The government benches means the Tories. Not Labour, not the LibDems, nor the cross-benchers (who tend to be the relatively sane ones). There are a lot of pillocks in the HoL but with most large bodies of people, there are some good ones. Even if they are depressingly few in number.
It was because the gov benches agreed, I assumed that's a mix of Labour and Tories.
If not, just the nasty ones can be tarred. The house of lords is in itself strange and not democratic...but ok, it is what it is.