It is “not a process that most people would immediately recognise as a modern form of democratic accountability”.
The speaker was referring to the “process” by which Church of England clerics get a seat in the British legislature.
The criticism was well merited. But the speaker and apparent advocate for democracy was legislator-for-life Carmen Smith.
She too had obtained her seat in the legislature by a process that gives no democratic accountability.
Ms Smith was speaking in a debate on a bill to abolish the House of Lords and replace it with a different kind of legislative chamber.
As desirable as that proposed legislation is, it should not be for the likes of Ms Smith, with no more democratic accountably than the church’s bishops, to decide whether the bill should become an act.
But that’s what passes for democracy in Britain.