> The Rushdie affair
Salman Rushdie is a British citizen from a Muslim background, and a respected writer. In early 1989, his book The Satanic Verse was published. Many Muslims in Britain were extremely angry about the book's publication. They regarded it as a terrible insult to Islam. They therefore demanded that the book be banned and that its author be taken to court for blasphemy (using language to insult God).
To do either of these things would have been to go against the long-established tradition of free speech and freedom of religious views. In any case, there is nothing in British law to justify doing either. There are censorship laws, but they relate only to obscenity and national security. There is a law against blasphemy, but it refers only to the Christian religion. Moreover, the tendency from the second half of the twentieth century has been to apply both types of law as little as possible and to give priority to the principle of free speech.
is the good of being different if'different' means 'worse'? There has been growing concern about increasing crime in the country, and this has resulted in much discussion about identity cards. Britain's fellow states in the European Union would like to see them introduced in the country. At the same time, there has been increasing pressure for a Freedom of Information Act.
Another possibility is that Britain will finally get a written constitution. An unwritten constitution works very well if everybody in the country shares the same attitudes and principles about what is most important in political life and about what people's rights and obligations are. In other words, it works very well in a society where everybody belongs to the same culture. However, in common with most other European countries today, Britain is now multicultural. This means that some sections of society can sometimes hold radically different ideas about these things. The case of Salman Rushdie is an excellent example of this situation (> The Rushdie affair). As long as everybody in a country feels the same way, at the same time, about a case such as this, there is no real need to worry about inconsistencies in the law. There is no need to question the existence of laws or to update them. They are just interpreted in changing ways to match the change in prevailing opinion. This is what, up to now, has happened in Britain. But the Rushdie case is an example of what can happen when radically opposing views on a matter prevail in different sections of society at the same time. In these circumstances the traditional laissez-faire attitude to the law can become dangerous.
QUESTIONS
1 In what sense could the British attitude to politics be described as 'happily cynical'? Are people equally cynical in your country? Are they as happy about it?
2 In most Parliaments in the western world, the place where representatives debate is in the form of a semi-circle. But in Britain, there are two sets of rows facing each other. Why is the British Parliament different in this respect?
3 How does the role of political parties in Britain differ from their role in your country?
4 Why does Britain not have a writtenconstitution?Doesit need one?
SUGGESTIONS
• Try to watch some of the Yes, Prime Minister programmes (available as a BBC video). There is a book of the same name published by BBC Books.
The monarchy
The appearance
The position of the monarch in Britain is a perfect illustration of the contradictory nature of the constitution. From the evidence of written law only, the Queen has almost absolute power, and it all seems very undemocratic. The American constitution talks about 'government of the people for the people by the people'. There is no law in Britain which says anything like that. In fact, there is no legal concept of'the people' at all.
Every autumn, at the state opening of Parliament, Elizabeth II, who became Queen in 1952, makes a speech. In it, she says what 'my government' intends to do in the coming year. And indeed, it is her government, not the people's. As far as the law is concerned, she can choose anybody she likes to run the government for her. There are no restrictions on whom she picks as her Prime Minister. It does not have to be somebody who has been elected. She could choose me;
she could even choose you. The same is true for her choices of people to fill some hundred or so other ministerial positions. And if she gets fed up with her ministers, she can just dismiss them. Officially speaking, they are all 'servants of the Crown' (not servants of anything like 'the country' or 'the people'). She also appears to have great power over Parliament. It is she who summons a Parliament, and she who dissolves it before a general election (see chapter 10). Nothing that Parliament has decided can become law until she has agreed to it.
Similarly, it is the Queen, and not any other figure of authority, who embodies the law in the courts. In the USA, when the police take someone to court to accuse them of a crime, the court records show that 'the people' have accused that person. In other countries it might be 'the state' that makes the accusation. But in Britain it is 'the Crown'. This is because of the legal authority of the monarch. And when an accused person is found guilty of a crime, he or she might be sent to one of' Her Majesty's' prisons.
Other countries have 'citizens'. But in Britain people are legally described as 'subjects' - subjects of Her Majesty the Queen. Moreover, there is a principle of English law that the monarch can do nothing that is legally wrong. In other words. Queen Elizabeth is above the law.
> The house of Windsor
Windsor is the family name of the royal family. The press sometimes refers to its members as 'the Windsors'. Queen Elizabeth is only the fourth monarch with this name. This is not because a 'new' royal family took over the throne of Britain four reigns ago. It is because George V, Elizabeth's grandfather, changed the family name. It was Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, but during the First World War it was thought better for the king not to have a German-sounding name.
78 7 The monarchy
Princess Margaret The Queen Prince Charles
The Queen Mother
Prince Philip
