Any support I may have had for those hereditary peers who fought to save the House of Lords has evaporated.

I must admit to having had some sympathy for their claim that they took their seats in order to serve the country with their objective judgements free of any sectional pressure.

My naivety disappeared, however, when I learned that 60 peers who lost their seats are now suing the Government for £1 million each on the grounds they have been deprived of company directorships.

They claim they have unjustly been deprived of them as they no longer sit in the House of Lords.

There was I, thinking they were motivated by nobler thoughts and all the time they were worried about all that money which came to them for occasionally attending board meetings.

Perhaps Plato, after all, knew something when the ruler guardians in his ideal Republic were not allowed to own property.

-R G Jenkins, Hove