A CONSTITUTION BY DEFAULT

One of the most extraordinary things to have come about from the hung parliament result in the last election is that there now exists a sort of proto-constitution by default. Because there was a strong possibility of there being no clear winner a senior civil servant, Gus O'Donnell, was tasked to put together some sort of handbook, for purely internal use, to avoid the problem of having to ask the Queen to decide who would be the new Prime Minister. This is the reality of the on-going absurdity and insult to the citizens of this country that not having a formal written constitution leaves us all in : at the last minute and solely to avoid the Queen having the embarrassing chore of having to decide which party will take over the running of what is still her government as opposed to ours, a civil servant had to run up something in lieu of a constitution overnight. This now may, and I stress, may, become the basis for a formal constitution, some commentators have said. I wont hold my breath.

I recently heard Tom McNally Leader in the House of Lords in response to a question which referred to the still non-existent constitution say, in a joky manner and quoting some earlier Lord or similar, ' not next week '. It may be an amusement for him, but it appears to me that this is a fundamental and deliberate omission that allows the continued obfuscation as to where power really lies and to treat it as a joke is an unacceptable conceit.

Incidentally, having heard his response to a question as to whether any of the governments cuts in welfare provision would contravene Human Rights, which was vague and unconvincing, I asked by e-mail to which Human Rights legislation he was referring in his reply, as that in UK law is not by any means comprehensive whereas at UN and EC level it is quite different. ( See earlier article on this subject ).

I have yet to have any response.