Читать книгу This Little Britain: How One Small Country Changed the Modern World - Harry Bingham - Страница 27

To judge them by their constitutions, most states are short-lived creatures, generally living no longer than a single human lifespan. Germany, Italy and Japan all acquired their founding documents in the wake of the Second World War. Since the fall of the Bastille, France has been through two empires and five republics, and has existed in its current incarnation only since 1958. Canada, being somewhat British, is something of an oddity and only formally acquired authority over its own constitution in 1982. Seen through this lens, the ‘New World’ of the United States is really no such thing, as the country boasts the oldest written constitution still operative today.

And Britain? It’s a conventional politeness to say that we have no written constitution, but the phrase is a figleaf, concealing nakedness. The point of a constitution, after all, is to place limits on politicians. Ordinary legislative acts generally need just a simple majority to get them into law. Changes to the constitution require something much more significant: two-thirds majorities, approval by states or provinces, plebiscites or whatever. Britons enjoy no such protections. If a prime minister wanted to repeal Magna Carta or the Bill of Rights or any of the Representation of the People Acts, he could do so, with no more legal machinery in his way than would exist if he wanted to tinker with the last Fisheries Act but one.

If our attitude to our own state machinery looks almost shockingly laid back, then the state opening of parliament suggests one possible reason: namely that the whole thing is just some giant kitsch pantomime thrown together as a joke played on passing Americans. The cast list includes the Lord Great Chamberlain, Black Rod, the Serjeant-at-Arms, the Lord Privy Seal and the Yeomen of the Guard (who are made to hunt for imaginary barrels of gunpowder in the cellars). The props list incorporates the Royal Standard, the Great Sword of State, the Imperial State Crown, the Cap of Maintenance, the Mace and very much more. All this sounds like Harry Potter crossed with Alice in Wonderland;