Description
Two hundred years ago in Great Britain, the political system was dominated by
electoral power exercised through rotten boroughs, a system characterized by
institutionalized corruption - these electoral boroughs were owned by local elites,
and voting was restricted to a handful of people. Whilst industrially she was the
wonder of the world, the political system in Great Britain was restricted, corruption
was the norm, and it seemed impossible to imagine that such an ancient system
could be changed. By the time of the Reform Act of 1832 however, Britain had
already been going through a process of constitutional change lasting for hundreds
of years – it is only now, from our position of 20/20 hindsight, that we choose
to interpret all of the events since the signing of the Magna Carta in 1215 as if it
were some seamless whole, an inevitable process that would lead to the position of
superior moral governance that we appear to think we are in now.
