LET us say it clearly – and straight away. Parliament, the heart of our supposed democracy, is rotten to the core.

First, the Lords. In its original aristocratic form it was, of course, the very antithesis of democracy. But its collective power was steadily eroded, rendering it towards the end little more than a diverting anachronism. If predominately conservative-minded, their noble lordships had the great merit of complete independence. Debates in the Lords were largely free of political cant.

Life peerages were intended to introduce individuals of merit from beyond politics.

They quickly became comfortable berths for retiring MPs. The Lords is stuffed with these superannuated, ermined placemen.

But governments also discovered they could use the Lords to bypass the ballot box in forming the government itself. With his recent appointment of the specially-ennobled Peter Mandelson as Business Secretary, Gordon Brown has pushed this practice further.

For Lord Mandelson is now widely referred to as the real deputy prime minister. Who elected him? No one.

Nor did anyone elect Baroness Vadera, the former City banker who, as Minister for Competitiveness and Small Business, caused a stir by saying she detected “green shoots of recovery”. That row overshadowed the recruitment of another top banker, Mervyn Davies, into Mr Mandelson’s department, where a fourth political life peer, Lord Carter, formerly Mr Brown’s chief strategist, also holds a ministerial post. Hardly government of the people by the people, is it?

But what of the Commons? The MP who seized the mace on the announcement of a third runway for Heathrow provided a useful reminder of the supposed authority of the House. But that has been a fiction for yonks.

The incumbent government virtually always gets its way, even when many of its own MPs do not support what it is doing.

THE third Heathrow runway might be one of those issues where government success is seriously in doubt. So, there is not to be even a debate about it, though its importance locally, nationally and, in its potential climate impact, internationally, can’t be doubted.

The block on a debate will at least mean one reason less to attend the Commons for the many MPs with outside jobs.

With his customary vigour, William Hague recently defended this practice. “You can gain in your effectiveness as a politician from a wide acquaintance with the world and from a degree of independence that having some outside interests give,” he said.

Why being an MP precludes acquaintance with the world – especially bearing in mind the matters raised by constituents – is hard to understand. And is Mr Hague seriously saying that Dennis Skinner, for instance, an MP who takes no outside employment, is less independent than himself? It is hard to believe that the loyalties of an MP who holds two directorships and advisory roles with three more companies do not sometimes pull in conflicting directions.

Meanwhile, the Commons’ rot erupts in other ways. MPs are being given a vote on whether their expenses receipts should be published. A “No” vote will be backdated, to stifle existing requests for publication under the Freedom of Information Act. The announcement came amid the Heathrow furore – one source of stink masking another. Yes, “rotten to the core” perfectly fits the bill.