Product Description

In the latter part of the nineteenth century Walter Bagehot wrote a classic account of the British constitution as it had developed during Queen Victoria's reign. He argued that the late Victorian constitution was not at all what people thought it was. Anthony King argues that the same is true at the beginning of this century. Most people are aware that a series of major constitutional changes has taken place, but few recognize that their cumulative effect has been to change entirely the nature of Britain's constitutional structure. The old constitution has gone. The author insists that the new constitution is a mess, but one that we should probably try to make the best of. The British Constitution is neither a reference book nor a textbook. Like Bagehot's classic, it is written with wit and mordant humour - by someone who is a journalist and political commentator as well as a distinguished academic. The author maintains that, although the new British constitution is a mess, there is no going back now. 'As always', he says, 'nostalgia is a good companion but a bad guide.' Highly charged issues that remain to be settled concern the relations between Scotland and England and the future of the House of Lords. A reformed House of Lords, the author fears, could wind up comprising 'a miscellaneous assemblage of party hacks, political careerists, clapped-out retired or defeated MPs, has-beens, never-were's and never-could-possibly-be's'. The book is a Bagehot for the twenty-first century - the product of a lifetime's reflection on British politics and essential reading for anyone interested in how the British system has changed and how it is likely to change in future.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #365561 in Books
• Published on: 2007-11-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 428 pages

Review
...[an] admirable book...an addition to the great canon of learned commentaries on the British constitution. (Stein Ringen, TLS )

readable and illuminating (David Runciman, London Review of Books )

compelling new book (Philip Johnston, The Daily Telegraph )

About the Author
Anthony King, a Canadian by birth, came to Britain as a Rhodes Scholar. Before moving to the University of Essex in the mid 1960s, he was a Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford. He has been Professor of Government at Essex since 1969 and has also taught at Princeton and the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He is a member of the Academia Europaea, a foreign honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and an honorary life fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. Professor
King writes regularly for the Daily Telegraph and broadcasts frequently on politics and elections for the BBC.

Customer Reviews

The Bristish Constitution by Anthony King
This is an intensely interesting and informative book, which should be read with care by all of those who take an interest in the ancient constitution (a constitution with a small c) and particularly in those innovations that have been introduced since 1997: a period during which constitutional change has accelerated. The book is also of interest in another sense: it describes in some detail the structure of British government, its limitations and how that structure is actually sustained. The publication of this book is certainly timely and necessary, and will remain as a comprehensive and accurate record of constitutional developments that have occurred, by design or unintentionally, in past decades - principally since the 1970s. The presentation is thematic. Each chapter, of which there are fourteen, can be read as a self-contained essay, because cross-references between one chapter and another have been kept to a minimum. The book is punctuated with anecdote and humour and that fact alone enhances its interest and readability. The style is fluent and the book has an impelling narrative drive. Professor King concludes that the British constitution is in a 'mess', but does not employ that word in its pejorative sense. He recommends that we should leave `well alone`, because any comprehensive reformulation of the constitution - creating a Constitution with a capital C - might only serve to make matters worse, even if such a Constitution could be formulated and agreed, which appears in present circumstances to be most unlikely, despite the dedication of a small number of enthusiastic devotees of a new start. Stuart E Hopkins

Helpful
Although the British Constitution is difficult to understand by virtue of it being broadly "unwritten", Mr King explains its' development very clearly.

A brilliant book.
What a great man Tony King is. He always seems to bring a new angle and ideas to stale or seemingly uninteresting topics.

Probably the best lecturer, writer, correspondent and all round academic to write about British politics.

This book outlines King's accumulated understanding of the topic and sets out the possibilities for the future of political life.

I find it ironic that a Canadian probably has a best understanding of the British political system, then again he probably understands the American system better than any American as well.

However if you do not have the slightest interest in politics then this book might not be for you.