IT IS time to alert people to the irrevocable changes being foisted upon the nation by the Labour government. We will have Scottish Home Rule and a Welsh Assembly.

We may also have a voting system which ignores the will of the electorate, a politicised judiciary, unaddressed feelings of English nationalism, and a giant quango instead of a Second Chamber.

Much of what we hold dear we have taken for granted for too long, and now that institutions such as the House of Lords are under threat we are awakening.

Removing the main independent element in the House of Lords by excluding hereditary peers is potentially the most damaging step of all in this government's drive to reform the constitution of the United Kingdom.

Labour's plans could lead to a House almost entirely composed of nominated peers, which would be a huge and dangerous extension of Prime Ministerial power.

Recent moves by the Lords to scupper legislation to reduce the homosexual age of consent are proof of the Upper House's value as a revising chamber.

Such a ludicrous measure would have automatically reached the statute book and become enshrined in law if it had not been for the freedom and independence enjoyed by members of the House of Lords to exercise their will.

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