If the newspaper reports are correct and Margaret Hodge is about to be named as the next chair of Ofcom, it’s a surprising choice. The current chair, Michael Grade, had a storied television career, whereas Hodge has never worked in the media. But the most jaw-dropping thing about this appointment is that she’s 81. Not that I’ve got anything against octogenarians – I’ll be one myself in the blink of an eye. But the government has. In its manifesto, Labour promised to introduce a mandatory retirement age of 80 in the House of Lords, and it’s already set the wheels in motion.
Why is Margaret Hodge considered to be too old to sit in the Upper House, but not too old to chair a public regulator? To complicate things, Sir Keir Starmer made her a peer in August 2024.
My colleagues and I have been puzzling over why the government is pressing ahead with such a disruptive reform. After all, it will mean quite a few of us having to hang up our spurs. Lord True, the Tory leader in the Lords, recently asked the government to list all current members who will reach the age of 80 by 4 July 2029, broken down by party. The answer was 93 crossbenchers, 38 Liberal Democrats, 89 Conservatives and 96 Labour. Notwithstanding its kamikaze instincts, why is the government introducing a measure that’s going to do more damage to the Labour benches than to the opposition?
Admittedly, it’s also intending to get rid of the 85 remaining hereditaries, which will mean 43 fewer Tories. But even so, the Conservatives would still be the largest single group after the cull. So what’s Sir Keir up to?
The answer, I think, is that he intends to replace most of the departing peers with Labour apparatchiks. So far, he’s created 96 peers since becoming Prime Minister – seven of them crossbenchers, seven Lib Dems, 17 Conservatives and 65 Labour. I’ve calculated that if that pattern continues until July 2029, he will end up creating 19 crossbench peers, 19 Lib Dems, 46 Conservatives and a whopping 177 members of his own political tribe. That will mean Labour becomes by far the largest single party in the Upper House, able to win any vote save for when all three of the other groups combine.
That will be disastrous if, by some miracle, Labour manages to get re-elected. Instead of being a revising chamber, the House of Lords would become an echo chamber, nodding through every government bill. But it will be far more problematic if Reform wins. Even if the Tories and crossbenchers are willing to bend the knee to the House of Commons, Labour will still be able to vote down every bill unless the Lib Dems side with the government, which is vanishingly unlikely. That will provoke an immediate constitutional crisis, forcing Nigel Farage to either flood the chamber with 400 Reform peers or bypass the Lords altogether.
Instead of being a revising chamber, the Upper House would be an echo chamber
In effect, a measure supposedly intended to enhance the authority of the Upper House – mandatory retirement at 80 – will plunge it into an existential crisis. Proponents of this reform will say I’m being alarmist, because it’s inconceivable that Starmer will create an additional 177 Labour peers between now and 2029. But am I? The PM who holds the record is Tony Blair, who created 374 life peers. That’s an average of roughly 37 a year, whereas Starmeris averaging 59 a year. And if he has ever experienced a flicker of doubt about the propriety of packing the red benches with his supporters, that will have been extinguished by the numerous defeats he’s suffered in the Lords. I’m pretty sure he’s determined to neuter us by any means necessary.
In that light, Sir Keir’s appointment of the 81-year-old Hodge to the Ofcom job may be a way of sticking two fingers up at us. Look, he’s saying. I obviously don’t really think 80 is too old to be a member of the Upper House. Mandatory retirement is just a ruse to rebalance the chamber in Labour’s favour. And I have so little respect for the Lords that I’m not going to make any attempt to conceal my true intentions. On the contrary, I want you to know what I’m up to, you old fools. Enjoy your luxurious retirement home while you can. Soon you’ll be out on the street.
Is that really what’s going on in Starmer’s head? I wonder. Perhaps there’s so little joined-up thinking in the government that it can simultaneously appoint an 81-year-old baroness to be the head of a hugely influential public regulator and, at the same time, believe that anyone in parliament over 80 should be tossed on the scrapheap. One thing is clear: we need to get rid of these terrible vandals before they do any more damage.
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