How should one define a Tory? Dr Johnson, the 18th century man of letters, thought that a Tory was a person who had an instinctive reverence for what was established. According to Johnson, this meant respect for the Crown, a prejudice in favour of the landed interest and a loyalty towards the Church of England. This could easily be summed up utilising the three C’s; that is, Constitution, Crown and Church. 

Indeed, some Tories have been especially keen on our constitution. The Iron Duke springs to mind. During the Reform crisis of 1828–32, the Duke of Wellington, in response to Earl Grey’s speech on reform of the constitution, said “the existing constitution was so perfect” that he could “not imagine any possible alternative that would be an improvement”. 

Of course, there have been many esteemed admirers of the British constitution over the years. Benjamin Disraeli, in a famous speech in April 1872, said “the programme of the Conservative party is to maintain the Constitution”. The Conservative Party has certainly presented itself as the party of the constitution over the years. The 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, on the 16th of April 1884, in a speech at the Free Trade Hall in Manchester said, “Constitutional institutions are splendid things” and then proceed to articulate a fundamental conservative belief that any constitution whether written or unwritten or codified or uncodified “depends upon the character of the people to whom it is applied”. Russell Kirk made the observation that “no matter how admirable a constitution may look upon paper, it will be ineffectual unless the unwritten constitution, the web of custom and convention, affirms an enduring moral order of obligation and personal responsibility.” 

The Labour administration is picking up their constitutional vandalism from where they left office in 2010

Salisbury in his speech tied this fundamental belief to two others; that is, humans are at root religious animals and that religion is foundational for civil obligation. As Edmund Burke put it “we know and feel inwardly that religion is the basis of civil society, and the source of all good and all comfort”. Disraeli put the point thus: “The most powerful principle which governs man is the religious principle.” Salisbury tied all of this together saying that “there is no circumstance which influences those people more than the religion which they profess”. This line of thought argues that constitutions are influenced by culture and culture is influenced by religion. This reasoning has historically led British Conservatives to argue for some form of intertwining of church and state, and in particular for the conservation of the Church of England’s Archbishops and Bishops in the House of Lords. 

The Labour administration is picking up their constitutional vandalism from where they left office in 2010. They think they have unfinished business as The House of Lords Act 1999 planned to completely remove the centuries-old link between a hereditary peerage and a seat in the Upper House, yet a minority of hereditary Peers managed to avoid Labour’s guillotine. Now Starmer’s Labour are circling back to this with their new bill, the House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill. This Bill will remove the 92 hereditary Peers that were not chopped previously. The policy is based on a misunderstanding of society and government. Removing the hereditary Peers will not improve our legislation or improve our constitution, but it will cut away at the roots of our constitutional order. Unfortunately, in the age of “liquid modernity”, as Zygmunt Bauman put it, stability, continuity and permanence are undervalued or outright rejected. 

Sir Gavin Williamson MP said in the House of Commons that “I think many Members were excited about the change he proposed,” referring to Labour’s manifesto, and Williamson thought that Labour’s vandalism of the constitution should go further. Sir Gavin said that “need to lance the boil of the frankly ridiculous fact that we have clergy automatically sitting, as of right, in one of the Houses that make up this Parliament.” Just in case we did not get his meaning Williamson adds “To me, that is not right.” He then added insult to injury by comparing Britain to “Iran”. 

There are 26 Lords Spiritual in the Upper House and they make up just over 3 per cent of the membership. Their participation in votes is very low due to diocesan responsibilities. In the 2022-23 session they, as a group, took part in six per cent of the votes. Only two per cent were in favour of the Conservative administration and understandably some Conservatives, including myself, have taken umbrage at this voting record. Lord Norton of Louth notes that the Lords Spiritual (Archbishops and Bishops) are different from lords temporal “in that they retire when they cease to be bishops”. Thus, they are ex officio, meaning they only sit in the house when they hold office and bishops retire at the age of 70, so there is turnover in personnel and different bishops display different voting behaviour. 

The output of the Lords Spiritual should not be our main focus anyway, as their input to our constitution as an institution is more important and substantial. Let me turn to Walter Bagehot, a conservative Liberal, to assist me in making the point. In his The English Constitution, Bagehot suggested that a constitution requires two parts. These parts are the “dignified” and the “efficient”. The “dignified” is to “excite and preserve the reverence of the population” and the “efficient” is to “employ that homage in the work of government”. The Lords Spiritual should be considered as part of the “dignified” element of the constitution. The Crown is also part of dignified elements of the constitution and ought to be conserved. These dignified elements of the constitution in relation to reform ought to be treated differently. The question should be: do the Lords Spiritual dignify the constitution by their presents in the House of Lords? Yes, they do. Conservatives, therefore, should aim to conserve the dignified elements of our constitution, including the lords spiritual in the House of Lords, because as Disraeli stated a “wise Goverment, allying itself with religion, would as it were consecrate society, and sanctify the State.” Well, if you cannot go that far, how about “loyal indifference”, to borrow a phrase from Roger Scruton?