The hereditary House of Lords had a bit of a random walk property where the original peerage given by the King many generations ago becomes quite disconnected to the peer now in the house. To have this property it needs to be an old tradition - to recover this property if recreating it from scratch perhaps an initial lottery could be used.
In any case it is an example of some randomness in the political process and in my opinion probably better than non-hereditary peerage where the peer has bought their position from the sitting government. Though that is a rather low bar.
With regards to historical lotteries if I remember my history class from decades ago the various great families didn’t want the role of governance because they had to act in the national interest instead of their house interest, and the randomness of the lottery meant that if they ruled in their own favor they’d be open to reprisal after their tenure was completed.
I think the government strategy there was to make it worse to the point people question why even have the House of Lords and there being no good answer.
On the contrary, life peers have made it more obvious that non-political "talent" can be brought into the upper chamber, and people you'd never see out campaigning can bring their expertise to scrutinize legislation. "People's Peers" can't take a political whip, and there is more scrutiny over cash for peerages now than there ever was.
It's deeply flawed how the PM can appoint, and there isn't enough diversity, but they can pause legislation (if not actually stop it), to cause a rethink. That's happened most recently on the assisted dying bill. Many are glad it's happened because it's improved the outcome, albeit at the cost of a delay.
I do think there is a better way than the current system, but I'm not entirely sure I can describe it, yet.
Well ya know good luck with all of that. I voted with my feet a long time ago. I wouldn't use the UK as some sort of exemplar of good governance, quite the opposite. The actual lesson of Chesterton's fence is that once a system that is responsible for maintaining itself is damaged it becomes near impossible to fix. "Only what we might have discussed under the gas-lamp, we now must discuss in the dark." A broken corrupt system will almost always continue to degrade into a more broken and corrupt system. When the 'fix' to reforms is more reforms the system is in real danger.
But the Lords isn't responsible for fixing itself - the government is fixing it against some gentle objections - and the Lords itself is independent of the Commons whose legislation it scrutinizes.
The more obvious "cash for peerage" cases have resulted in peers that wanted the title, but don't ever actually contribute to debates or appear in the chamber. As Lords have to sign in to get paid, if there are people who paid a huge amount of money to get the title who then don't get paid, well, I'm not sure it's an urgent problem of corruption.
Of the group who are signing it but that perhaps shouldn't (very elderly, peers who sign in to get paid and then bugger off, and so on), there are explicit reforms coming to change that behaviour.
Let me ask you though, what would you prefer? What do you think the upper chamber should look like? The Billy Bragg system where a single vote is FPTP for the lower chamber and proportional for the upper chamber? Something else?
My statement was in general regards for the UK society as a system for which the House of Lords are just one part of.
As mentioned I've already voted with my feet - so I consider the problem solved. If the UK somehow manages to become an attractive place to live then I might consider living there. As someone with options there really are much nicer places to live.
In any case it is an example of some randomness in the political process and in my opinion probably better than non-hereditary peerage where the peer has bought their position from the sitting government. Though that is a rather low bar.
With regards to historical lotteries if I remember my history class from decades ago the various great families didn’t want the role of governance because they had to act in the national interest instead of their house interest, and the randomness of the lottery meant that if they ruled in their own favor they’d be open to reprisal after their tenure was completed.