How do we decide how we're governed?

What can't a government do?

Who gets to decide what the government does?

And where is it all written down?

Why in a constitution, of course.

But, oh wait, does Britain even have one?

You're listening to Navarra FM here on resonance 104.4 FM

London's finest radio station I am, James Butler.

Most of us vaguely know what a constitution is.

It's the basic rules about how we do government.

And some of us might even vaguely remember

that there was a big spate of constitution writing

somewhere near the end of the 18th century

when big revolutions ended up with written constitutions.

Most of us think about these as something

that most modern states have,

although perhaps we also vaguely know

that Britain doesn't have one in that sense.

We might even know, or we might worry,

that if Scotland needs the UK,

we might just have to write one down.

So where do constitutions actually come from?

...