No election manifesto has anything to say about an issue vital to the British understanding of government — the relationship between Prime Minister, Cabinet and Parliament (forget the people, of course) which has been so badly corrupted by Blair’s ‘sofa’ politics.
The Greek historian Polybius (200–118 bc) was greatly impressed by the Roman republican system of ‘checks and balances’, which he saw as a combination of democracy, kingship and oligarchy.
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