COMMENT | No order in the House

COMMENT | I am of an age and time when, in Form Six, one of the papers for History I had to swot for the HSC (Higher School Certificate) was British Constitutional History.

To this teen, it was a desiccated, dusty, musty subject. As required by the examiners and as taught, the subject required knowledge of significant legislation and their dates from the Magna Carta onwards, and the birth and evolution of the character and accretion of powers of the British Parliament.

As taught, the narrative of the social upheavals that made the English monarchs lose their absolute right to tax the people to pay for wars, to expend them as cannon-fodder, to send those who displeased them to the Tower of London, the rack and the executioner’s axe; that led to the birth of a House of Commons, the “commoners” finally having a say - all that was conveyed as dry facts, and didn’t capture my imagination or interest.

It was five decades ago. And it was a subject that I studied just for the sake of passing an exam, so understandably, I have forgotten everything. Nothing to do with me. I can’t even tell you when the Magna Carta was signed.

So my hat off to my unfathomable brain that suddenly dredged up a quote when I was studying the subject decades ago: ...