The House of Lords

Too busy to say much today, but if this story about peers taking cash from anyone hoping to influence legislation (and if it's even half-true the only question we need to ask is 'how high a cliff should they be thrown over') has reminded me just how quiet everybody (including yours truly) is about reform of the House of Lords.

• Who - exactly should they represent? (By this, I mean should they have constituencies / regions?)
• How should they be elected? What voting system? And are indirect elections necessarily a no-no? (Councillors could select them?)
• How should candidates be selected by parties?
• Is there a democratically acceptable mechanism that would either force political parties to select candidates to reflect their internal diversity - or even to encourage non-party candidates?
  
• When should the elections be - and how often?
• What role should a reformed Lords play? What powers should they have?
• What relationship should they have with regional assemblies, local government and the EU?
• What sort of allowance / facilities should they be given?
• What sort of people are likely to make such a structure work?

And most importantly, how do you get people who will have some of their powers supplanted by these people to vote for anything that you or I would find acceptable? And by this, I don't just mean the House of Commons - I also mean the Cabinet and the PM's office.

I dunno about you, but this seems to be a huge issue, but no-one is talking about it.

Oh a follow up question? Are you surprised that this story has come out today? I'm not - I'm only surprised that it didn't appear sooner.