[Nigel Mace]

Ah... Adam, we (UK) certainly do not have a constitution only a mixture of conventions and rather uncertain legal frameworks which, so far from liberating us, leave us, in constitutional terms, as subjects first and foremost, and citizens only some legislative way behind. Within the UK there are indeed fundamental differences of constitutional principle even including that of sovereignty, which in England and Wales resides in the person of the sovereign, conventionaly as expressed in parliament - hence, and only hence, the doctrine of the sovereignty of parliament - whereas in Scotland sovereignty resides in the Scottish people - hence Queens of England but Queens of Scots.

And a note to quell your optimism Janice - a comparison of Magna Carta with the Declaration of Arbroath makes the differences in our constitutional development still clearer.

All a bit of a digression from this thread, but the constitutional 'problems' supposedly involved in this debate about gun laws in the US, shouldn't be an excuse for transatlantic self-congratulation. Just think of the ghastly Blair's abuse of the prerogatives of the Crown in taking us to war in Iraq! The American constitutional framers, of all different persuasions, were in the best of European - as opposed to conservative English traditions - seeking to base their practices upon sound general principles, which as a Scot (and thus from the European cultural tradition) I applaud. The fact that self-interested parties have chosen to distort the meaning of the Second Amendment with ludicrous and disastrous consequences does not invalidate the nature of that effort nor its documents.

John - Your Europhobia rather makes my point. The Tory Europhobes complain of the results of European Court rulings etc. precisely because they cannot stomach a system based on general principles and yearn for the good old days when these could be ignored and trampled on as best suited the interests of the political class whose precedents they have always valued above principle. Cameron's confused threats to the Human Rights Act and the European Convention have displayed exactly that irritated confusion which arises from not understanding a system which is mainly rational and not mainly customary.

Oh - and I became a historian rather than a lawyer because I didn't much like them either!