Actually, given how the courts have twisted the meaning of the Constitution so much, I'm beginning to think that having an unwritten constitution is a better strategy.
It seems to work pretty well for the Brits. What sayest thou, friends from accross the pond?
England is a democracy. A democracy is Mob Rule and they have not discovered that socialism is slavery by giverment yet..
Pretty much the same in all of URP...
I decided to respond before reading anyone else's opinion.
In general, down through the centuries the lack of a written Constitution seems to have served us well, because most executives have respected tradition. However Tony Blair is working fast to dismantle a system that has worked well for longer than pretty much anyone else's system, and there are no formal rules to stop him from doing that. Important new law goes through without parliamentary debate. The executive reigns undreamed, the House of Lords has been emasculated without being replaced with anything (in the name of fairness). We're getting close to an elected dictatorship (elected by less than a quarter of those eligible to vote). New administrative regions are created that no-one identifies with or cares about. Expensive new elected assemblies were set up for Wales and Scotland, yet Welsh and Scottish Westminster MPs still get to vote in Westminster on matters that don't affect their constituencies because those matters are controlled by the new assemblies. The government wouldn't dare contemplate self-rule for England though, of course, because an English assembly probably wouldn't be suitably socialist. Rant done.
Wayne Rooney has just been injured this close to the World Cup, and you want me to try and think about something trivial? :-)
Seriously: this is a huge topic, and I am no legal expert. And even if I were, it would take a considerable essay to explain British Constitution. One of the particular difficulties is the difference in meanings of political terminology on each side of the Atlantic, for starters.
So just a couple of observations. The British system works--in so far as it does--because it is scaled differently, and because it has come together out of disparate elements over many centuries. This has permitted a certain amount of fusion of precedents that does bump along in a tolerable fashion, sometimes in spite of itself.
There is, I feel, enshrined in the body (written and unwritten) an elemental core of the liberties of the free-born Englishman, and the cornerstone guardian of these liberties is the independence of the judiciary.
I think it was an appeal by the American colonists to those same ancient liberties--which they felt Parliament had overriden--that sparked our little falling out in 1776. Apart from that little matter--we really do share a common inheritance and are natural allies.
The interesting political arena at the moment is the collision between the 'unwritten' British Constitution and the endlessly wrangled-over European written constitution. If our ancient liberties are codifed by Eurocrats, they may become subject to erosion; it is no accident that it is the Left in Britain that favours a charter of 'rights' and surrender of our sovereignty to Brussels.
Unfortunately, there is nothing in Magna Carta to guarantee an English victory in the World Cup, but there should be!