Abolition of the House of Lords

Not sure if any of you will of seen the BBC article (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8566722.stm) this morning and wondered what everyones opinions on the matter were.

The Lord's are outdated, and don't really fit in with Modern democracy, but saying that it would be a sad loss of over 1000 years of British Traditionalism and Culture.

But, it doesn't seem any of the party's can offer a decent proposal for a new chamber or a newly structured upper house. They can't even seem to decide on an election plan for the General Election so I suppose expecting a good suggestion for the upper house is few and far between.

But, I did have an idea.

You could still keep peerages, but obviously cut all rights to sit in the Lords (Hereditary or Life). Then, you could scrap the Lords and replace it with say a "House of Representatives". Now, obviously this would require long term members, and I doubt the public would be overly interested in voting for a second chamber, I mean, even less and less are voting for the first every 5 years afterall. So is it not possible for this house to be entirely consisted of County Council or Local Authority Members? Would it be more feasible if say the Chairmen of our Unitary Authorities, County Councils, District Councils etc. etc. each were given a seat in the upper house? Then that way they are indirectly elected through local elections and would give a more fairer and balanced view of the people?

Obviously this hypothetical house should retain the same powers and restrictions as the Lords more or less, but even if it didn't do anything but forcibly pass the Commons Legislation like the Lord's does, it would still give people the impression the "Representatives" in the house are working for them?