There has been a fair amount of comment in the Tory Blogs about Brown not ruling out peerages for the Taxi Three (for example here is Iain Dale on the issue). I’m guessing this is an attempt to make Brown look bad when compared to Cameron who did rule out giving Sir John Butterfill a peerage. 

The problem with this comparison, is that people who care about the Lords are are that both Labour and the Liberal Democrats are now committed to a wholly elected second chamber appointed through a form of PR. The Tories, on the other hand are committed only to “work to build a consensus for a mainly elected second chamber to replace the House of Lords” which leaves plenty of wiggle room.

In three of the four likely electoral outcome scenarios, a party in favour of a fully elected second chamber is likely to have a say in the matter. Given this, it’s quite presumptuous of Cameron to assume he will have peerages in his gift.

I posted earlier about the Tories’ Rovian technique of taking their own weaknesses and parading them as strengths and it seems to me that this is another case of the same.

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