I’D probably watch more sport if I was any good at it.

I don’t avoid all of it. I’ll look out for the six nations rugby and the university boat race. I’ve missed these this year.

But that’s as far as my spectating goes. I once tried to watch an international cricket match. Never again.

The sports reports at the end of the TV news show all the highlights, as if it’s a succession of sixes being hit, stumps being toppled, balls being caught.

The reality turned out to be very different. There were immense periods of time when nothing happened.

Action-packed it certainly isn’t. In the end I concluded that life’s too short for cricket.

It’s not my prejudice against the sport that means I oppose Ian Botham’s peerage. It’s the reason behind it.

He seems to have been awarded it not for his cricketing prowess, but because of his support for Brexit.

He’s swapped Lords for the House of Lords. And he’s not the only new appointment which has raised a number of eyebrows.

Lord Botham is being joined by Russian billionaire newspaper owner Evgeny Lebedev, Tory party donor Michael Spencer and former Daily Telegraph editor Charles Moore, Boris Johnson’s old boss.

There was also one for the prime minister’s brother Jo Johnson

The Brexit flavour of the appointments is unmistakable. They also include former Brexit party MEP Claire Fox and three pro-Brexit former Labour MPs, Ian Austin, Kate Hoey and Gisela Stuart.

It’s all of course deeply undemocratic. Nobody votes for the House of Lords. So calls for its abolition or at least for reform are centuries old. Britain is the only democracy in the world with one chamber of its parliament appointed and not elected.

And it’s gigantic. The new crop will bring the total to almost 830, making it almost 200 seats bigger than the democratically elected House of Commons.

There have been a few reforms over the years. The Lords used to be full of aristocrats – all but two of whom were Conservatives, the other couple Liberals. The hereditary peers had inherited their title and an estate from their father and father’s father and so on for generations.

In many cases their ancestor only got his title because he used to go out drinking with William IV, but they liked to think of themselves as “highly bred”. Though spend some time with them and you’ll soon realise that many aren’t.

It had an inbuilt Tory majority. So later “life peers” were created, who had normally done something in politics or business or other walks of life – and didn’t get to pass the title on to their eldest son.

They weren’t elected, but the Lords did contain people such as former ministers, captains of industry or trade union leaders, with a set of experiences and knowledge.

“The Parliament Act” was another reform. A law doesn’t have to pass through both Houses of Parliament to make it onto the statute book. If the Commons pass it and the Lords rejects it, it goes back to the Commons. If MPs still vote for it then it goes through.

So the Lords can only delay legislation, not veto it. They can’t say no to a law – only not yet.

Peers are also allowed to renounce their peerages in order to stand for the House of Commons.

And since 1999 most hereditary peers have been excluded. The expectation was that more reform was to follow, though it hasn’t.

But do we even need a second chamber at all? Many countries do without them.

However I think it can serve a useful purpose. If we’re going to elect the Commons by first past the post, and regularly end up with a government most people didn’t vote for, then maybe we need something to put on the brakes on it.

Yes, it’s undemocratic. But it does allow parliament to benefit from the wisdom of some well-informed people.

Life peers from Cumbria include Melvyn Bragg, David Clark and Roger Liddle, people with a wealth of experience in the arts or in politics. We’re the better for being able to hear from them.

Then again other appointments are more questionable – such as two detective novelists. Ruth Rendell was made a Labour peer and PD James was a Tory peer. Why?

I don’t know what form a second chamber should take or how its members should be chosen.

But one thing’s for sure It shouldn’t be for a prime minister to fill with his family members, favourite sport stars and best mates.