Suzanne Moore's grand day out at the House of Lords - The Guardian

What to wear for a day in "the best club in London"? I bought nude tights, which to me represent the end of days, as I was off to the House of Lords.

I have been before, but I know little about the Lords. On my last visit, an attendant told me off on the blue carpet (carpets are a big deal there – green for the Commons, red for the Lords). Blue, apparently, meant I could "ponder but not talk".

Many years ago, some old codger took me to a bar there and got "vair vair drunk". More recently, I ran for a train, got on and found myself sitting opposite Thomas Galloway Dunlop du Roy de Blicquy Galbraith, 2nd Baron Strathclyde, leader of the House of Lords. He was with some posho mate, and I was struggling to take off my coat. "Let me help you. I am fantastically good at undressing women," said the mate while Strathclyde chortled.

That old hereditary charm is lost on me, so I spent the rest of the journey hot and flustered in my coat, semaphoring to other people on the train that I was nothing to do with these very loud, braying men. But however ridiculous the idea of a house of senile aristos seems, it has become apparent that almost anyone can now become a peer through the appointment system – John Prescott, Alan Sugar, Oona King. Surely not everyone there is just a feckless scrounger or an inbred toff? Indeed, lately, as the Lords keep throwing back major bills on healthcare, welfare reform and legal aid, many look to the second chamber as an increasingly vital focus of opposition. Certainly many lobbyists do. During the debate on disability living allowance, the Lords looked not so much like the nation's revising house as its conscience. Lord Patel, a former obstetrician and son of Indian immigrants, spoke with huge authority. "I am sympathetic to cutting the deficit, but I am highly sympathetic to sick and vulnerable people not being subject to something that will make their lives more miserable." Who said you need bishops to make a case for compassion, or even basic morality?

So here I am once more in the grand but fusty institution, being hurried along book–lined corridors and – again – being told off for having my phone on. Groups of school children, too, are being shown the royal gallery, the robing rooms where the Queen gets kitted up and there is, I am told, a secret loo. The Pugin pomp is impressive; he was not bad as interior designers go, though all royal bling looks sub-My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding now. Hogwarts is the word everyone uses and certainly, if you were so inclined, it is full of ghosts.

I am being shown round by Steve Bassam, aka Lord Bassam of Brighton, who is telling me how being ennobled felt like a cross between a Masonic ritual and marriage vows, when he gets called away. It's a big day in the Lords, with lots of amendments on the healthcare bill to be voted through, and Lords reform is on the agenda – again. Some, rather over-excitedly, think this is the issue that will split the coalition. I wouldn't hold your breath. I pop to the loo. There is a walking frame in the cubicle, so I go to the next one and realise there's one in every cubicle.

The titles are confusing. Several barons tell me there are "five grades of peer", but no one puts them in the right order – duke, marquess, earl, viscount and baron. Baroness (Jan) Royall of Blaisdon, leader of the opposition in the Lords, explains that her husband doesn't get a title. But wives do. Jan's office is not that grand. I don't know what I was expecting. Chandeliers? I ask her if everyone is ancient and just basically Awol. It turns out the median age is 68, and it isn't a something-for-nothing-culture. They only get their £300 daily allowance if they turn up. About half of them do, especially for votes. A couple of hundred never do, but there is no way of firing them.

The people I meet stress the cost-efficiency of the place. Jan says many of the elderly peers are razor-sharp, and I have seen Joel Barnett wandering about – he must be 90-something – yet it was he who invented the Barnett formula. What I am beginning to understand is that it is the 200 or so cross-benchers who change the complexion of the place. Argument and debate matter if you want to get people on side. Unlike the Commons, there is no whip, and it is this that makes for a very different atmosphere. For any reform, the sticking point is the 92 remaining "hereditaries", but there is no dismissing the real-life experience in the house, even though Nick Clegg did when he described it as "a veneer of expertise".

Indeed, when Melvyn Bragg takes me for tea in the dining room, he laughs about people speaking "a lot of jelly", but then points at Robert Winston, resplendent in green corduroy. "I was here the day he got up and said, 'You are all talking about stem cell research. I have been doing that this morning in my lab. Let me tell you about where it will lead.'"

"That," says Bragg, "was electrifying. Now we have medics, arts and culture people, like [David] Puttnam, academics, ex-civil servants … " Alongside this, though, is a load of archaic nonsense. Bragg is not keen on the bishops, although many people speak well of them. I collar Tim Stevens, Bishop of Leicester, who seems a little nervy, but perhaps that's because he is about to go into the joint committee on the draft House of Lords reform bill. Bishop Tim thinks that other faiths should be represented, which raises the inevitable "who will represent the Jedis?" question. As I chat to him, he reminds me that he is Convener of the Lords Spiritual, which is a sort of chief bishop. I am about to ask him how he got that gig, when Clegg appears and is surrounded by people who want to talk to him. I am mystified, but then someone reminds me he is deputy prime minister, after all.

