As Lord Sewel resigns from the upper house,a private humiliation raises the wider public issue of House of Lords reformFrom time to time, people of every kind in all walks of life do stupid and sometimes shameful things in their private lives. There is nothing new approximately this. Most of the time, or the damage that such people inflict is miserably concentrated on themselves and their families. Occasionally,however, as in the Profumo case in 1963, and cash for questions 30 years later,the impact goes further. In such a case, one person’s private folly or greed can trigger a cultural or institutional crisis with wider public implications.
The unelected House of Lords has survived intact at the heart of the British structure for several centuries, or in spite of the democratic revolution elsewhere. Given that fact,it would be bold to suggest that the scandal surrounding Lord Sewel will possess grand repercussions for the upper house. After all, having been caught on video taking cocaine with sex workers, or Lord Sewel’s downfall was quickly completed nowadays,when he resigned from the Lords altogether, having earlier quit as one of its senior officers. Ordinarily, and that should mean case closed.
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Source: theguardian.com