The Constitution Society: Working to promote informed debate about constitutional reform

[First Published on Monday 1st November 2010]

The following post was first published on ConSoc’s previous site. It is recorded here as a window onto issues as they were at the time. For more up to date news on the Constitution and Constitutional reform, make sure to follow the ConSoc blog.

Professor Margaret Wilson, Former President of the New Zealand Labour Party and Speaker of the NZ Parliament, gave a fascinating lecture at Portcullis House last week on behalf of the NZ-UK Link Foundation.  Discussing New Zealand’s experience of proportional representation in the context of UK proposals for constitutional reform, Professor Wilson was responded to by Professor Vernon Bogdanor, a well-known authority on the British Constitution.   The speakers agreed unreservedly: there is many a lesson to be learnt in the UK from the experience of our Commonwealth cousin.

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[First Published on Wednesday 6th October 2010]

The following post was first published on ConSoc’s previous site. It is recorded here as a window onto issues as they were at the time. For more up to date news on the Constitution and Constitutional reform, make sure to follow the ConSoc blog.

Opinion polls on AV over the summer have tended to highlight a general scepticism towards the proposed system but have remained largely focussed on voting intentions.  An on-line poll carried out by YouGov on behalf of The Constitution Society has now probed public opinion on a broader range of issues surrounding electoral reform and the government’s referendum proposal, with remarkable results.

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[First Published on Thursday 29th July 2010]

The following post was first published on ConSoc’s previous site. It is recorded here as a window onto issues as they were at the time. For more up to date news on the Constitution and Constitutional reform, make sure to follow the ConSoc blog.

“There’s nothing new under the sun”, wrote satirist Ambrose Bierce around a hundred years ago, “but there are a lot of old things that we don’t know.”  That quotation came to mind while researching the role of ‘special advisers’, forever associated with New Labour’s desire to control the news agenda.  Countless frothing commentators fulminated against this supposedly new species of supposedly public servants, accused of blurring an unstated but sacred line between party interests and public service.  But are they really a new phenomenon, or just an ‘old thing that we didn’t know’?

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[First Published on Saturday 17th July 2010]

The following post was first published on ConSoc’s previous site. It is recorded here as a window onto issues as they were at the time. For more up to date news on the Constitution and Constitutional reform, make sure to follow the ConSoc blog.

A new select committee has been established in this Parliament specifically to scrutinise the programme of Political and Constitutional Reform. Within a day of its establishment an intense two hour session was held with the first of the witnesses to the committee, the Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, about the immediate and longer-term reform proposals.

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[First Published on Sunday 11th July 2010]

The following post was first published on ConSoc’s previous site. It is recorded here as a window onto issues as they were at the time. For more up to date news on the Constitution and Constitutional reform, make sure to follow the ConSoc blog.

On the 29th June 2010, an epic debate took place in the House of Lords on the subject of reform of the House.  The debate, which arose as a result of a motion by Lord Steel of Aikwood (Liberal Democrat), was introduced by the Leader of the House of Lords, Lord Strathclyde (Conservative), who announced that he would establish a Leaders’ Group, chaired by Lord Hunt of Wirral to consider and draw up a draft bill for reform.  Although this marks the beginning of what are arguably the most extensive set of works ever on the form and composition of the House, with potentially profound constitutional impact, the debate has been largely ignored by the press.  The significance of the issues are not, however, lost on the Lords themselves, who attended the house in large numbers to express their views, with a total of 65 peers speaking in the course of the 8 hour debate, which continued long into the night. 

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[First Published on Saturday 24th July 2001]

The following post was first published on ConSoc’s previous site. It is recorded here as a window onto issues as they were at the time. For more up to date news on the Constitution and Constitutional reform, make sure to follow the ConSoc blog.

Thursday 10th July saw yet another call for some joined up thinking and a holistic approach to issues relating to the British constitution. “Towards a codified constitution”, a paper published by JUSTICE and written by a group of constitutional experts led by Stephen Hockman QC and Vernon Bogdanor, contends that since 1997 we have been through a period of profound constitutional change without it being wholly clear what the British constitution actually is. During that period we have, in a piecemeal and unplanned way, been codifying the constitution. (Gus O’Donnell’s Cabinet Manual is a case in point.)