Baroness Bakewell of Stockport in the County of Greater Manchester, or Joan, as I presume to call her later, tells me: "I said to a bishop, 'Actually, that's a post I will never be eligible for.'" She has also complained about prayers. If you want a seat in the chamber, you have to get in for prayers, so "we godless huddle outside". She doesn't like the psalms, either. "I asked, 'Can't we have some pious poetry? Milton, or something, instead?'"

Bakewell is, of course, instantly recognisable, as are the celeb peers, such as Andrew Lloyd Webber and Ruth Rendell. What is most odd is seeing Spitting Image come to life again, for all the old Thatcherites are there. Lamont, Tebbit, Lawson – some of whom are now voting against this government.

Lunch is, disappointingly, a tuna sandwich in a canteen. No gold plates or anything. But Labour peer Lord Bach is keen to explain how we must stop the decimation of legal aid. His researcher, Imran Ahmed, is another "convert" to the Lords having been in the Commons. Are these people really telling me that an undemocratic house is protecting civil liberties and reflecting the mindset of ordinary people more than the Commons? Well, certainly they feel they must ameliorate the forthcoming bills on health, welfare reform and legal aid "that would bring huge changes to society".

After watching the opening procession of men in tights stamping around with a mace, I go to the actual chamber with my mind full of the radical potential I have heard about. Then comes the first question: "Lord Spicer to ask Her Majesty's government what consideration they have given to allowing traffic to turn left at a red traffic light in the way that certain authorities in the United States permit vehicles to turn right." The ensuing discussion sends me into a trance, but it's all very polite, no boo-yah Commons stuff, and no Speaker to shut them up. I wake up to hear Strathclyde booming on about "ping-pong during dinner break". I find out later this is not table tennis, but bills bouncing between the two houses. Floella Benjamin, Baroness of Playschool, says something about films for children, and then we're on to the important amendments on the healthcare bill.

What sounds like a broken alarm clock goes off to call a vote. They all creep out of their warrens and file in, and I manage to find Baroness Shirley Williams. "This place swallows legislation like other people swallow martinis," she tells me. I want to buy Shirley a martini but, at 81, she is indefatigable, and has work to do. She is not so keen on Lords reform (which was in all three parties' manifestos). "I'm cynical, having seen three attempts in 15 years."

Most are for reform, but are unsure how it will work. Will a second elected chamber be in opposition to the Commons? "How does the Commons retain its primacy?" asks Bragg. One of the problems, he says, is that there is simply too much legislation. He would like a bill stopping more legislation, "but that's a bit Alice in Wonderland".

Many joke about the barmy old hereditaries with their egg sandwiches, and I keep asking if there is as much drinking in the Lords as in what they call "the other place". No one really answers, but everyone talks of cross-party friendships and wonder what reform could reproduce this hodge-podge of people. Why would many of the more effective Lords even stand for election? Who exactly would they be representing?

Class is not an issue for many, but real-world skills are. Indeed, class was only mentioned by Baroness [Glenys] Thornton. I kept asking people if they used their title to get upgraded, as I'd want a crown or something. "I am from a working-class communist background," she says. "Yorkshire people don't get above themselves." At 45 (when she was made a peer) the problem of what to do when she grew up had been solved. Since joining the Lords, she said, "I've become more of a class warrior." She giggles. She is another one not happy with bishops. "What other parliament has clerics in it?" she asks. "Er … Iran." Exactly!

Baroness Hussein-Ece (Lib Dem), one of the few Turkish-Cypriot women in politics, takes me for dinner. I know her, as she was my councillor. She explains how weird it is sometimes to find herself supported by some Tory grandee, especially if she's just asked a question on female genital mutilation. Unholy alliances are the essence of the place. But as Lord Bach told me, "They can't talk about sex. It's like watching your grandparents talk about sex."

By now I have been in the Lords for 10 hours, and I want a drink. We go to what looks like a poor version of a Travelodge bar. Steve Bassam, who, like many a modern peer, is on Twitter, said the votes would go on until 11.15pm. A deal had been done. It all felt intensely political, but intensely polite.

My head has always said abolish it all tomorrow, but by the end of the day, my heart was saying we must find a way to preserve what I had not expected to see here, in this anachronistic, rule-bound house of privilege: a passionate ethos of public service, some impressive people who think long-term, not just in electoral cycles, and a coalition in political flux.

Who knows if this is possible, I wondered, as I saw Shirley Williams putting on her coat and Glenys Thornton changing into her trainers. It was near midnight. "We've got a big week next week," called the Baroness, excitedly, as she rushed off to the tube.