On the record
Most persons would admit these conditions of Parliamentary government when they read them, but two at least of the most prominent ideas in the public mind are inconsistent with them.
Said by
Walter Bagehot
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gutenberg.orgWalter Bagehot: “Most persons would admit these conditions of Parliamentary government when they read them, but two at least of the most…”
Editor's note · Context
Bagehot notes that while many accept the conditions of parliamentary government, public perceptions often conflict with these principles.
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More from Walter Bagehot
The lessons are good where its primitive assumptions hold, but may be false where those assumptions fail.
At last it strikes you that they grew up, house by house, on the devious tracks of the old green lanes; and if you follow on to the existing fields, you may often find the change half complete.
But it is natural also that persons used to analyse political institutions should look at these anomalies with a little tenderness and a little interest.
These anomalies, in a hundred instances, mark the old boundaries of a constitutional struggle.
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