The United Kingdom and Human Rights - College of Social ...

A Constitutional Re-examination? 127
institutions, just as did Adam Smith. Burke's concern
was at pulling down an edifice without practical
experience and without having models and patterns of
approved utility to build it up again. The need for
constitutional revision cannot be better expressed than
by Sir William Blackstone, from whom Burke took his
ideas. In his final paragraph Blackstone concluded his
1765 panegyric on the British constitution as follows:
"We have taken occasion to admire at every turn the
noble monuments of antient simplicity, and the more
curious refinements of modern art. Nor have its faults
been concealed from view; for faults it has, lest we
should be tempted to think of it as more than human
structure: defects, chiefly arising from the decays of
time, or the rage of unskilful improvements in later
ages. To sustain, to repair, to beautify this noble pile,
is a charge entrusted principally to the nobility, and
such gentlemen of the Kingdom, as are delegated by
their country to parliament. The protection of THE
LIBERTY OF BRITAIN is a duty which they owe to
themselves, who enjoy it; to their ancestors, who
transmitted it down; and to their posterity, who will
claim at their hands this, the best birthright, and
noblest inheritance of mankind." 19
Improvement of the constitution is unlikely to come
through the party system, with each party's tactical
interests affecting the proposed arrangements in different
ways: if the Labour Party legislates for massive
devolution in Scotland, similar demands will surface in
England, which will see itself as being governed by
Scottish and Welsh MPs, who will hold the balance of
power in the House of Commons. Similarly, if the
Conservative Party were to support legislation enacting
proportional representation, it seems unlikely that it
would ever again be able to form a majority government