The British constitution develops before our eyes. There is much talk about the government’s lack of a mandate. The mandate is a relatively new concept that has developed to strengthen the idea of British democracy being based on representative and responsible government.
These twin principles were the ideas of the new professor of political studies who taught me politics in the early Sixties. Under the title of representative and responsible government professor AH Birch discussed the basis of our democracy; it had to be representative and responsible. The idea of a government winning a mandate was seen as something foreign to British voters. Now it is being cited as something centre stage to our democracy.
The idea of a mandate now needs to be balanced
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