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[First Published on Tuesday 16th June 2010]

The following post was first published on ConSoc’s previous site. It is recorded here as a window onto issues as they were at the time. For more up to date news on the Constitution and Constitutional reform, make sure to follow the ConSoc blog.

At a talk hosted by the Hansard Society on 8th June 2010, Rt. Hon. John Bercow MP – the current Speaker of the House of Commons – gave his somewhat radical views on the subject of reforming the chamber. His appointment as Speaker sparked some controversy following his decision to abandon the traditional attire customarily worn by the Speaker on a day-to-day basis, which was because he feels it creates a “disconnect” between parliament and the general public. Bercow spoke about this and a number of other issues he considered crucial in the pursuit of rejuvenating the chamber. 

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[First Published on Saturday 29th May 2010]

The following post was first published on ConSoc’s previous site. It is recorded here as a window onto issues as they were at the time. For more up to date news on the Constitution and Constitutional reform, make sure to follow the ConSoc blog.

If you’re out and about in town and find yourself surrounded by purple people, it’s probably not just a fashion statement. Once reserved for royalty and bishops, purple is now being touted as the colour of public protest over electoral reform.

Behind these purple protests is Take Back Parliament, a coalition of groups – including the Electoral Reform Society (ERS), POWER2010 and Unlock Democracy (incorporating Charter88) – that is coordinating demonstrations around the country, and one of many energetic bodies pushing for a fairer voting system. The current ‘First Past The Post’ (FPTP) system – described this month as “creaking at the seams” by Lord Mandelson, and blamed for “the worst election ever” in 2005 by the ERS – appears under attack from almost all sides.

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[First Published on Tuesday 18th May 2001]

The following post was first published on ConSoc’s previous site. It is recorded here as a window onto issues as they were at the time. For more up to date news on the Constitution and Constitutional reform, make sure to follow the ConSoc blog.

An ardent science fiction fan, perhaps Baroness Ashton, the European Union’s new High Representative for Foreign Affairs, would appreciate the words of Mr Spock in Star Trek: “I must acknowledge, once and for all, that the purpose of diplomacy is to prolong a crisis.”  Perhaps ‘crisis’ is too strong a word for it, but the EU’s foreign policy appears to be in something of a disarray. 

For some years criticism has been levelled at the EU for failing to develop a more effective foreign policy;  all too frequently the finger was pointed at the inadequate institutions of the EU.  The rotating Presidency of the EU tended to lead to a lack of continuity, whilst the fact that the aims of the EU are blurred – is it an economic union? is it a political and social union? – tended to mean that the European Council and the Council of Ministers together lacked sufficient expertise in EU foreign policy.  This was only compounded by the division of labour between the Commission, which was the powerhouse on economic matters, and the Council of Ministers, to whom it fell to sort out diplomatic issues.  Not only that, but the political rivalry between the Council and the Commission led to competition rather than cooperation in this most sensitive of areas.

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[First Published on Thursday 6th May 2010]

The following post was first published on ConSoc’s previous site. It is recorded here as a window onto issues as they were at the time. For more up to date news on the Constitution and Constitutional reform, make sure to follow the ConSoc blog.

Although the British constitution is often described as unwritten, this is for the most part not the case. It’s simply written down in lots of different places – in statute law, common law and various historical documents including the Bill of Rights and Magna Carta. There are elements which are unwritten, known as the conventions, including for example that which requires government ministers to be answerable to parliament in person, normally in the House of Commons. What is somewhat unusual is to discover that an element of the constitution is being written at the moment, behind closed doors in the cabinet office. One of the most problematic, delicate and poorly defined area of the constitution relates to the residual powers of the monarch to dissolve parliament and to appoint a prime minister who is then able to form a government. In the normal circumstances of decisive majorities after general elections, this is a formality with the leader of the party having a majority in parliament being asked to form the government. However, as it recently dawned on the government that the chances of a “hung” Parliament in the general election were high, there is an attempt being made to clarify the rules and procedures that should operate under that scenario.

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