History Today: How to Leave the House of Lords

Appointments to the House of Lords have long been a sore on the British body politic. In 1922 David Lloyd George was exposed for egregiously selling peerages in exchange for donations to the Liberal Party. The Honours (Prevention of Abuses) Act followed in 1925, but the banning of such overtly corrupt practices didn’t restore complete confidence in appointments. A century later, Boris Johnson’s resignation honours list and the peers it created (or, in several cases, did not create) sparked another bout of introspection about who is worthy of a place on the red benches.

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