Thanks for the feedback on the earlier missive and it ranged from ‘man the barricades’ to ‘let the PM have his (birthday) cake and eat it’. Somewhere in amongst the extreme positions was a worthy note of realistic reform submitted by our very own constitutional correspondent, Lord Racquet of Humpish. Personally, I’d go further on the monarchy, wouldn’t impose any age restrictions and would split everything equally wrt gender and race, but you’ll get the idea.

House of Commons: 

– 325 MPs max (not 650) please, each representing an equal population of circa 200k per constituency. First-past-the-post retained for now, PR potentially to follow.

– Duties split into federal and domestic, with domestic devolved into national bodies including an English one. Each MP serves at both levels. No Barnett Formula-like cross-border subsidies.

– MPs minimum age 50, maximum age 65, and a minimum of 20 years’ private sector employment. No career politicians. Must live (and have lived for 10+ years) in their constituency full time.

– Representative of the education system at a party level – i.e. maximum 7% independent schools and maximum 2% Oxbridge – and suitably diverse more broadly.

– Paid 4x the National Minimum Wage for 40 hours a week. No special expenses. No third-party income. No formal/informal contact allowed with lobbying/quasi-lobbying groups.

– Sign an upfront contract pre-appointment denying them any income post serving directly/indirectly linked to their office, and removing them from access to any honours.

House of Lords:

– A full clear-out of the existing house.

– 100 only newly-appointed as genuine experts in a full spectrum of academic/business/science/legal/cultural areas, with no current or historic political affiliations. Serve a single term of 7 years.

– Appointed by a panel of 10 with a similarly neutral profile. 

– No requirement for a peerage to join or granted on joining.

– Pay/lobbying contact/denial of monetisation and honours as above.

– Compulsory attendance of all sessions.

Royal Family:

– Maintain their constitutional role.

– But with the Civil List dramatically streamlined to the central lineage only.

– Complete cessation of the ‘award yourselves gongs’ culture.

There you go. That’s 1,000 years of constitution solved in half an email. What’s next ?