Francesca Jackson: King Charles, the Speech from the Throne and the Constitutional Shift from the ‘Dignified’ to the ‘Efficient’: A Challenge to the Doctrine of Political Neutrality?

Francesca Jackson: King Charles, the Speech from the Throne and the Constitutional Shift from the ‘Dignified’ to the ‘Efficient’: A Challenge to the Doctrine of Political Neutrality?

Bagehot famously made a distinction between the ‘dignified’ and ‘efficient’ parts of the Constitution (Walter Bagehot, The English Constitution (London: Henry S. King and Company 1867)).  The former were those which ‘excite and preserve the reverence of the population’, and were epitomised by the grandeur and splendour of the monarchy. The latter were those by…