Over on the Total Politics website, Mark Pack has a piece looking at what the coalition’s plans for reforming the House of Lords means for each of the three party leaders:

For each of them Lords reform offers both an opportunity and a threat. For David Cameron the opportunity is to push on with his mission to change the Conservative Party, modernising it in a continuing effort to shed the problems that have resulted in nearly 20 years passing since it last won an overall majority. Many in the Conservative Party, especially in the Lords, are opposed to the introduction of elections for the upper house, but what better way for Cameron to show he is different than by being seen to be at odds with figures from his party’s past?

The threat, of course, is that – as has happened on some other issues – the opposition is too great and Cameron has to back away, returning to traditional Conservative lines, weakening both his modernising credentials and his overall position.

For Ed Miliband the situation is very similar. Lords reform offers Miliband the opportunity to hold out a friendly hand to Liberal Democrats, to portray himself as a genuine pluralist rather than a traditional Labour tribalist, and as someone different from the Blairites who so often talked Lords reform but never were quite willing to actually vote for it. Having David Blunkett and John Reid criticise him would do no harm at all in showing he is different from Labour’s past.

Unless those “constitutional conservatives” turn out to be too powerful of course… and Ed Miliband is left in the position he was caught in during the AV referendum, with his team blowing hot and cold on him appearing alongside Nick Clegg as arguments went on within Labour.

You can read Mark’s piece in full here.