Head held high, eyes straight, David Cameron – prime minister of the United Kingdom between 2010 and 2016 – entered the House of Lords with a heavy ermine robe on his back. On Monday, November 20, the 57-year-old was preparing to take up his new role as a lord by swearing allegiance to the King. "I, David, Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton, do swear by Almighty God that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to His Majesty King Charles, his heirs and successors, according to law. So help me God," he declared solemnly, hand on his Bible.

So goes the grand and outdated protocol of the upper house of Westminster, which many consider a relic of the British social class system. Overcrowded, with 785 members appointed for life, it still has nearly 100 hereditary peers (who can pass on their seat to their descendants) and induction into this chamber is tantamount to ennoblement.

That's how Cameron, already considered a representative of the upper class, with his aristocratic tone and privileged background (private Eton College, Oxford University), won the title of baron. He chose, as is customary, to associate his peerage title with a location – Chipping Norton, a pretty market town in the Cotswolds, a countryside paradise for the wealthy, north-west of London.

Cameron doesn't owe these honors to his questionable political heritage. He was the man who, to appease the right wing of the Tories, organized a referendum on the UK's membership of the European Union in 2016, with the result that we all know. He is also the man behind the austerity policy decreed in 2010, whose damaging effects on British public services are still being hard felt.

He has become a lord for life primarily because Rishi Sunak chose him as foreign secretary on November 13, in an attempt to salvage whatever can be salvaged of the Conservative Party. With just a few months to go before the next general election, all polls are predicting the Labour Party's return to power. The fact of the matter is that to sit in government, British ministers must be able to account to Westminster for their decisions.

In general, ministers are MPs and take part in the House of Commons' question-and-answer sessions. Failing that, and with rare exceptions (including David Cameron, who resigned his elected office in 2016), they sit in the House of Lords. But the former leader's accelerated entry into the chamber (appointed by the king on the advice of the prime minister) is met with a fair amount of irritation.

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