Anthony Barnett (London, OK): With perfect timing the Smith Institute has released "Towards a new Constitutional Settlement" a book of essays edited by Chris Bryant, Labour MP for Rhondda. It includes arguments for a written constitution as well as an attempt by Vernon Bogdanor's students in Oxford to codify our existing constitution, a welcome demystification. The Smith Institute, named after John Smith, is a "Brownite" think-tank. It seems to have conviently provided some substance to the need for overall reform. A cross-party meeting is being held tomorrow morning to launch the monograph. I'll report from the event.
Hot off press: call for new settlement
This article is published by , and openDemocracy.net under a Creative Commons licence. You may republish it without needing further permission, with attribution for non-commercial purposes following these guidelines. These rules apply to one-off or infrequent use. For all re-print, syndication and educational use please see read our republishing guidelines or contact us. Some articles on this site are published under different terms. No images on the site or in articles may be re-used without permission unless specifically licensed under Creative Commons.
Comments
Iain MacLaren (Galway):Why a "settlement" ? There are echoes here of Lord Robertson's nonsense about the Scottish Parliament 'killing nationalism stone dead." Constitutional arrangements should evolve with time, as indeed they do in practice. The difficulty with Brownites is that they want an arrangment that perpetually binds Scotland to the United Kingdom and despite their "think tanks" are insufficiently courageous or imaginative to see beyond that which fits their career trajectory.
[...] July 13, 2007 at 4:24 pm | In Brown's reforms, OurKingdom | Anthony Barnett (London, OK): Partnering with ippr, we have started some OurKingdom conversations in their Covent Garden office [...]
[...] a new formula is needed that is based upon need rather than population.The paper forms part of a booklet Towards a New Constitutional [...]
[...] July 10, 2007 at 12:13 pm | In Brown's reforms, Written Constitution | Anthony Barnett (London, OK): Few understand better the passing of the old, informal constitution and its virtues than Roger [...]
[...] paper forms part of a booklet Towards a New Constitutional [...]
[...] Posted on 11 November 07, 2:49 pm by ourkingdom Anthony Barnett (London, OK): I have been trying to find the link to Saturday evening’s ‘Straight Talk’ [...]
Post new comment