Why do we support so many politicians? In the UK at the moment (2005 - coming up to a general election) we have a total of 659 politicians in the lower house (House of Commons) and 550 (this is the best figure I could find, reforms of the upper house have reduced the number from an astonishing ~1200 in 1999) in the upper house (House of Lords). As a quick aside - you wouldn't believe how hard it is to find out simple facts like how many politicians there are. I could easily believe that there was a conspiracy to hide the information it's that hard ;o). There is this page that gives statistics about the House of Lords but you will notice it doesn't actually say how many there are.