>>>... BTW our senate is appointed, not elected. We should throw the bums out.
>>
>>Oh, like the equiv. of the House of Lords here?
>
>Yup, where you send old politicians to collect a salary and beef up their pensions before they retire.

But ours aren't all ex-MPs. Some are there cos their ancestors helped William the Conqueror. But fewer nowadays since Blair got rid of a good number of the "Life Peers". However, others may be there because they've been "ennobled", say for services to industry, or they were a popular movie actor, or whatever.