Be afraid, very afraid

With the news that Jack Straw is going to attempt to start the processing of writing a Constitution for Britain, I have become more than a little agitated.

This Government has presided over a mass of ill thought out legislation which has needed to be revisited many times. How many Criminal Justice Bills have there been? How many times have organisations been re-organised and the re-reorganised back into something similar to original plan, NHS anyone?

The thought of this lot, no matter how good their intentions are, framing the basis for the relationship between the individual and the state is laughable. Almost as much as Tony Blair being announced as the peace envoy to the Middle East. They cannot seriously think that we trust them with individual liberties, this the most authoritarian of Governments in modern history.

A written constitution would have to provide a flowing prose describing British values. I don't believe this Government can provide anything in a flowing manner, more of a dithered sentence of PR speak. My English isn't fantastic, but the oratory required of the Queen when opening the yearly session of Parliament leads me to believe that a reasonably good G.C.S.E. student could do better. The country that gave the world Shakespeare, Dickens, Keats, Tennyson and Winston Churchill deserves so much better.

I only hope that they realise the futility of it all, before they spend a vast amount of money on pointless consultation exercises and focus groups. With any luck this will be dropped along with any proposed 'motto', before the Government commits any more un-British acts.

Long live the unwritten Constitution.

Squiffy.