Time to raise the entry bar for the upper house – and to repay our Iranian debt
If I were to stumble on a £3m windfall, I wouldn’t be making a donation to the Tory party. I’d get each of the kids somewhere to live, buy a couple of Jennifer Lee pots along with first editions of Brighton Rock and The Great Gatsby, treat myself to a couple of opera away weekends somewhere in mainland Europe, and put the rest aside for a rainy day. But for the mega-rich, donating to the Conservative party – or philanthropy, as George Eustice, the environment secretary, put it – seems quite a cheap way of sharp-elbowing your way into positions of power. The Sunday Times reported that a £3m donation and a token stint as party treasurer was enough to guarantee a seat in the House of Lords. Which actually seems extraordinarily good value at the price. If you’ve got more than £100m in the bank – and the Conservatives know plenty who have – then you’d barely notice £3m sliding out of your account. And for that you get to call yourself Lord and pick up all sorts of other perks that come with the title. It’s time the Tories showed the upper house some proper respect and moved the entry bar into the tens of millions.
