Walter Bagehot: “Perhaps all very marked national characters can be traced back to a time of rigid and pervading discipline.”

That a House of Commons may work well it must perform, as we saw, five functions well: it must elect a Ministry well, legislate well, teach the nation well, express the nation's will well, bring matters to the nation's attention well.

The nation then selected the English policy, but the Crown chose the English Ministers.

Nothing promotes intellect like intellectual discussion, and nothing promotes intellectual discussion so much as government by discussion.

And therefore party is inherent in it, is bone of its bone, and breath of its breath.