Andrew Blick (London, Democratic Audit): The current controversy over Jacqui Smith's announcement of increased police numbers - which the Tories are claiming is beyond the pale in the run up to an election - reveals a fundamental tension in the UK constitution. One of the central purposes of any government will always be to get re-elected, and they will seek to use the levers that being in power gives them to stay there - so they have to be constrained somehow if the perception and reality of abuses are to be avoided.
But at present the whole system is subject only to a set of non-enforceable, sometimes unintelligible, conventions, which it is largely left to the executive to interpret as it sees fit. While the draft constitutional renewal bill proposes to place the Civil Service on a statutory basis, key parts of our executive, such as the Ministerial Code and the election rules Jacqui Smith is alleged to have breeched, will remain peculiarly informal in their manner of operation. As part of its review of prerogative powers, the government should be giving attention to the possibility of independent oversight of the 'higher law' providing the framework for the way we are governed. Such a programme would have to form part of any written constitution.
