Labour has this week been in a frenzy about Boris Johnson’s cynical resignation list

ONE of the very basic joys of our all-hallowed British democracy is that the public do get a chance to kick-out politicians when they become – as is inevitable – discredited, archaic or downright dull.

And in that final reckoning, voters expect that when they are gone they will stay gone.

But then there are a very select few who seem to hang around for what feels like an eternity – like unwanted ghosts of the past stalking the feudal relic that is the House of Lords.

What a second chamber we have where high-profile politicians get to legitimately rub shoulders with multimillionaire donors, back-room political fixers and industry lobbyists.

There are 800 of them stuffed into the Lords – and there is no democratic mechanism for kicking any out.

There are of course many clever and distinguished people from various fields in the second chamber, but not enough to justify so many cronies and aristocrats voting on ­British legislation.

There is often talk of reform from politicians in opposition that, once in power, find themselves more at comfortably resting with the old establishment.

Labour has this week been in a frenzy about Boris Johnson’s cynical resignation list. There has been a lot of moaning from the party that we should not forget appointed the unelected Andrew Adonis as a government minister by making him a life peer, the Baron of Camden Town.

Not to mention the risible Alan Sugar, made a Labour peer by Gordon Brown but who quit the party during the Corbyn era.

Tony Blair’s premiership will forever be remembered, in part, for the cash-for-honours scandal that saw several men who had made many millions of pounds of undisclosed political “loans” to the party put forward by the prime minister for life peerages.

So why did Labour not seek to abolish the House of Lords when it was last in power? Because there is no better way of paying-back political favours and donations than patronage.

And the same will no doubt happen if Sir Keir Starmer is indeed elected prime minister. He has outlined an ambition to replace the Lords with a new Assembly of the Nations and Regions – although not in his first term. As with Blair, Starmer’s reforms will no doubt end up being watered down and not going far enough.

Talk of dubious peerages debasing democracy will go on and on. Just get rid of it.