Take the Bishops

The most die-hard Anglicans, if there are such things, must feel some sympathy for secularists campaigning to remove the bishops from the House of Lords. If you had to invent the British political system from scratch you’d struggle to think of any reason to include them. But the same applies to large swathes of the British political life: from the Crown downwards, not much of it would make it past a modern focus group. But reforming this cobwebbed muddle is a thankless task, too …