A peer is for life, not just for Christmas. Goats tend to last only a couple of years. At present, when ministers are appointed from outside Parliament, they are awarded peerages. It is a problem, Sir John Major told the House of Commons Public Affairs Committee yesterday, that such people can then vote on legislation in the House of Lords in perpetuity. Our former Prime Minister has a point. Of all those appointed to Gordon Brown’s “government of all the talents” two years ago, only Lord West of Spithead (aka Alan) remains. Lord Darzi of Denham (Ara), Lord Jones of Birmingham (Digby), Lord Carter of Barnes (Stephen) and Lord Malloch-Brown (Mark) have gone, and yet all remain on the red benches. There are no constituency associations to deselect these people. Barring death or reform, they are there for ever.

This cannot be right. Gordon Brown’s own goatherding may have turned out to be something between a publicity exercise and a debacle, but the principle is a sound one. A prime minister should, indeed, be able to appoint able figures from outside Parliament. He should also, however, be able to get rid of them. Sir John’s suggestions are twofold. Either former ministers should be stripped of their peerages — if not their titles — or, more radically, some provision could be made to allow unelected ministers to appear before the Commons.

Both of these ideas are good ones. Indeed, let us go farther, and take their titles, too. The current system creates a perverse incentive to take up office for all the wrong reasons. Without reform, the Lords may soon become overrun with goats, necessitating a painful cull.