Facing Extinction, Britain's Aristocrats Make a Curious Case for Survival

> Lord Harlech—or Jasset David Cody Ormsby-Gore—at 38 is the youngest of the hereditary peers. He said they check the power of political appointees, at least until some better system comes along.

> The House of Lords actually does a good job scrutinizing and reviewing legislation. The unnerving question, he said, is whether this is despite it being undemocratic, or because it’s undemocratic.

The concern here seem to be that elected politicians and political appointees are too short-term focused and beholden to contemporary fashions. Lifetime appointees selected through a parallel process would presumably be resistant to these factors. It's not clear to me why "descendants of medieval nobility" would be a good parallel process though - perhaps some sense of noblesse oblige? It seems like one could get equivalent results by randomly choosing people from the general population.