Hilary Benn, the shadow leader of the Commons, will lead this review, looking at how to modernise the constitution, the role of new media, "balancing" rights and responsibilities for citizens, and where power should lie, from the local level to the EU.
Tom Clark writes:
Tony Benn twice changed the British constitution, by changing the law so he could renounce his peerage, and by initiating the first ever UK-wide referendum. Now the Labour party is looking to his son to show similar radicalism. The balance between the media and individual privacy is a pressing current concern, but can Labour really win by taking on Fleet Street? How can the party refine its stance on human rights to bolster the standing of the much-derided act that it passed over a decade ago? And at a time of international economic bailouts is there really the appetite for greater localism? All these questions matter, but if the reviewers are smart, they will give most attention to the state of the union with Scotland, where the SNP's ascendency and the possibility of indepdence threatens to confine Labour to near-permanent opposition in the traditionally-Tory dominated territory south of the border.
