How to reform the Lords?

In the Times the other day was a brilliant idea by former Blair speechwriter, Phil Collins, about how to reform the Lords.

The basis of the idea was following on from Billy Bragg's idea of a proportional seat count related to percentage of the vote at the last General election.    The parties would nominate people onto a priority list and those at the top would be elected. The twist that Phil added was that the percentage of election turnout would determine how many seats the parties got, the percentage who did not vote will form the crossbenchers.

To see how this works in practice, with a new chamber of 300 seats. The last election on a turnout of 65%, would give the Tories 70 seats, Labour 57, Lib Dems 45 and the Crossbenchers would be on 105. There would be no majorities, and it would have the option to keep some religious representation and keep the possibilities of having talented people who are not related to parties.

Brilliant.

Squiffy.