Public Policy Conjectures

This idea has been resurrected by our new Prime Minister, Andy Burnham.  Like devolution, this seems to be a big, serious and time-consuming diversion from the things that most people want their governments to do. It will take up masses of parliamentary,  government and bureaucratic time, and divert management and leadership time from far more important matters. 

That said, it is on the table again. And it needs to divert my time and energy too. 

I’ll return to the really critically important issue of democracy and constitutions in a later essay.  That issue is: how do we stop dictators like Trump arising?  A good start would be to make any criminal conviction a disqualification from any public office.  That would have stopped Trump. We only need a few thousand citizens to fill all the public offices. With 60 million of us, we can manage very well thank you, without criminals—however wonderful they are. 

But to divert back to my diversion: considering a written constitution does have one advantage.  It makes us decide on what is important constitutionally, and on what we see as weak or inadequate in our unwritten modus operandi.  And choosing a good time to do this will always be put into the “too difficult” basket. 

So, for better or worse, we’re having a go now.  

Radio4 8 Aug had a discussion between Rita Chakrabarti and Jonathan Sumption on a written constitution.  She has gradually and I would guess, reluctantly, changed her mind and is now in favour.  He is adamantly against.   She felt that recent actions e.g. by Boris Johnson, made the need much greater.  He argued that written constitutions were inflexible: the various changes deemed necessary to UK devolution were possible as they could be achieved by Act of Parliament; changing gun laws in the USA is impossible practically, because no-one wishes to change the Constitution and it’s too difficult to do so anyway.  

I would add 4 more arguments :

1 Written constitutions move a huge amount of democratic business to the courts, to settle whether or not legislation is in accord with the constitution.  We already complain about injunctions etc impeding the will of the people (in parliament).   This is far worse, as injunctions will also still continue. 

2 Roe v Wade in the USA has shown that courts can come up with different rulings on the same constitution at different times and with different justices.  That shows that the best written constitutions are unclear. 

3 There is pressure for the courts to become politicised.  US courts are politicised. They even talk now and openly about conservative (good) and liberal (bad and communist) justices. I’ve yet to hear conservative (bad and fascist) and liberal (good).  But it will come! Party politicians and supporters even suggest there should be more of one kind and less of the other.  That is a major weakness and major distortion of US democracy—and to such a pervading extent that the judiciary in the USA is clearly politically corrupt.   

4 Constitutions are like the Bible or the Koran — after a long time any literal reading is difficult to understand, as they come from the past when lots of things were very different. Interpreting them for today becomes a minefield and even hugely controversial.

To return to Jonathan Sumption: we are told ad nauseam that we live a in a world of constant and massive change. Is a written anything flexible enough? Not the computer programme I am using. 

But my original main objection is this: if politicians choose to ignore the constitution , written or unwritten, as Trump and his mates have done, then what’s the use of writing one now?  The last thing that the USA’s written democratic constitution has done is to stop the installation of a dictator as top man—President of the United States of America.  He has ignored it and the Supreme Court has connived at that, by ruling that the president can do what he likes as long as it is official; and Congress have voted to support him willy-nilly, ( i.e rolled over so he can tickle their tummies ). 

As Jonathan Sumption said, it is a matter of culture that Johnson tried to dispense with Parliament, (as Charles I did and eventually lost his head in the attempt).

That means it is also a matter of culture whether or not UK politicians generally observe the unwritten conventions and parliamentary law of the UK. 

It is also a matter of culture whether or not politicians observe a written constitution.  And also whether by political or physical force they change it for their personal purposes e.g Czar Putin and Emperor Xi.

It is also a matter of culture whether or not anybody obeys any law. I think it is generally felt that Britons have generally become less law-abiding.  Petty theft by generally non-criminal people has become widespread: taking sickies, avoiding VAT, theft from hotels, not paying for petrol.  Individual and corporate computer and financial fraud is endemic.  The big banks have spent £50 billion compensating customers for PPI insurance premiums fraudulently extracted from them.  And more serious petty theft like shoplifting, has become more widespread, violent, and has developed into organised crime.

To add to this is the prevalent culture in the USA that government is bad, tax is bad and both should be minimised or cut with a chain-saw at federal level, irrespective of the consequences. Everybody should be free to do their own thing. (I do not know how this plays out in the USA at state and local level, where government interference and public spending seem to have a much higher level of tolerance—even enthusiasm.)  

This anti-government, anti-tax culture permeates large sections of British society, though fortunately the tax raised for the NHS is accepted and the public spending on the public good that the NHS does, is still prized—even if the enthusiasm for the rest of public spending is minimal. 

In brief, the propensity of the average Briton to respect government and obey the law has fallen. Some politicians these days exhibit the same failure. This will include not obeying constitutions. The arguments above suggest a written one is worse anyway. All the improvements sought by anyone can be achieved already by act of parliament.  And the huge, critical, immediate problem is stopping a dictator like Trump emerging in the UK, with or without a written constitution.

Finally, writing a constitution just diverts the government from things the public really want them to do.

© Philip Morgan 2026 Public Policy Conjectures All rights reserved