The English Constitution

This book stimulates the little gray cells. Every time I watch Prime Minister's Questions, the superiority of the Cabinet system over the Presidential system is painfully obvious. If Bush were subjected to the kind of scrutiny, in Congress, that Blair is subjected to every week in Parliament, he would have been exposed as an impostor long before supreme executive authority was placed in his hands. Refering to our Civil War, Bagehot wrote: "The notion of employing a man of unknown smallness at a crisis of unknown greatness is to our minds simply ludicrous. Mr. Lincoln, it is true, happened to be a man of... eminent justness... But success in a lottery is no argument for lotteries." Well, we used up all of our good fortune in the 1860s. We've come up craps in this millenium.

Walter Bagehot was a journalist and a social and political thinker of the middle Victorian period (1850s and 1860s). His classical work "The English Constitution" comes as a collection of polemical assays upon the structure of the British political system. Cabinet, monarchy, Houses of Commons and Lords, execution of political power, and the foundation of the systems of checks and balances are explored in the book. Throughout the book a comparison and contrast of Cabinet system and the Presidential system (a.k.a USA) is a constant theme. Bagehot does not hide it preference for the Cabinet system, which in his view is a both more dynamic and more effective. One of his main points is that direct popular election is a myth, since most of the electorate are ignorant of the nature of the political power (and moreover are forced to this ignorance by the effective uselessness of the legislative debate in the USA as opposed to the UK). Moreover, a result of the direct election is a static Presidential term of 4 years, which allows the executive branch to execute almost unchecked control of the political process. According to Bagehot, the indirect electoral system of the Commons, where people vote for the MPs and they then select the PM amongst themselves produces a more effective government, which is more responsive to the popular will since it can fall at any time due to policy disputes. A hidden secret of British success according to Bagehot is a fusion of legislative and executive powers in the Cabinet system. In the latter chapters, Bagehot exposures two forms of power - the dignified power (in the person of the monarch and the lords) and the effective power as exemplified by the Cabinet. Dignified power serves as a façade of legitimacy under which the dynamic and opportunist real effective power can subsist. He follows through to explain how each of the minister of the government exercises its power for the common goal, what are the legal powers of the monarchy and how it is exercised indirectly via control of the composition of the peerage and the power to dissolve the Commons. Bagehot's style is clear, flavorful, his knowledge of political process is profound (with a qualification of more so of British then American), his research is well done, and he is a master of dramatic tricks to keep the reader interested. I would recommend the book as both a scholarly reference, and a well presented popular case.

First, to the reviewer looking for the doctrine of separation of powers: you'll find it in Montequieu's "Spirit of the Laws". Also check out "The Federalist", number 51.Now then, Bagehot, like Madison, describes the operation of a modern liberal regime. The trick for founders of liberal government is to produce a government that permits the people civil liberties, but does not permit the people to abuse those liberties, or in the words of Madison, to create a government that is "democratic yet decent". Madison and the American Founders accomplish this end by so constructing the institutions of government that mens' selfish natures will be turned against each other ("ambition is made to check ambition"), rather than united in tyrannical concert.Bagehot too describes the operation of a system of government that rules by the consent of the governed, yet which does so by restraining the vices of those who ought not to rule. Bagehot argues that the English government is moderate and decent because of a division of government into the "dignified" and the "efficient" parts, and a "noble lie" about the relationship between the two. It is this noble lie that permits the government to operate without the interference of those who would turn it away from the public good. But to discover the noble lie, you'll have to read Bagehot.Warner WinborneProfessor of Political ScienceHampden-Sydney CollegeHampden-Sydney, VA

I am a law student in the university of Plymouth and i would like you to send me some information that this book contains, concerning the subject of the separation of powers. Your advice will be of great help. Thank you.

If this is the unaltered version of the book of the same name and same author that I read about 30 years ago, it is a classic. It describes how the classic English Constitution worked, before Britain joined the European Union. Especially it explained how it worked without being written down, largely by constitutional convention which was morally binding but (quite often) not legally binding.