What's wrong with democracy?

Do you want to elect the people who decide our laws? I do.

That's why I find Government proposals to reform the House of Lords so worrying.

In the last Parliament, the Government abolished the hereditary principle for the Lords (except for 92!). But they promised further reform would herald real democracy.

Robin Cook has now published those second stage ideas. These propose that only 20% of members of the Lords should be elected, with another 20% appointed by an independent commission and the remaining 60% appointed by the political parties.

So we are to be allowed "discount democracy" - just 20%, with 80% knocked off.

As the Financial Times said, these are "intellectually thin and politically squalid proposals". They are designed to leave Government with even less check on its power than the Lords now achieves.

How does Mr Cook justify this rejection of democracy? Cook says a wholly elected House of Lords would "regard itself as having a legitimacy equal to that of the House of Commons". This is illogical nonsense.

If a democratic Lords retains its existing specific and limited powers to question and delay decisions of the Commons, then we would be voting for people to do that limited job. Nothing more.

Indeed this debate is not really about "the Commons versus the Lords". It's about "the Government versus Parliament".

So what would I do? I would first reduce the number of Lords from the current 704 to around 300. These Lords would all be elected, in thirds, every two years. At the same time, I would beef up the Commons, so MPs also had more power to keep Ministers in check.

That's Parliament's job.