AS far as I know, no-one has yet calculated this year's going rate, but no doubt we'll have the figures shortly.

The price of ermine is an infallible guide to inflation. It is a guide to a few other things, too, but this no longer counts as news where Britain's legislature is concerned.

In fact, the sight of Westminster parties handing out peerages like goody bags at an overgrown kids' party is liable to produce little more than a weary sigh and another drop in turn-out when next we are called on to vote. Despite their pious fibs, the politicians don't give up. Bit by bit, outrage and astonishment dissipate. Only contempt remains.

There is nothing new historically about the debasing of the peerage, of course. You would be hard pushed to find an era when it lived up to the grand claims made on its behalf. Lloyd George became infamous after 1916 simply because he dropped the pretence over honours and cash. At £50,000 for a seat in the Lords - 91 deserving cases were discovered - at least he wasn't cheap.

It goes without saying that a handy majority of the 30 new peers announced by David Cameron are not donors to anyone's party funds. It is also reasonable to believe that several of those honoured deserve recognition. You could even take the ingenious view, once popular among Tories, that no-one should be excoriated for putting their money where their mouths are, politically speaking. Apparently, it shows they care.

Why civic-mindedness, largesse and a seat in the legislature should go together is another matter. In fact, it would surely be a better test of a commitment to democracy if all those donating more than £5000 to party funds were banned outright from the second chamber. Since their only interest is better government and the common good, the benefactors wouldn't mind, would they?

As things stand, Edinburgh's unicameral parliament, imperfect as it is, looks like a better model with every passing year. It offers no scope for an in-house retirement home. The promise of elevation to the senate (or whatever) can't be used to rig constituency selections. The cash-and-carry trade in public honours is near-impossible to pursue.

At Westminster, in lurid contrast, David Cameron has decided to stick with tradition. Dave has done so with the unhesitating complicity of Nick and Ed. Three men who expended a lot of breath arguing over Lords reform now work together to make a bloated mockery of the second chamber. The hereditaries have been culled, but patronage flourishes. With 785 members, very possibly a planetary record, the idea of the Lords as a revising body has been turned into a joke.

Its defenders bridle at that sort of slur. They talk endlessly and affectionately of the sagacity of superannuated party hacks and those rewarded for cash, celebrity or "services". Yet they don't pursue the logic of what Messrs Cameron, Clegg and Miliband have contrived. Why stop at allowing donors to participate in the legislative process in the Lords? Why not just let them have a free run at a few Commons constituencies in exchange for their money?

Two Labour peers were suspended by the party in June amid lobbying allegations. Lord Laird, the Ulster Unionist, has referred himself to the parliamentary authorities while denying any breach of the rules. At the moment no fewer than 53 peers are on leave of absence or suspended. The controversies might all come to nothing, but they serve to prove that a peerage is not some bauble designed to appeal to the vanity of the rich. Power, however limited, is at stake.

Tony Blair understood as much. In another of the episodes he no longer likes to talk about, the former Labour leader was interviewed three times by the Metropolitan Police in 2006 when four nominations to the Lords and loans to Blair's party amounting to £14m struck the SNP and Plaid Cymru as more than coincidental. The Crown Prosecution Service failed to join the dots, but did not rebut the claim that titles and a ton of money may have been connected.

Cash alone is not, so to speak, the question. Several of those put forward by Mr Cameron, Mr Miliband and Mr Clegg are simply party types who have been deemed fit for reward. There's a former Liberal Democrat press secretary and "communications adviser". There's a Times columnist, Danny Finkelstein, who once worked for John Major and now advises Mr Cameron "informally". There's a lobbyist and former fund-raiser for Gordon Brown. Several of those who have written cheques have also been active in the affairs of their favourite faction.

The result is the packing of the second chamber. The 90 Tory MPs (and others) who rebelled a year ago against the possibility that some in the Lords could be elected did not discuss this aspect of tradition. Though cross-benchers and dissident peers sometimes obstruct the government of the day, the second chamber is subservient to party and the electorate has no say in the matter. It makes Stalinism seem amateurish.

In one weird sense, nevertheless, Mr Cameron and his partners in crime have been restrained. Picking 14 Tories, 10 LibDems, five Labour types and a Green - giving the Coalition a theoretical majority of 100 - the party leaders have not been half as extravagant as they could have been. Defenders of the Union neglect to mention the astonishing fact, but it is within a Prime Minister's gift to create as many peers as he likes. There is no upper limit. The only inhibition for the likes of Mr Cameron is the knowledge that Labour, when or if it returns to power, could simply churn out its own titled proxies to even the score. This is what passes for checks and balances. It is a game that has precious little, if anything, to do with democracy. One result is a chamber with standing room only and no legitimacy whatever.

Note only that they are all in it together. Mr Miliband did not dissent. Mr Clegg, for all his vapourings over reform, was quick enough to recognise the intrinsic merits of the very rich. Those Lords benches offer only another round in the game of musical chairs that has become the single version of politics understood in Westminster. And we are allowed no say at all. Even when the LibDem conference expresses preferences it finds itself ignored by its leader.

The pity is that people such as Doreen Lawrence, the former paraplegic swimmer Chris Holmes, and the Green activist Jenny Jones have been used as window-dressing for this shoddy operation. Their merits - Ms Jones, it should be said, was chosen by a party ballot - have been exploited to distract attention from what has really gone on. Big money and party hacks, often one and the same, infest Westminster's parody of democracy.

No-one is fooled, of course. The offer of an honour appears to follow a big donation to a party as night follows day. Those responsible see nothing amiss, but guess that Lords reform is never high on the electorate's list of important issues. The politicians also understand something else. There is not a thing we can do about it. For its beneficiaries, the system is working beautifully.