Glug, glug, glug. Another hard-working lunch for our doddery £300 a day lordships, 令状s QUENTIN LETTS?

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At a long （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する in the House of Lords dining room, about 20 members of the unelected 参議院 were tucking into a silver-service lunch 完全にする with lashings of red and white ワイン ― glug, glug, glug ― and old-school 乳の puddings.?

Another hard-working day for their lordships.

As these lunching 立法議員s chewed on the 問題／発行するs of the day, Lord Walpole, a crossbench peer, turned to a BBC TV camera and said with creamy 楽しみ: ‘現実に, this is where this country is 治める／統治するd from, we like to think so anyway.’

Lord Walpole laughed jovially as he said this, but you wonder what his celebrated ancestor, Robert Walpole (our first 総理大臣, from 1721-1742), would have made of such an 主張 from the unelected House.

It is one of several 静かに 破滅的な vignettes in a BBC 文書の series about the Lords starting next week.

エリート:?Members of The House of Lords sit in the 議会 as they wait for the 明言する／公表する 開始 of 議会

会合，会う the Lords: Doorkeepers James McNaught, Keith Phipps and Karen Stokes

The タイミング of the programme is fortuitously incendiary, 同時に起こる／一致するing, as it does, with peers’ 審議s this week on Brexit.

If the House of Lords is going to try to 妨げる us leaving the EU, as many of its members seem 始める，決める on doing, what sort of people are they and how do they see their 役割?

The 幅の広い answer from the 開始 film of the three-part series is that peers regard themselves as jolly important 専門家s indeed, thank you very much. We should count ourselves lucky to have them!

Baroness D’Souza, （衆議院の）議長 of the Lords when the film was made, had a story about a peer jumping out of a taxi and telling it to wait while he nipped into the Lords to show that he had made an 外見.

Having done the 明らかにする 最小限 of 調印 on for his £300 daily 出席 allowance, the (sadly 無名の) peer jumped 支援する into the taxi and beggared off.

Any half-competent 検察官，検事 might call that （人命などを）奪う，主張するing public money under 誤った pretences.

Maybe Baroness D’Souza ― who is no slouch at expenses herself, and once ran up a £230 法案 for a chauffeur-driven car waiting outside Covent Garden for four hours while she went to the オペラ ― should give the cheat’s 指名する to the 主要都市の Police.

Several Members were exposed as cheats during the expenses スキャンダルs six years ago, two 存在 sent to 刑務所，拘置所 and others 一時停止するd. Has behaviour not 改善するd since then?

By the way, the 一時停止するd peers have crept 支援する. This week, I saw one of them, Baroness Uddin ― she had to 返す £125,000 in expenses after （人命などを）奪う，主張するing for a home she did not live in ― striding into the 議会 without a 影をつくる／尾行する of shame on her 直面する.

The 文書の 申し込む／申し出s テレビ視聴者s a glimpse into the Lords 議会

Lord Palmer speaks out during the programme that has given a glimpse into the pampered world of the House of Lords

‘There is a 核心 of peers who work incredibly hard,’ Lady D’Souza told the BBC, ‘and there are, sad to say, many, many, many peers who 与える／捧げる 絶対 nothing but who （人命などを）奪う，主張する the 十分な allowance.’

Not just ‘many’, please 公式文書，認める. That was ‘many, many, many’. Yet they all have a 投票（する） in the Lords, and so will have several 適切な時期s in the coming months to 封鎖する the 大多数 国民投票 wish of more than 17 million 投票者s who 選ぶd for Brexit.

Lord Prescott, former 副 総理大臣, has never been terribly comfortable 負かす／撃墜する at the red-carpeted end of 議会.

Good for him. In the BBC film he can be seen 述べるing noble Members tottering in for a subsidised dinner, a stiff drink, かもしれない a ちらりと見ること at the newspaper and the 適切な時期 to telephone friends and tell them ostentatiously : ‘I’m （犯罪の）一味ing from the House of Lords.’

Lord Prescott has trouble keeping the contempt from his 発言する／表明する. He even seems to be mimicking their posh accents.

The programme 繰り返して calls the House of Lords ‘a club’, as though it were some sort of congenial watering 穴を開ける for gentlemen and ladies of leisure. Lib Dem peer Lord Tyler 申し込む／申し出s the BBC a different analogy: ‘It’s the best day-care centre for the 年輩の in London. Families can 減少（する） in on him or her and make sure that the staff will look after him very 井戸／弁護士席 ― and he can have a snooze in the afternoon in the 議会 or in the library.’

