of Lords.

Why? Partly because it makes me realise how sane I am as a political alternative. Partly because it’s just how I roll. And partly because it’s been in the news lately.

Peer Review

Prime Minister Sir Kier Starmer is planning to do away with the last remaining 86 hereditary peers from the second chamber. I don’t mean he’s packing them off to Dignitas, just that he’s giving them their P45. After a year in power during which he’s not exactly got off to a flying start, bringing in this simple Lords reform seems like low-hanging fruit. But is it?

Unlike your average lunatic politician (aka the Reform Party), I do my research. To that end I’ve spoken to members of the Lords about whether there’s ANY argument to keep the hereditaries in place. And my findings might surprise you.

Inside parliament, there’s a groundswell of opinion that the 86 peers who are there solely by dint of their birth collectively - give or take the odd crusty twat - do a decent job. Some of them have generations of knowledge and experience to draw upon, they have a different, less career-driven perspective on political affairs and about what’s best for Britain, and unlike many non-hereditary Lords and Ladies, they’re not appalling examples of cronyism.

I get that. And I have factored all of these complexities into my nuanced calculations about what should happen to the House of Lords.

At the outset, allow me to state my personal interest in this matter. In the 2017 General Election I posed as ‘Lord Buckethead’, and back then my policy was the abolition of all Lords, ‘except me.’ Since then, I’ve practised what I preached and renounced my own peerage.

For my name change, I considered following the example of Labour grandee Lord Benn, who became simply Tony Benn. I wondered if this was the standard prefix afforded to ex-Lords, meaning that I should call myself Tony Buckethead. But then I realised that another Labour giant had somewhat soiled and demeaned the name Tony in political circles, ruling that option out.

Instead I upgraded myself by reverting to my true form - Count Binface - and I’ve been on the up up up ever since. As part of that, I amended my Lords policy to wipe them out. All of them. Was that a fair decision? Let’s see.

A Lordly Test

Being a benevolent intergalactic space warrior, I’m always open-minded and I think it’s important to test one’s position now and again. And it’s in that spirit that I found myself leafing through a recent edition of The Spectator magazine (editor M. Gove). This journal costs more than twice a subscription to this Substack. So you’d think it should surely be doubly as good. And you’d be wrong.

The front cover of this edition of the periodical laid bare its views on the PM’s culling of the 86 hereditaries, as did not one but two articles in its pages.

Now, Mr Gove might have had enough of experts, but even so I’m sure he would want his organ to be subject to rigorous scrutiny, and it is in that spirit of intellectual good will that I would like to chronicle the myriad reasonings the Spectator put forward for retaining the 86 remaining hereditary peers. I do so without fear or favour, without anger or bias. Here is an exhaustive (and exhausting) list of the magazine’s arguments. I’m not making these up:

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