Deflation:

One of the old deep games of politics, is the game of destruction by universalization. I mean when an interest group (be it political party or class or guild) is stuck with a commitment to a policy one finds problematic or a system which restricts that group's power to act in someway , then it is usually easier to change the background rules upon which the policy (or problem) is based, than to directly force the issue itself. One suspects this has always happened (and that many if not all features of our constitution were born this way).
Be that as it may it is certainly the case that the domain of universalization/debasing is one of the great battle grounds of modern life political life: To give just three examples. Firstly there is the protracted 'campaign' to universalize democracy, Voting has become in most cases idiotic (why vote on who 'Spock's Mother' should be for God's sake). and therefore worthless. Secondly there is the very political example of regional power. Labour for internal political reasons as much as anything else created devolved government, and then attempted to defuse the nationalist elements/ problematic of this creation by making such government the standard across the Uk (remember the parish council remark, and the failed assemblies in the North west).Thirdly the Tories are clearly up to the same game over referendums. They are committed to holding a referendum on Europe (otherwise they loose all hope of tabloid support) and in spite of the fact that a referendum on a treaty after it has already passed through parliament is constitutionally tricky. Their solution to this enigma is to make such referendathe norm (and therefore they run a concurrently a policy which would usher in referenda the over such basic local matters such as council tax)...
Now the life and death of such universalization is the very stuff of day to day political or journalist life - and yet given both its centrality, and also the deep consequences for other times, it is well to keep one eye at least focussed on what constitutional niceity is slowly being warped in the process...
It is of course already to late to ask that other nagging question, of whether such deep and long lasting effects really should be the product of local political advantage: For where would politics itself be without such 'rules'?

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