If it’s politics, it’s just not cricket!

For a firsthand insight into British politics, take a ride on the London Underground.

An ancient, rickety, appallingly-managed, overpriced “service”, half-owned by the public, the “tube” is forever stuffed full of weary, long-suffering passengers hiding behind scandal-drenched newspapers. But nobody complains. The loudest people in any carriage are always tourists.

Just as the British traveller is inhumanly patient, the British voter is proudly “non-political”. Politics is too emotional and passion is so terribly unBritish.

In place of politics, single-issues dominate: the European Union, British beef, fox-hunting, the war in Iraq, gypsies. All of these “non-political”, “dog-whistle” issues are, of course, deeply political, evoke strong passions, and are anything but single, but…

There must be a “but”…

Oh, yes – all these issues are about the “real people” vs the “political establishment”. They fall outside the traditional realm of “politics”.

In Britain, we talk about the “political culture”. Its opponents roll their eyes at those out-of-touch yah-booing schoolboys playing games in their club – which happens also to be the nation’s parliament. Admirers look to those very same decent fellows who sacrifice lucrative careers to selflessly serve the public as best they can.

Either way, Britain’s “political culture” doesn’t belong to the people or to the nation, it belongs to them, the pinstriped Lords and Commoners who fall asleep on the green or red leather parliamentary benches, shout “Hear, hear!”, stamp their feet and wave their order papers above their heads when they’re happy.

The whole British political system is rooted in the civility (or otherwise) of these people’s behaviour. In the absence of a sacred constitution or a back-of-a-matchbook bill of rights, Britain (let’s face it, I mean England) has a protective code of conduct best articulated in one phrase: “It’s just not cricket!”

Words are bonds. I was thinking about this last week as I chatted to Lord Kingsland, Shadow Lord Chancellor, and as good an egg as you’d wish to… well, talk politics with.

Lord Kingsland has been at the forefront of recent efforts to preserve the founding principles of habeas corpus and the Magna Carta from the assault of the ghastly Prevention of Terrorism Act. Along with several of his octogenarian colleagues, Lord Kingsland pulled an all-nighter to try and water-down some of the more authoritarian aspects of this slapdash legislation. While England slept, he fought for its liberty.

I asked him what we should make of this latest extraordinary episode in Britain’s constitutional history. “There are very few checks and balances in the British constitution,” he explained. But “the system worked so well in the past because of the cultural uniformity of the people who ran it. There was a common understanding that the British constitution gives the executive a lot of power, but that as a member of the executive one must exercise restraint.”

In other words, the British constitution worked thanks to the decency (and class?) of the chaps who ran it. Now, that’s all changed. “No previous government would have dared to do this,” Lord Kingsland said of the suspension of habeas corpus, “even though there was nothing to stop them.”

Tony Blair has ignored the conventions of gentlemanly conduct and shifted (or downright ignored) the principles of Britain’s (ok, ok, England’s!) political culture. “Blair’s conduct is close to the monarchical principle of divine right,” judges Kingsland.

But when I asked him whether the old system had cracked beyond repair under the weight of a chippy Labour government, Lord Kingsland exercised the very caution upon which he contends the British constitution relies: “It may be that, if the current authoritarian trend continues, some of us will be drawn into thinking that a written constitution is the way to go,” he said. “The case is strengthening. But the Tory benches are not into it. We are still wedded to the idea of making the best of the ancient constitution.” A “new Tory government would try and rebalance Blair’s authoritarian constitution.”

Conservatives are caught in a difficult trap. This was evident in an unusual opinion piece by former prime minister John Major which popped up in the Daily Telegraph on 22 February. Linking together the “pitiful” turnout at the last general election and “the way politics is conducted”, Major rued the loss of “a code of behaviour between parties that imposes restraints on how hostilities are conducted … As Gladstone put it 125 years ago, our constitution depends ‘on the good sense and good faith of those who work it’.”

Then along comes New Labour, who have “abused procedures”, “ignored conventions of straight and honest government” and (get this!) “deceived the public”. Nowadays, “Anything goes if it serves its purpose.”

But there’s something strange about Major’s argument. He’s clinging to a system he complains no longer works. “If the facts don’t fit the argument, then the facts become flexible,” Major writes of Labour’s lies. Sounds like a pretty good description of Britain’s entire constitutional make-up. How else to explain the sudden suspension of habeas corpus?

This is tricky territory. In a perfect exemplar of Dunkirk spirit, commenting on the government’s efforts to ram through the Prevention of Terrorism Bill in an “almost macho” way the Times described the debacle as “Parliament at its best: in passionate and often angry defence of the basic freedoms of the United Kingdom and the right of MPs to protect those liberties.”

But the bill passed, of course – as was the government’s will. The Times accused the government of being “content to trample on democratic process” but then celebrated that same process. The issue, surely, is that the government could trample on democratic process.

Boris Johnson, Editor of the Spectator and popular-face of British Torydom, complained that there was “something deeply unBritish” about the Prevention of Terrorism Bill.

Not any more, there isn’t. This “deeply unBritish” bill is now British law, passed by Britain’s parliament.