The Mallard, a pub at Dingwall railway station, can open at 10:00 using what is known as "grandfather rights".

BBC: Concern about early match day drinking in Dingwall

But he warned that some MPs believed that support for the current system among peers "is motivated purely by self-interest and that it will somehow melt away if we can be bought off by some vague offer of grandfather rights for existing members".

BBC: Lords reform debate: part three

He served on three peacekeeping missions and a range of human rights projects for the United Nations (his grandfather, U Thant, was the third secretary general from 1961 to 1971), and is the author of two acclaimed books on Myanmar.

WSJ: Saving Myanmar's Priceless Architecture