House of Peers

This “silent filibuster” is a major reason the Senate has devolved from “the world’s greatest deliberative body” into one approximating Gilbert and Sullivan’s House of Peers, which “did nothing in particular and did it very well.”

And while the House of Peers withholds Its legislative hand, And noble statesmen do not itch To interfere with matters which They do not understand, As bright will shine Great Britain’s rays As in King George’s glorious days!

Lord Taylor responded to say "this is a House of peers, we are all equal".

In a typically British piece of formal pomp, the speaker of the UK House of Commons, John Bercow, last week declared: “I have to acquaint the House that the House has been to the House of Peers, where a Commission under the Great Seal was read, authorizing the Royal Assent to the following Acts.”

It is ended by a song from Mount-Ararat in praise of the House of Peers, which sparkles with satire on the members of that ancient institution, who make "no pretence to intellectual eminence or scholarship sublime."