The angst! The hand-wringing! The sheer agony of it all was wondrous to behold. For two hours yesterday the Lords debated whether to suspend two peers for six months over the “cash for amendments” scandal. They saw this as monumental, life-changing, a defining moment in the history of this Sceptred Isle.

“I urge this House to seize the moment!” exhorted Baroness Royall of Blaisdon, the Lord President, so intense and so thin that she resembled a proselytising, red-haired praying mantis.

First she told us of the pain caused. “I’ve had peers come to me and tell me what at times this has meant: being shouted at in the street, their spouses reluctant to go to their local communities because of what people were saying.” Peers nodded, though I think most people would consider this normal life.

“Shakespeare, of course, has the definitive word,” she announced, though I wondered if Shakespeare would want to be dragged into it for fear of being shouted at in the street. “Cassio, Othello’s loyal aide, catches the issue precisely when he tries to explain to the villainous Iago who has manoeuvred to discredit him, what loss he has endured. ‘Reputation, reputation, reputation. Oh I have lost my reputation! I have lost the immortal part of myself and what remains is bestial’.”

I looked out on the red benches. They looked about as bestial as aged pussycats napping on a bed. Neither of the two peers — Lords Truscott and Taylor of Blackburn — was there. Indeed, of the original four accused, only Lord Snape, moustache twitching, had the guts to attend. He had been found guilty only of inappropriate conduct and will have to make a personal statement. It is, as I am sure Shakespeare would agree when Lady Royall mentions it to him, a cruel punishment.

Most of the debate centred on whether the Lords had the power to suspend a peer. Not expel, mind you, suspend. The Attorney-General, Baroness Scotland of Asthal, sitting on the front bench, resplendent in regal purple, did not think it did. The former Lord Chancellor Lord Mackay of Clashfern had disagreed.

Everyone agreed with Lord Mackay. Legal luminaries, as common as crabgrass in the Lords, jumped up to explain why.

I feared what Cassio would say about Lady Scotland’s reputation. She sat, as serene as a reflecting pool, until finally she felt stirred to defend her honour.

“This is a vexed matter which has tested the House on a number of occasions since 1642,” she said. Many members looked dreamy, for they remember it well.

“The Republic was in being, Cromwell was in position and two loyalists Lords were suspended because they went to the King as opposed to coming to this Parliament.”

I wondered, briefly, if those Lords had been shouted at in the street (or, perhaps, beheaded, as was the fashion of the day). The Lady, very grave now, admonished her peers: “I simply say: be cautious!”

Then they did the dastardly deed. History had been made. Shakespeare would approve, I’m sure.

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