ABSTRACT
Everyone knows that the British constitution provides for a system of representative and responsible government. These characteristics are almost universally regarded as both desirable and important. Their existence is often said to make the British political system, like those of other liberal democracies, different in kind from the political systems of countries behind the Iron Curtain and of certain underdeveloped countries, which are generally described as autocratic or dictatorial. The concepts of representation and responsibility are, indeed, invoked in almost every modern discussion of how countries ought to be governed.
