Not with a bang but a whimper, last month Britain's hereditary lords slid out of their ermine robes and off the scarlet-padded benches and retired to their country seats. A line of continuity from feudalism has finally been broken.
Parliament still has its upper house, and it still has 92 hereditary peers in it. But they are outnumbered by over 300 life peers. The Conservatives still have a scant majority, but the remaining powers of the Lords -- to revise and delay legislation from the House of Commons -- have been so undermined that it is hard to imagine them doing anything but add to the spectacle of politics. Which is pretty much all that our major institutions do anyway.
By promising reform of the House of Lords, Labor redeemed a pledge made in 1911 when a reforming Liberal government threatened to banish the Lords permanently if they did not stop blocking Commons legislation. That was the government that first introduced some basic welfare measures, like old-age pensions and, much more alarming to Britain's lords, threatened to give trade unions new powers to take strike action.