Writing it down

I find it surprising that anyone can claim a codified constitution would be a remedy to our problems (“Time to put it on paper?” Aug/Sept). Some of the most egregious charges against Boris Johnson were that he intentionally misled parliament during the Partygate affair and that he evaded the mechanisms of accountability. Yet the political constitution ensured that when the tide turned against him, his own ministers were able to secure his resignation within 48 hours, without the need for any longwinded impeachment process. And, even though he has stepped down as PM, Johnson is still subject to an investigation by the Privileges Committee, which could potentially see him suspended from the House of Commons and subjected to a recall petition in his Uxbridge constituency.

As Jonathan Sumption notes, plenty of countries with entrenched constitutions have suffered bad behaviour by populist leaders, including the United States (Donald Trump) and Italy (Silvio Berlusconi). A written constitution is not a panacea. It would potentially drag the judges further into the political arena as they would have to determine ever-more political questions—not something to be welcomed.

Even if you accept that we are so much wiser than our forebears that our society is now in a place where we might wish to entrench certain rules, it is hard to see how one would reach consensus in such a polarised nation as ours. Rather than tilting at windmills in a quixotic quest for perfection, we might do better to consider how we can pragmatically improve our political culture to resist the blandishments of rogues and mountebanks.

Alexander Horne, barrister and visiting professor at Durham University