Today the Commons had a particularly pungent reminder of why the House of Lords has had its power continuously reduced. We have heard plenty of debate, during readings of the prospective reimplementation of the Parliament Bill, about how the House of Lords represents a nuanced chamber of technocrats and constructive amendment.

There is no doubt much comfort in believing this to be true. However, when over the last few months the Lords have rejected Rail Electrification, Land Reform, and Northern Ireland Income Tax devolution, all without amendment, one has to question the foundation of this belief. Indeed the Lords continued to stubbornly oppose Land Reform to the end, it only entering Royal Assent after two of their rejections because they did not amend any of the aspects they claimed to oppose. Northern Ireland Tax Devolution was a particularly galling rejection, as the Most Noble Lords did not even deign to post a single debate comment under it before rejecting it!

However, it is not even the debate regarding stripping powers from the House of Lords that has shown the true puerile pretensions of some of the Lords. It was instead in the current reading of the supposed 'High Speed 4' project drafted by the Conservatives that this reared its head. Setting aside the nonsensical choices in the hand planned route of the rails, which include running directly through a historical castle and making a turn in the middle of a flowing river, we must turn to the behaviour of the Tory Leader and Deputy Leader.

In recent debates about the racist views of members of their party, views they refuse to publicly condemn or punish such members for, they claimed you could not judge the Tory party by one member. It therefore stands to reason that if the buck stops anywhere, it must stop with the two leaders of the party. What we saw today was instead a truly shocking display of arrogance and ignorance, as the Tory DL attempts to deflect any criticism of his personally planned route by saying that if any of his decisions do not follow common sense, the Government should not carry them out. Of course we all know that if our Government made any changes, he would lambast them, no matter how simple and 'common sense' they were.

Most embarrassing of all was the Tory Leader himself attempting to abuse his powers as Deputy Lord Speaker for political debate! Not only does a DLS have no power in the Commons to issue such points of order, no such official can use that power to force answers from individuals, least of all in a pathetic attempt at deflecting. Indeed the Tory DL took to responding to all questions or criticisms with the same stock answer, attempting to paint all opponents as not wanting good transport for Cornwall. In the end the two had to be escorted from the Chamber for the day due to that and unparliamentary insults hurled at the Shadow Defence Secretary.

After all their pomp and circumstance about proper parliamentary respect, and creating a more civil debate environment, this is the result: public humiliation. A party that not only is bleeding members to defection, hiding their racist scum from any consequences while claiming a moral high ground, but that is represented by perhaps the two biggest laughingstocks in all of Parliament.

I sincerely hope that those Lords who truly respect the supposed legacy of their chamber can prevent this being what defines it, but I doubt they will succeed in doing so. A snake rots from the head, and this one is half skeleton already.