Anthony Barnett (London, OK): An important, perhaps even historic, shift has taken place. The Labour Party has by tradition been deeply conservative, despite the radical potential of its egalitarian desires. Its impulse to preserve has been most strongly expressed in its loyalty to British institutions and, most of all, to our royal, unwritten constitution. Blair and Mandelson, for all their edgy modernism, loved the core idea behind royalism, namely a monopoly on power and patronage that has as few rules as possible and is exercised by divine right. Now, a sea change seems to have taken place. Annoyed by the failure of both Labour Party members and the media to ask the six deputy leader candidates their views on power and liberty in Britain, we decided to ask them ourselves. They have answered in their own voices, and you can feel their personalities in their replies. A lot of ground is covered: ID cards, the English question, local power and decentralisation, the Human Rights Act. Their answers, even when evasive or nervous, have been thought about. A quiet, below the table-top consideration of these issues amy be underway. This is most obvious in their answers to the question of whether we should now have a written constitution. It is almost a consensus that we should! This is enough to make one suspect that the aim could be to conserve top-down rule rather than replace it. But this is a battle to be had - and welcomed. The full answers are published here in openDemocracy along with an introduction. Your comments and responses will be published and linked to this post in OurKingdom, and we will sort them by their theme. Please let the candidates know what you think, we will make sure they are sent your views.
Nick Watt ran this story this morning at the Observer.
