The Edition: Keir's peer purge, how to pick an archbishop & is AI ruining sport?
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The Spectator
4.4 • 785 Ratings
🗓️ 10 July 2025
⏱️ 45 minutes
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Summary
This week: Peerless – the purge of the hereditary peers
For this week’s cover, Charles Moore declares that the hereditary principle in Parliament is dead. Even though he lacks ‘a New Model Army’ to enforce the chamber’s full abolition, Keir Starmer is removing the hereditary peers. In doing so, he creates more room, reduces the Conservatives’ numerical advantage, and improves ‘the sex and ethnic balance’. But 86 hard-working and dutiful peers ‘lacking worldly ambition or partisan passions’ will be lost.
Also in the magazine, Sophia Falkner, researcher at The Spectator, sets out exactly what we stand to lose by profiling some of the most capable hereditary peers in the House. She warns that Labour’s purge is ripping the heart out of the Lords. Sophia and Charles spoke to Natasha Feroze earlier this week on Spectator TV – you can also hear their discussion on the podcast. (01:10)
Next: Why should the hunt for the next Archbishop of Canterbury be ‘inclusive’?
That’s the question Revd Fergus Butler-Gallie asks in the magazine this week. ‘It will be a miracle,’ writes Butler-Gallie, ‘if we know the name of the new Primate of All England by the autumn.’ Justin Welby announced his resignation as Archbishop of Canterbury last November; it took until May this year even to assemble the committee to discuss his potential successors.
For Butler-Gallie, the process doesn’t have to be swift – it only has to be ‘holy’. To discuss what exactly constitutes a ‘holy process’ – and what this drawn-out process says about the Church – he joined us alongside Esme Partridge, journalist and master’s student in philosophy and religion at Cambridge University. (18:57)
Finally: Does AI belong on the tennis court?
Patrick Kidd writes in the magazine about the creep of AI spoiling sport, following a high-profile incident during this week’s Wimbledon tournament in which the AI system stands accused of ‘human error’. To discuss, Kidd was joined by Dr Tom Webb, founder of the Referee and Sports Official Research Network. (34:16)
Hosted by William Moore and Gus Carter
Produced by Oscar Edmondson and Ed Harvey
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to the edition podcast from The Spectator, where each week we shed a little light on the thought process behind putting the world's oldest weekly magazine to bed. |
| 0:17.1 | I'm Gus Carter, the Spectator's Deputy Features Editor. And I'm William Moore, the Spectator's |
| 0:21.7 | Features Editor. On this week's podcast, The Purge of the Hereditary Peers, How Not to Choose the |
| 0:27.5 | Next Archbishop of Canterbury, and does AI belong on the tennis court? |
| 0:37.1 | In this week's cover piece, Charles Moore looks at Sarkir Stama's plans to get rid of the hereditary |
| 0:42.0 | peers in the House of Lords. He says that even though Stama lacks a new model army to fully |
| 0:47.2 | abolish the house, he's still removing the 86 hardworking and dutiful peers, replacing them |
| 0:53.1 | with the likes of Tom Watson, Sue Gray and Richard |
| 0:55.6 | Homer. Also in the magazine is Sophia Faulkner, a researcher at The Spectator, who profiles |
| 1:00.6 | several of the colourful and interesting members of the hereditary peers. |
| 1:04.9 | Sophia and Charles spoke to Natasha Froes earlier this week on Spectator TV, and you can |
| 1:09.3 | listen to their discussion here. |
| 1:15.9 | But Lord Moore, tell us about the hereditary peers that may be gone in as soon as a month. |
| 1:21.4 | Yes, well, of course, the House of Lords chiefly consisted of hereditary peers for 800 years. |
| 1:31.6 | And Tony Blair tried to get rid of the lot in 1999 and failed because he had failed to bring forward his full reform package, |
| 1:32.5 | which was part of the deal. |
| 1:36.6 | So he did a deal with the Tories, which kept 92 of them for the time being. |
| 1:42.6 | And now, Sikir Starmor is getting rid of those 92, who've actually fallen in number to 86, |
| 1:45.4 | and still there's no general reform package. |
| 1:51.1 | So there's a lot of resentment because essentially you're slicing off a group of peers without reconstituting the house in any way. And that would normally be considered quite a naughty |
| 1:56.0 | thing for a government, for the executive to do to a legislature. And you've been involved |
| 2:00.5 | in creating, forgive my language, I forgot the terminology wrong, |
... |
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