09:57

The House of Lords is holding one of its intermittent elections; while the vast majority of the upper house is appointed, the 92 hereditary peers who still work in it are voted in by other members.

This byelection is caused by the death in October of Roger Bootle-Wilbraham, the seventh Baron Skelmersdale, who served as a junior minister in the Thatcher government.

There are 16 hereditary peers seeking to replace him, with members of the Lords able to cast their votes (in the Queen’s robing) room on 22 January.

As usual, the candidates, or rather most of them, have submitted brief campaign pitches for the official election notice. Two – Lords Cadman and Southampton – have not done so while another, Lord Biddulph, wrote pithily if cryptically only: “Always willing to serve”.

Most of the others have experience much as you might expect, especially the Earl of Carnarvon, who talks up his “wide experience of small business, farming, tourism and countryside/heritage matters” - ie running a country estate, in this instance Highclere Castle, known to TV viewers as the set of Downton Abbey.

There are exceptions, however: the current Lord Hampton, whose 19th century ancestor had the title created after he served as secretary of state for war and first lord of the Admiralty, says he is a secondary school teacher in Hackney, east London, who also coaches cricket at a local club.