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Comment by astrange | Hacker News Reader

British people will also tell you they have good food, a working healthcare system, and that people care about their monarchy, but you don't have to listen to them about any of it. We're just humoring them.

To have a constitutional government, you should first have a constitution.

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> you should first have a constitution

Sure they do. The constitution doesen't have to be a single document.

Which is not necessarily a bad thing. The American constitution has basically become immutable at this point while meaningful reform is still possible in Britain.

I'd say Canada has a better system; there's at least a parliamentary act passed saying what's in the constitution, and the people who wrote it are still around to explain themselves. (Australia loses points because they forgot to have a bill of rights.)

The US changes its constitution by just having the Supreme Court make things up. As you can see from the Lochner era, this has rarely worked well.

There are uncodefied parts of the Canadian constitution too. The codefied parts begin with a sentence that's essentially "copy/paste the UK constitution here". The Supreme Court of Canada has also said they can add unwritten parts of the constitution and the written parts aren't exhaustive.

Britain has great food, just look for a Pakistani place ...

> To have a constitutional government, you should first have a constitution.

Here’s another page that could probably use the fruits of your research:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_the_United_K...

Do you believe this one too?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_the_People's_R...

Not to claim it's the same situation, but there's a difference between things that are officially true and things you should actually respect. You shouldn't respect most of the US judicial system either.

> but there's a difference between things that are officially true and things you should actually respect

Could you relate that back to your initial claim that "the UK still has an absolute monarchy", which appears to be both officially untrue and untrue in practice?

Well, I'd respect it more if the monarch had a few less of these powers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_prerogative_in_the_Unite...

Especially

https://ukconstitutionallaw.org/2013/01/26/tom-adams-royal-c... + https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/feb/08/royals-vette...

They don't even make the monarch get a driver's licence or pay taxes because laws don't apply to them. (Instead they voluntarily pay taxes and don't speed.)

Maybe they could try writing some of that down in a constitution.

> British people will also tell you they have good food

If you've ever eaten Indian curry (of the tikka masala variety in particular), chances are, its recipe was British in origin.

While traditional British food might not appear particularly appealing to the discerning palate, Great Britain is home to many a culinary innovation.

I always been told they do, it's just not written down

As I said, some of it is "officially" written down in an unsigned newspaper letter to the editor.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lascelles_Principles

Notably the article doesn't even know if the letter is still the law or not.

> Following passage of the Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Act 2022, which repealed the Fixed-term Parliaments Act, these principles are thought to have been revived.

Good thing that Britain has a constitution then.

One that was made up as those in power went along and has never really been codified

Britain does have a constitution

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