ABSTRACT
The monarch had to accept a subservient role to parliament and surrender effective rule to the dominant political balance within it. Throughout the eighteenth century the status and power of the Commons grew, accompanied by constant calls for reform to make it more representative. While the Commons has lost a huge amount of its power to influence policy, it is the defining forum of the nation’s politics, providing the colour, the atmosphere, the drama of the crucial decisions which shape the nation’s destiny. It lost power up to the 1970s but has enjoyed something of a renaissance since. In 1978, the Select Committee on Procedure reported that the relationship between the Commons and government ‘is so weighted in favour of the government to a degree which arouses widespread anxiety and is inimical to the proper working of our parliamentary democracy’.
