Membership of the British House of Lords (and she is still a peer) does not sit well with most peoples idea of democratic accountability and all sides - even the yes campaign - conceded the EU had some way to go to make the EU institutions appear "closer to the people" and to encourage greater popular identification and emotional involvement with those institutions.

Actually, an unelected second-reading chamber helps protect the State from the influence of money. Case in point: if the House of Lords votes down 42-day detention it will be in part because Brown can't threaten the Lords with a snap election where they'd lose their seats, or engage in horse-trading on individual constituency demands.

So I am convinced that having two directly elected chambers is a waste but I am not convinced that an unelected second chamber is a bad idea. Spain's Senate definitely is useless as configured and I would much rather it be replaced with the Conference of Presidents.