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!
you want me to try and think about something trivial? :-)
I've gone for the, "Well son, England have now got no chance at all, so we can just enjoy the festival of great football without the angst and tears of England under-performing yet again." with my teenage boy. He knows I'm just whistling in the dark, and so do I....
Incidentally, I've been a witness to divine intervention once in my life; I was in the Azteca in Mexico City on that great/terrible day in the summer of '86. The most outrageous cheat, and the best goal I've ever seen, both in the same match, by the same player. All this talk about 2006 being England's best chance for 40 years was nonsense IMO. The '86 and '90 sides were far better in almost every position even before Rooney got injured.