This newspaper is no fan of Ukip, but nor can it abide the antidemocratic stitch-up by which lords are currently appointed. Even before its regrettable triumph in the Brexit referendum, Ukip was the third-biggest party in Britain by general-election vote share. That it must still beg to nominate a single member of the bloated, 812-member upper house is a scandal. Mr Farage should be ennobled at once, along with a few of his colleagues, peerless fools though they may be.

Aside from 26 bishops of the Church of England, who get an automatic place, Lords are appointed at the discretion of the prime minister. Prime ministers normally claim to make their appointments reflect either the popular vote or the make-up of the elected House of Commons, both of which tend to let them nominate more from their own side. Yet neither approach justifies overlooking Ukip. By vote-share, Ukip has for more than a decade trumped various smaller parties that are represented in the Lords; last year it eclipsed even the Liberal Democrats, who have 104 peers. Governments sometimes argued that Ukip could be ignored because of its failure to win any seats in the Commons, something those smaller parties had all managed. (This argument also justified not giving peerages to the far-right British National Party.) But in 2014 Ukip won its first Commons seats. The injustice now is glaring ...

Liberals who despair at the thought of Mr Farage enjoying a second act in public life may yet find that he makes a better peer than they expect. He has spent 17 years as an MEP highlighting the absurdities of undemocratic governmental bodies in Brussels, to the point where the public decided they had had enough of them. Were he elevated to the upper house, Lord Farage would not be short of new, better targets.