Rab McNeil: Why silence is golden in the snooze chamber that is the house of Lords

This week, the scandal was dubbed “Cash for no questions” and “The end of the peer show”, following an investigation by

the Guardian, which revealed

that the aforementioned Brookman, L, had claimed £50,000 covering every day the Lords sat last year, despite never saying a word or asking any written questions.

Perhaps the former trade union general secretary thought his mere presence enhanced democracy. Perhaps he was playing his cards close to his chest. Perhaps, like me at parties (going back 20 or 30 years ago now), every time he went to speak, someone more assertive got in first and he was left with his mouth blowing bubbles like a disappointed haddock.

He wasn’t alone in declining to orate, prate or participate. No fewer than 88 peers, roughly one in nine, never uttered a word nor yet sat silently on a committee. Forty-six didn’t even register a vote, including on trivia like Brexit, with one of these claiming 25k in eccies, while another trousered £41,000 for a return of one vote.

Two peers, whose contributions were variable, claimed more than £70,000. I liked the reply of Lord Paul, who took £47,000 despite only voting once, when asked what he did instead of making speeches: “Thinking etc, and giving my point of view to colleagues.”

It’s a thought, isn’t it? He’s a behind-the-scenes peer, subtly influencing the direction of the country. In his dreams. Two years ago, Scotland’s Baroness Smith of Gilmorehill, widow of former Labour leader John Smith, got it in the necklace for never having spoken since 1999. I don’t know if she’s spoken more recently.

Perhaps she is shy. If so, why doesn’t she get sloshed like the others? I was going to say, “That’s what I would do”, but it isn’t. I’d get sloshed and either doze off or spend the time fashioning paper aeroplanes out of the official papers and trying to hit the opposition with same.

I’ll be candid with you here and confess that, despite being invited frequently (well, once upon a time; I think I’m on a blacklist now) to do so, I have never publicly spoken, if that’s the right expresh. I shrink when all eyes turn towards me and, deep down, retain remnants of an atavistic belief that the tribe has chosen me for sacrifice.

I always tell young people who write to me asking for advice about coping with life to strive always to go unnoticed. And where better to do that than in the House of Lords?

When I was thinking of applying for a peerage, my plan was to rise to speak last thing at night when the only other person present was a cleaner and a snoring Lord Foulkes. Why the Brookmans, Smiths and the like don’t do something similar I have no idea. At least it would get their names on the score-sheet.

Again two years ago, a BBC documentary revealed that one peer had turned up in a taxi and told the driver to keep the engine running while he nipped in to sign the attendance register, thereby entitling him to the £300 daily allowance, before buzzing off to dine at the Ritz followed by a game of bowls.

It’s gone beyond a joke now. It wouldn’t be so bad if there weren’t so many of them, but there are 784, making the Lords the second biggest chamber in the world after China’s House of Democratic Dictators.

I sympathise with those who will not speak, and confess I’d like nothing better than to loll around on plush red benches listening to amusing debates. But the country will not tolerate it, and I’m afraid the eyes of the tribe are now turning to these peers with a view to sacrifice.

++++

US President Derek Trump is at it again, making free with the oleaginous praise. This week, it was aimed at Boris Johnson, future Tory Prime Minister of England, and Nigel Farridge, putative Foreign Secretary in a coalition government (you read it here first).

Said Derek: “They are two very good guys, very interesting people.” Cripes, I think “interesting” is over-egging it a bit. Perhaps he was really referring to the two large men in thongs that he’d just watched wrestling with each other in yonder Tokyo before going on to have Sumo Enchanted Evening at a dinner with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe – aye, him – and his missus.

God knows what Big D had to eat, but at lunch they gave him the traditional Japanese double-cheeseburger. They know how to treat the big bairn.

Mr T. arrives in the UK on Monday for the usual sumptuous dinners with the usual fatuous royals amidst the usual pointless protests from the usual abject subjects.

After that, he’s going to the D-Day anniversary commemorations in yonder France, where his aides will brief him that this was a turning point in the war between England and Germany. And he will say: “Very interesting.”

++++

IN another shocking example of historical revisionism, historian Lucy Worsley has claimed Queen Victoria did not enjoy royal rumpy-pumpy with her Scottish “servant”, John Brown.

The author of Queen Victoria: Daughter, Wife, Mother, Widow said: “I don’t believe they were ever swinging from the chandeliers at all. There was some thought that menopausal women would become sex maniacs. I think it’s this nymphomania that drove the obsession with her and her Scottish servant John Brown.”

Thus another myth is shattered. Ms Worsley admits that Victoria’s diaries suggest she missed human touch after the death of her husband, Albert. But as far as Broon was concerned, this appears to have gone no further than patting him on the heid or booting him up the bum when he bent down to sniff some horse manure.

It’s true that Victoria gave him the special title of Queen’s Highland Servant, and that she asked to be buried with his picture, and that letters between them were supposedly destroyed, and that the royal children referred to him as “Mamma’s Stallion”.

But let the historical record show that, clearly, they were just besties.

++++

LIKE many readers I’m sure, I’ve enjoyed the spirited correspondence in the letters page about inappropriate expressions for saying “Goodbye”.

In particular, the pronouncement “See you later” uttered to strangers you’d never come across again came in for pellucid criticism. This was followed by an account of hackles being elevated on being instructed to “Have a nice day”, the vacuous if well meaning expression that originated across yon pond.

However, the one that always got my hardy domesticated ruminant was: “Take care.” This might have been appropriate on the mean streets of 1980s New York, but people used to say it to me in a quiet rural area where the worst that could happen is that a seagull might poop on your heid or a sheep try to mug you.

It goes to show, I suppose, how much we take our lead from things said on the telly, quietly absorbing them and thinking they sound quite smart or “with it”. It’s like that peculiar habit some people have of adding an interrogative tone at the end of sentences, which appears to have come from Australian soaps.

On which note, it only remains for me to say farewell till next week?

Read more: Entertaining Trump – when Charles meets Donald