Smith Institute covers the change

Anthony Barnett (London, OK): Just attended the fourth and last of the Smith Institute seminars on ‘Towards a new constitutional settlement’. Vernon Bogdanor and Francesca Klug spoke and the newly returned to government John Denham MP; Dominic Grieve the Conservative shadow Attorney General; and Simon Hughes from the Lib-Dems responded. It was chaired by Jon Snow of Channel 4 News who amused everyone by his bemusement with the rate of change over the last two months. After the first seminar I breached the Chatham House rules by publicising in OK that Jack Straw said he had changed his mind on a written constitution. This time Dominic Grieve was the only person to say he opposed a written constitution. For everyone else it was a matter of either why not, or perhaps but not yet, or intellectually of course but is it feasible, to stop all the excuses about needing to wait (Simon Hughes). Jon Snow asked John Denham in what way he had changed his mind, and his answer was striking. He said he used to be against a written constitution because it would take power away from politicians and give it to judges, now he was favouring one because it would take power away from judges and give it back to politicians! At the end, Bogdanor asked what is the problem to which far-reaching reform is the answer. His reply to his question was, I paraphrase: people now want a direct influence in decisions that impact on them. We will be opening an OK section of the new openDemocracy website soon where full articles can be published, and I hope we will be able to run both Bogdanor's paper and Francesca Klug's who spoke very powerfully about why Britain may now get a new Bill of Rights and Duties.