Working over a “pie and a pint” was the way to amend company legislation, Tom Taylor once told undercover reporters and, for a fee of £100,000, he could help to resolve their commercial problems. It was certainly not his finest hour and in May 2009, after a parliamentary inquiry, he was suspended from the Lords for six months, the first peer to be barred from office in this way since Viscount Savile in 1642. He made the mistake of siding with Charles I against Oliver Cromwell.
The recordings from what The Sunday Times called “Ermine-gate” were extraordinary. Taylor, described by one sketch writer as looking “a little like PG Wodehouse but less amusing”, said: “I will work within the rules, but the rules are meant