The Salisbury convention that avoided complete Lords reforms for the last century is dead, but achieving any mandate for change that peers must accept remains very difficult

The government’s proposals to reform the House of Lords are only the latest in a long line of initiatives. Iain McLean takes an in-depth history of movements to reform the House of Lords, and finds that while over much of the 20th century, political parties fought over reform, 2010 was the first time that an elected upper house was in the manifestos of all three major parties.