Right conclusion Eggy, but I'm a little confused as to how you got there!
We took an archaic system (hereditary peers who gave their time for free) and replaced it with a system which encouraged cronyism on an unprecedented scale, then called it progress. Next time we need to a lot less gullible, and a lot more aware of the self-rewarding games our elites get up to! I'm told about thirty of these lords-a-voting enjoy fat EU pensions which are contractually tied to doing nothing which the EU even mildly disapproves of - yet, have any of them declared this fact?