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In many ways the House of Lords has changed little over the centuries. There's more gold on display than in your average Premier League footballer's earlobe - and more ermine on display during state occasions than at your typical stoat farm.

But their lordships are changing. There will soon be as many former leaders of Plaid Cymru in the upper house as there are ex-leaders of the Conservative Party - and twice as many as there are retired Labour leaders. This, despite the fact that the Lords has less say over day-to-day issues in Wales than it has had for centuries.

With Jenny Randerson's elevation there will be also more Welsh Liberal Democrats there than in either the Welsh assembly or the House of Commons. The party that has consistently campaigned for an elected second chamber, or senate, has not been slow to turn down seats in the unelected one.

There are also more peers of all parties and none. More than fifty were announced last week, taking the total created since the general election to more than a hundred. There are, apparently, more on the way.

If the coalition government gets its way there will be fifty fewer elected MPs by the time of the general election but at this rate there will be considerably more unelected peers by then.

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