THIS Government was swept into power in 1997 on the back of a manifesto which promised to create a wholly or mainly elected second chamber.

On the premise that turkeys don't vote for Christmas, there was opposition from peers.

But there was precious little public opposition to the overhaul of a system based on feudal traditions with little or no relevance in the modern age.

However, six years on from its election victory, the Government has failed to deliver its promised reform.

Instead, it is proposing changes which replace one system of patronage with another system of patronage, while, at the same time, emasculating the House of Lords as a worthwhile and independent assembly.

These proposals must be resisted, and the Government must be persuaded to revert to its manifesto pledge to create an elected and genuinely accountable chamber.

A second chamber is a fundamental component of parliamentary democracies. It is a check on the potential abuse of power by the legislative assembly and the executive, or both.

Few people will shed tears at the end of hereditary peers. They have no place in a supposedly all-inclusive society.

But cramming the benches with appointees from the main political parties is a wholly unsatisfactory alternative in a year which has seen Britain go to war in a foreign land preaching the virtues of free elections and representative government.

The Lord Chancellor insists the proposal "will create a House that is significantly different from that which presently exists". He is wrong. All he is doing is replacing one set of unaccountable parliamentarians with a different set of unaccountable parliamentarians.

These so-called reforms are far removed from the promise of the 1997 manifesto. They do not represent a radical overhaul aimed at creating a more effective and efficient system of government.

They are aimed at removing the last vestiges of power from the House of Lords, to put even more power in the hands of the Prime Minister and his Cabinet colleagues.

These reforms represent a dilution of parliamentary democracy, and an extension of a presidential system adopted by a Government intent on stifling the power of Parliament.