A constitutional question

With all the recent confusion before and during the election about the constitution of the uk I wonder if it’s time a news provider created a department for constitutional affairs. I’m not suggesting a three hour lecture but a political reporter or two specialising in it.

Alastair Bruce (Sky News) is the finest such Correspondent in our midst, I’d say. And he has the ability to break it down into viewer friendly chunks befitting the piece he’s covering.

In the dim and distant past (and someone may correct me) ITN had a Political Correspondent who also doubled on occasion as Constitutional Correspondent. It was either Glyn Mathias or Julian Havilland. Can’t specifically remember who.

As I mentioned to you a few months back in another convo in the old Brexit thread, I’d rather the broadcasters spent their (our) money on proper expertise such as this, rather than sending hordes of anchors out onto College Green to fight-it-out with Gordon Glockenspiel.

An excellent example. Someone who can make issues easy to understand.

I believe the UK doesn't have a written constitution as a lot of what we now consider a constitution was cobbled together from the old common laws as well as milestone legislation such as Magna Carta and the Bill of Rights. Apparently our last written constitution dated from the Civil War and ceased to exist when Charles II came to the throne in 1660.

It's notable that American students get taught the history of their country going back to the Declaration of Independence in 1776, pledge allegiance and have a good idea of how things work. Over here? Well that job seems to have fallen to Horrible Histories.

Excellent point. This is as much an area of law and as an area of politics, and there are very few (if any) journalists who specialise in the cross-over. Too frequently academics are relied upon only for interviews and would never be given the same prominence as perhaps a senior political correspondent, for example, on a main bulletin. They also, more often than not, are not "TV ready".

There are other areas too that could probably do with specialist correspondents - international trade and EU constitutional issues come to mind, though the latter might be of less relevance now for a domestic audience.

Following the last election, the BBC is standing up a permanent election team, and part of their remit is to promote civic engagement. While this doesn't directly address your point, I expect an element of this will be around demystifying constitutional issues. Will be interesting to see what comes out of that.

Doesn't feel like our "constitution" is worth the paper it isn't written on in recent times.

Is indeed arguable that without the extra layer of protection the EU provided it will be even more important for our media to hold our institutions to account, something that in recent years we've seen them be unwilling or unable to do effectively, especially in the face of threats from the government of the day.

Much of that protection comes from the European Convention on Human Rights, which the UK remains part of as a member of the Council of Europe. The extent to which the public are aware of that is probably not very high.

All excellent points but I fear were straying from the point of presentation (Yes I know I started the thread).

But the fact that Brekkie, Trance and Neil have made the points they have does prove the point you’re also making: there’s a lot that the average Joe Public doesn’t know or understand about constitutional affairs, and we would probably be far more enlightened by the broadcasters if they would spend some time in explaining the back-story behind events happening (or not) in Parliament and beyond.

The broadcasters have a duty to inform, and your thread highlights a gap that should be filled, Neil.

In the aftermath of the recent election and in the run-up to the Queens Speech yesterday, I was perplexed by the fact that the BBC WORLD news website was running with the Caroline Flack story, albeit 4th in the running order. Why the heck should that be of interest to World viewers or listeners whilst the constitutional impact/relevance of the State Opening would be far more worthy of page space for those in the world who’d like to understand the relevance and protocols of it?

Bizarre.

Perhaps the current Reality Check Correspondent could adopt a dual role and also cover Constitutional Affairs? Or Mr. Witchell? (Speaking of the BBC but same theory applies to all main broadcasters).

I think what you've identified James is that there is quite a body of expertise developed on the formalities of the monarchy, which is important on state occasions, and the relationship between the Crown and parliament and the government.

I'm open to be corrected, but I felt the Supreme Court decision in September on the prorogation of parliament left the broadcasters a little blindsighted. The relationships between parliament, the government and the judiciary and the powers and limits of each of those bodies are going to continue to grow in importance.

After that Supreme Court decision, for example, many journalists were erroneously claiming on Twitter that there was room for appeal to the EU courts, which shows that the lack of understanding extends not only to the public, but many journalists themselves.

It's a tough topic and all the more reason for broadcasters to have their own experts who can wade through it all on demand and speak with authority.

I can imagine John Curtice as a regular expert on such a team.