Sir – Chris Gray appears to rail against the House of Lords (“Who would want to join this shower?”, August 8) on the grounds that several dubious characters have recently been “ennobled”. Despite the presence of genuinely noble souls, the House of Lords has always been the reward for people who have done unsavoury things on behalf of the rulers.
There’s many a noble family that can trace its origins to far worse crimes than fiddling expenses. This society clings to the ludicrous, feudal habit of tugging forelocks and bending the knee to ‘noble and royal blood’ in the face of all the evidence that they’re no better than we are and often no better than they ought to be.
Mark Ralph-Bowman, Merton
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