Almost 400 years after Guy Fawkes tried to bring down the House of Lords, Britain's Labour government achieved a partial victory yesterday when the first stage of the reform of the Upper House was completed: 75 hereditary peers were elected to remain in the Lords temporarily, ahead of the formal abolition of their voting rights.
It was a dark day for the hereditaries who filed into the Chamber. More than 600 knew it would be their last chance to attend the "best club in London". The results of an extraordinary ballot, in which an electorate of 410 dukes, marquesses, earls, viscounts and barons chose 75 fellow hereditary peers to remain in the Lords after the formal abolition of their voting rights, came while peers listened to a debate on wind power. The Chief Clerk, Mr Michael Davies, interrupted proceedings shortly after 1 p.m. to read out the list of successful hereditaries, after which the peers rushed from their seats to the main lobby to receive the official list from the clerks.
The sadness of the day was compounded by the death of Lord Montague (67), a Labour life peer, who slumped forward in his seat soon after the election results were announced and died of a heart attack.
A total of 92 hereditary peers will stay on in the Lords as part of the "Weatherill deal" while Mr Blair's government decides the final shape of the second chamber. A Royal Commission on reform of the Lords is due to present its recommendations to the government before the end of the year. And with Labour in a strong position over constitutional reform, many Conservative peers seem unwilling to jeopardise the Weatherill arrangement by blocking the government's controversial reforms contained in the Welfare Bill.
The group of 92 hereditaries comprises 42 Conservatives, 28 cross-benchers, three Liberal Democrats and two Labour peers. Fifteen deputy speakers and committee chairs were elected last week. The Earl Marshal (the Duke of Norfolk) and the Lord Great Chamberlain (the Marquis of Cholmondeley - pronounced "Chumley") were not required to stand for election and life peers will also remain in the Lords.
All 15 members of the Conservative frontbench team were elected, including the Tory leader in the Lords, Lord Strathclyde. He won 174 votes, but told his fellow peers that their election was "no cause for celebration, it is an honour". And for those who were not elected, he insisted "it is no cause for shame". He insisted that unlike life peers, the hereditaries did not owe patronage to any living person and urged the government to press ahead with stage two of the reform. The two Labour hereditary peers elected were Lord Milner of Leeds and Lord Rea.
Only two of the four Northern Ireland-based hereditaries who stood as candidates were successful in the election. Lord Glentoran, the Conservative spokesman on Northern Ireland, received 104 votes and Viscount Brookeborough, who sits on the cross-benches, won 68 votes.
The election also saw the end of the Guinness family's representation in the House of Lords: the Earl of Iveagh, a crossbencher, was not elected; his cousin, Lord Moyne, did not stand.
Lord Lucan, missing since November 7th, 1974, was not present.