The House of Lords runs on politeness. There is no speaker to keep order in the debating chamber, and the proposal to introduce one this June is adding frown lines to some already heavily crinkled foreheads. Members are not elected and they cannot be sacked, so they have little incentive to attack their political opponents. And the House's business is scheduled in friendly chats between the offices of (Baroness) Valerie Amos, Labour leader of the Lords, and (Lord) Thomas Strathclyde, leader of the opposition, who sit a few doors away from each other down an ornate neo-gothic corridor.
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