The debate about abolition is driving the chamber potty

Possibly the most fatuous election in British history took place nine years ago.

- ALAN RUSBRIDGER

The death of Lord Avebury, a hereditary peer, triggered a pseudo by-election in which no fewer than seven Liberal Democrat noblemen tried their chances at replacing him. If foxhunting is, in Oscar Wilde’s phrase, the unspeakable in pursuit of the inedible, this was surely the unelectable in pursuit of the indefensible.

Apart from the Pacific Islands and maybe Lesotho, where a few tribal councils remain, it is hard to find any other country in the world that has persisted with the hereditary principle following the abolition of the Prussian House of Lords in 1918.

Even the tattered remnants of the House of Hohenzollern might shake their heads in disbelief that, until 18 months ago, the Brits were still holding elections for the right of the titled classes to place their ancestral bums on the red leather upholstery of the Upper Chamber.

Among those competing to step into Lord Avebury’s shoes was the 13th Earl of Carlisle, who owes his title to a 14th-century military leader. There were distant relatives of a former prime minister, Lloyd George, and a famous philosopher, Bertrand Russell, as well as an actual viscount (Lord Thurso).

There may have been seven candidates, but there were only three voters. Six of the candidates gained no votes at all. And so it was that, on 19 April 2016, Viscount Thurso romped home with all three votes: 100 per cent of the electorate. Had he noticed, even North Korea’s Kim Jong Un would have looked on in envy.

There was something poignant about the by-election, since Lord Avebury himself had consistently campaigned to abolish the baroque system by which the number of dynastic legislators - mostly expelled by the Blair government in 1999 - is capped at 92 seats.