King Charles’ Coronation today is an amazing education or reminder of how the British Constitution is knit together, along with the Commonwealth, as a complex tapestry, forming over time the culture and structure within which we live.

Magna Carta over 800 years ago was huge, the start of commoners’ individual rights. The King accepted under duress to agree that he could not oppress commoners (and over time this became widely accepted), and that the King himself was also subject to the same rule of law.

Democracy (through delegation of most of the King’s powers to Parliament of commoners and Lords, gradually towards universal suffrage) was an amazing evolution and acceptance of the power of the people over individuals’ power, gradually over centuries. But I’d say individual rights was an even higher law than raw democracy, which is vital, but only majority rule at any (emotionally-charged) moment.

In the US, their (written) Constitution prioritised the individual’s rights over the coercive power of the imperfect State (government or monarch). The interdependence of the modern global Village however tempers unbridled individualism’s ‘freedom to’ act, as we became more interconnected (eg carbon emissions as economic externalities in climate issues, or planning laws to resolve competing rights in densely populated countries). The British Constitution remains unwritten, but clear enough by precedent and the genius (from a historical perspective) of the Common Law.

The ‘spoon in the jewels’ is so symbolic of the combination we have of change and tradition over time as the only surviving royal item from the post Civil War Protectorate.

Then we have the integration of religion (an approximation for moral responsibility) into the mix of civil life. The King’s support from the commoners is dependent upon his upholding of the Christian ideals mentioned…love one another, privilege embodied in service, justice with mercy, self-restraint by King and all (as we are all sinners and no-one should be given unbridled power). But also recognising those of all faiths and none in the same spirit.

So our structure is a highly evolved complex of fundamental principles underpinned by a culture of acceptance of personal self-restraint by all, to retain many valuable personal freedoms, evolved over centuries.

Does it work perfectly? No. Many anomalies? Yes. A King representing Christ in the Constitution – awkward. Many historical excesses, nationally and internationally? Yes. Continuing systemic power imbalances? Yes. But has it evolved in a good direction and does it provide a basis for individual freedoms within a framework for all of overall consent, across the nation and Commonwealth? I think so.

Looking at human nature through history, and the genocidal totalitarian impulses and experiments continuing so recently through the 20th century across large parts of the world, I think it reminds us that perhaps in the modern British Constitution and across the Commonwealth we have the least bad system and best protections ever evolved in the world, to take us forward.

The impulse to dismantle is always tempting; the clamour of apocalyptic predictions as claims and justification to immediate totalitarian power from intellectual elites (who deal in ideas but are not accountable for the realities and failures of those ideas), is ever-present; simplistic alternatives are easy to conjure or theorise without being proven anywhere.

Do we need ongoing change and fairness? Yes. But despite all the weaknesses I think I’m into evolution rather than revolution, having visited the horrors of revolution and totalitarianism behind the Iron Curtain. Humans are always so fallible. Today is a reminder of a thousand-year story of how to crawl away from anyone having too much power.

So despite the awkwardness and limitations I’ll say today…God Save The King! There’s a lot of societal sense and glue behind it.