一方／合間, convivial crossbencher Lord Palmer said that a chum of his could always be 設立する 沈むing gin and tonics in the 妨げる／法廷，弁護士業 井戸／弁護士席 before midday, before moving on to a bucket of red and his lunchtime solids.

Redcoat Jason Bean pictured outside the House of Lords.?A Lords 広報担当者 主張するd the 文書の showed how it was doing its work as ‘an active and 効果的な 改訂するing 議会’

会合，会う The Lords, which begins next Monday, shows 年輩の peers snoozing on the red （法廷の）裁判s during a 審議 and drinking ワイン at the ‘long （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する’ of their taxpayer-subsidised restaurant

Lord Palmer was appalled that the television room, where 確かな peers had enjoyed spending long afternoons watching the tennis from Wimbledon, had been turned ― を締める yourself, Marjorie ― into offices. ‘It’s really rather 驚くべき／特命の／臨時の,’ he said, plainly baffled by this 開発.

I know and like Lord Palmer, but I 恐れる that テレビ視聴者s may find him a いっそう少なく than 完全に democratic 人物／姿／数字 at a time of almost fit-to-爆発する 緊張s between a プロの／賛成の-EU ありふれたs and the プロの／賛成の-Brexit 投票者s.

It is not as if the BBC 始める，決める out to attack the Lords. Far from it. The トン of the programme veers between the playful and the respectful. It has one of those pizzicato soundtracks that 文書の-製造者s use when they are trying to keep things light.

There is something almost ludicrous as a succession of stick-clutching, wobbly nonagenarians is seen arriving for the day’s excitements. ‘They look a lot more frail than they 現実に are,’ says ‘Red Coat’ doorkeeper Jim Bean.

He is 権利. They look doddery but they （権力などを）行使する a lot of (i.e. far too much) 力／強力にする.

As you might 推定する／予想する from the Beeb, there is a subtly anti-Tory message as the programme follows Left-wing peers who are …に反対するing a 住宅 政策 追求するd by the rotten Tory 政府 (the film was made when David Cameron was still in

office). The show bigs up 労働’s Baroness (Oona) King and crossbencher Lord (John) Bird, 創立者 of the Big 問題／発行する magazine.

The film keeps 堅固に i n the background such unsavoury characters as Lord 寺-Morris, a virulently プロの／賛成の-EU いつか Tory MP made a peer in the Blair years after he defected to 労働 (one of several Europhile Tory defectors to be ennobled).

Yeoman 勧める 准將 Neil Baverstock?(left) and 黒人／ボイコット 棒 David Leakey?(権利)

We catch glimpses in the film of Baroness (Karren) Brady, the former 被保護者 of pornographer David Sullivan, who was so controversially given ermine by the Cameroons.

In the background 発射s we see the likes of the Kinnocks, Lib Dem spin doctor Olly Grender, ex-労働 MP Paul Boateng, and a laughable 労働 plodder called Dave ワットs who in all my years of watching the ありふれたs I never heard say a 選び出す／独身 利益／興味ing word (which isn’t to say he didn’t like to 申し込む／申し出 his opinion on the 床に打ち倒す of the House).

All these people are now in the 議会 where our 法律s can be made and our liberty to leave the European Union can be 封鎖するd.

Tory 年上の 政治家 Lord Tebbi t 観察するs that Mrs Thatcher would never have ennobled her husband Denis’s tailor, but that, pretty much, was the calibre of some of the people now 存在 sent to the Lords.

At least a tailor would have a proper 技術. That’s more than you can say about the dismal Dave ワットs.

Will the two remaining programmes in the series catch something of the modern-設立 inertia of today’s Lords: the 広大な numbers of lawyers and lobbyists and former MEPs and European （売買）手数料，委託（する）／委員会／権限 従業員s who now sit on the 参議院’s （法廷の）裁判s?

They were in 活動／戦闘 yesterday in the 議会, 労働’s Baroness (Helena) Kennedy of The Shaws 誇るing 怒って that she and her 同僚s brought ‘専門的知識 from so many walks of life’.

一方／合間, 労働’s Lord Liddle, いつか amanuensis to Lord Mandelson, almost sobbed as he clutched his 長，率いる and ― passions 殺到するing ― 宣言するd his 意向 to fight Brexit for as long as he lived.

Here, 投票者s of Britain, are your lords and 国会議員s. Lunchtime trougher Lord Walpole may have been speaking half in jest when he said ‘this is where the country is 治める／統治するd from’, but some of them really do think they run our lives.

And until the Lords is 改革（する）d, 減ずるd or even 廃止するd, they will go on thinking that.

• 会合，会う The Lords is on BBC2 on Monday at 9pm.