Constitutional Propriety and the Politics of Advice to the Executive in Britain

Abstract

British political history does not provide a fixed model of constitutional propriety in respect of advice, but it does confirm that the right of advice has always been contentious and that advice has been a motor of constitutional change. When advice becomes an important issue on the political agenda it is often a signal that the constitution is shifting and changes are meeting resistance from those who stand to lose.

‘On all great subjects,’ says Mr Mill, ‘much remains to be said,’ and of none is this more true than of the English Constitution. The literature which has accumulated upon it is huge. But an observer who looks at the living reality will wonder on the contrast to the paper description. He will see in the life much which is not in the books, and he will not find in the rough practice many refinements of the literary theory.¹