Hello everyone and welcome to this latest episode of the UK in a changing Europe's Brexit and beyond podcast.

And today my guest is the one and only Meg Russell, Professor of British and Comparative Politics at University College London.

And of course, as many of you will know her, Director of the Famed Constitution Unit.

Meg, great to have you with us.

Good to be here, Anand.

My God, I mean, where to start, given your expertise and what's going on in the world. Let's

start with Peter Hennessy. And Peter Hennessy recently claimed that Boris Johnson has killed

off the good chap theory of government. But looking back, was it ever sensible to think that such

a theory would work as a basis for a

governing system? Should we have a system that relies on the self-restrains of the politicians,

or is that naive on our part? Peter's on to something, for sure. But I would say that

democracy in every country depends on good chaps. And of course, chappes and everybody has to preface referring to

Peter's lovely term by saying that was coined some time ago when there were many fewer chappes in politics.

But, you know, I think you can over-exaggerate the extent to which our system is different to others,

is sort of less constrained and depends more on convention. I mean,

it definitely does depend more on convention. We don't have a written constitution, etc. But every

democracy, irrespective of whether it has a written rules, requires people to behave properly.

Look at the US, for example. Obviously, Trump has caused significant controversy with the way that he has behaved.

They are the most famous written constitution in the world. It's not the constitution that makes a

president who's lost an election leave the White House. You know, you have to voluntarily do that,

even though everybody understands that's the system,

but the constitution doesn't physically march you out of the building.

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