Is it rather stupid and dangerous to take Magna Carta so much for granted, as many of us seem to do, and to think of this attitude as 'very English?'
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I do think that Magna Carta and international law are worth paying some attention to.
The Magna Carta is widely known to be one of the foundational documents for our Constitution. I can only imagine that a mention of that in a court decision would be forbidden by our friends on the right.
Through my youth, there was imposed on us a culture relentlessly English. English books were all you could buy; English television filled our screens, and in consequence, England seemed to matter in a way that our world didn't.
Magna Carta has 63 clauses in abbreviated Latin. Two of them that are still on the statute book, numbers 39 and 40, could be said to have changed the way in which the free world has grown.
Standard English is very imperialistic, controlled, and precise; it's not got a lot of funk or soul to it.
The air of the English is down-to-earth. They care about details; there's a tradition, but there's also a counter-culture: the younger generation versus the older generation and so on. But then that's well blended into a happy balance and crystallised into common sense.
What I see as specially English is the charm - everyone is so polite. Being restrained is part of the charm. And I love the sense of humour - it takes me back to Australia. The English are great at making fun of themselves. They're so self-effacing.
It's received wisdom that the English are uniquely child-unfriendly.
To Americans, English manners are far more frightening than none at all.
Magna Carta has become totemic. It is in the comedy of Tony Hancock, in the poetry of Kipling, never far from the front pages in a constitutional crisis.