Baroness Charlotte Owen’s first appearance in the Lords in 2023

YOU can’t be rude, it’s someone’s big day – but what do you really say to somebody who is dressed up like a relic from history, red and white robe, the old ermine and about to enter the House of Lords as a new peer?

It’s obviously not the time to say “you look like a playing card” – nor, more importantly, to ask for their views on the unelected nature of the second chamber and the controversial additions to its membership over the years by dint of allyship and spectacular prefect greasework.

But Harrington has occasionally wondered, as the congratulations are showered on the recipient, whether it all feels a little hollow inside. Deep down, everybody who signs in knows they have never won the public vote.

In fact the room is full of those who tried and failed at general elections, or had been booted out of the Commons by the same constituency electorate which had once put them there.

Some walk in bold as brass, others look a little sheepish – a little knowing about what really propelled them to the red benches. At least that’s something.

Sitting in the same lunchy chamber will be Baroness Charlotte Owen, the Tory special adviser whose peerage came to symbolise Boris Johnson’s shameless last-minute stuffing of the seats before he left Downing Street.

There was condemnation and fury, and we all heard what an affront it was to democracy.

But the anguished frustration by Labour types suddenly seems rather performative.

Baroness Gray of Tottenham

As the first intake of Sir Keir Starmer’s own hand-picked peers began to take their seats alongside Baroness Owen and the other, you would have to search very hard to find a critique. All of the spit and scorn was suddenly missing.

In truth, the prime minister’s fighting talk about reforming this curious but ineffective room has come to very little. It’s forever strange, as you don’t have to be Student Grant from Viz or prance around in a V for Vendetta Guy Fawkes mask to see the obvious democratic deficit and the reasons why more people sigh than cheer when a new list of peers is released.

Again, in that moment in ermine, surely there must be some emptiness inside?

This week, Sue Gray, who had been Sir Keir’s chief of staff for about two chaotic seconds after the general election walked in. Some say it’s compensation for being bustled out of the well-paid power plays in Downing Street.

Whether she remains angry about how all this played out, who knows? – but her title choice of “Baroness Gray of Tottenham” is not to be seen as a farewell bite at Arsenal-supporting Sir Keir.

Don’t forget the newly-crowned Lord Mike Katz of Fortune Green too.

He tweeted that his introduction was a few hours away, so that none of us missed the grand moment.

Baron Katz of Fortune Green

Twice he stood as a parliamentary candidate but failed to convince the voters to send him to the Commons. One of those occasions was way back in 2001 on our patch and the Two Cities constituency.

Back then, the Tories still had a grip on the borough and Mark Field – the yet to be ennobled Mark Field, no less – had no difficulty resisting his challenge.

Mr Katz spun back to Camden and became a Labour councillor but was deselected by party members in favour of another candidate before he could advance beyond a single term.

More recently, he has been a hero to those fighting anti-Semitism in the Labour Party as the chair of the Jewish Labour Movement, and a bête noir among those now expelled ex-members who think the issue was used to bring down Jeremy Corbyn during his time as leader.

Given his uncompromising language about Mr Corbyn now, it might be a surprise to remember that he stood as a Labour candidate under his leadership in Hendon in 2017.

If 100 or so votes had gone a different way, he might have sat behind Mr Corbyn on the green benches of the Commons as an MP – but it proved to be another loss to the Tories.

There’s more than one door into parliament, however, and this week Lord Katz spoke of his pride at becoming a baron. What a journey it has been.