Tories want to be free to change constitution

Anthony Barnett (London, OK): Can it be the case that the main reason the Tories do not want a new codified settlement is that it will prevent them from tearing up the constitutional order whenever they so wish? I was on the BBC World Service for 6 minutes at 1.20pm this lunchtime debating with Oliver Heald, the Conservative MP who is Shadow Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs. And I was surprised. The issue was should Britain have a written constitution. We sparred in the usual way over whether Britain is so special it has no need to be like other countries. (This is when the lamentable example of the US constitution is always dragged up, as if this is the only example on offer.) But Heald’s main point was one I had never heard before. He said the Tories do not want a written constitution because “we don’t want a block on constitutional change”. For example, they don’t want to have to hold referendums like Switzerland as this prevented women from getting the vote there. As an argument for arbitrary power in a progressive guise it is similar to the one John McDonald made to Red Pepper (see entry below). But for the main Conservative spokesman to pin the the Party's flag to the status quo because it allows them to change the order of things is, well, hardly conservative. I am trying to download an mp3 of the exchange.