4/3/2026 at 10:58:17 AM
> The US technology company was awarded a £330 million contract in 2023 to collate operational data, including patient information and waiting lists.That contract value is ridiculous - how many full time staff do they have on this project and what rates are they charging? How can some say ‘operational data collection’ is worth a third of a billion to NHS over the alternatives of using a third of a billion on patient healthcare and actual medical research? This needs an investigation around how this contract was ever approved.
by twobitshifter
4/3/2026 at 12:16:37 PM
https://www.adamsmith.org/blog/apparently-the-nhs-is-the-wor...https://www.england.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/removi...
nhs is famous dumb and has spent years trying to stop using fax machine. £330 million is nothing over a few years.. NHS budget for 2024/25 is circa £242 billion.
the entire annual intake from capital gains tax is £20 million or so
by DaedalusII
4/3/2026 at 12:28:54 PM
I think you mean £20 billion for that latter figure. This is largely because a significant amount of assets are held in ISA's (£20k a year contribution per person allowed) , or via personal property which is capital gains exempt or in a pension which is again, capital gains exempt.Thus only the wealthiest are outside these boundaries, and they often will not liquidate holdings until their death to pay inhertiance tax, or in trusts which will liqudiate over decades as they can pay inheritance tax over a very long period.
This is not to mention the large amounts of off-shore holdings.
by zipy124
4/3/2026 at 1:46:43 PM
Many people opt for off-shore bonds (which have a number of advantages) which means paying normal tax instead of capital gains, so the capital gains figure doesn't really capture investment as a whole.by mgaunard
4/3/2026 at 4:51:28 PM
[flagged]by DaedalusII
4/3/2026 at 6:37:28 PM
Your entire comment is filled with false claims and figures.In 2025-26 there are an estimated 39.1 million people paying income tax - 56.0% of the population [1]. Of course, in the last census, 20.7% of the population were children [2]. About 3.1% of the population are UK students in University education [3], and about 18.6% of the population are retired [4]. I've also missed all the 18-year-olds in their final year of school, which is roughly 1.1 million or 1.6% of the population [5]. About 8.8 million, or 12.6%, are pensioners who pay income tax that I have double counted, usually due to private pensions and other sources of income [6].
Totally these numbers gives a rough estimate that suggest only about 12.6% of working age people do not pay income tax. This is in line with the government's own statistics putting those claiming Universal Credit at 10.6% of the population [7], or those economically inactive at 12.9% [8]. This is wildly different to your implication that 61% of people are too lazy to work.
Unemployment, which is roughly defined as those out of work who are actively looking for work, is at 5.2% [9], which it is worth noting is slightly below the EU and Euro area average of 5.9% and 6.2% respectively [10]. Direct comparisons are difficult to make, but it is certainly indicative of the UK falling within what is considered a healthy range.
Furthermore, take-home pay on a £100,000 salary is £68,561 [11], giving an effective income tax of 31.4% - far below your claim of 71%. True, there is the so-called "£100k tax trap" which gradually reduces your tax-free allowance above this salary. But this still gives just a 37.6% tax on £125,000, or 41.1% on £200,000. You may consider these to be high, but they are far, far below your claim of 71% income tax.
[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/income-tax-liabilit...
[2] https://www.ethnicity-facts-figures.service.gov.uk/uk-popula...
[3] https://www.universitiesuk.ac.uk/latest/insights-and-analysi...
[4] https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/dwp-benefits-statis...
[5] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/infographics-leve...
[6] https://www.ftadviser.com/content/291a4ce0-9287-4118-849b-ff...
[7] https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/dwp-benefits-statis...
[8] https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peoplenotin...
[9] https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peoplenotin...
[10] https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php...
by pgalvin
4/3/2026 at 7:32:04 PM
I think the reason behind this is that the UK NHS is using a lot of budget on long-term ill people who they believe aren't really long-term ill, or who at least could be working. Essentially, they feel they can't trust their employees and want LLMs to do it instead.So they want LLMs to look at all the files, and essentially kick a lot such people off the NHS. That's what they're paying for.
In other words they want to "Elon Musk the NHS, DOGE-style".
This is, of course, highly illegal to do. There is no way giving medical data to a US consultancy does not violate UK and EU law something awful. The government knows this, does it anyway. Which is one reason you won't be able to do anything about this: the government has zero intention to respect the law in this case. You will, of course, be expected to pay your taxes correctly.
by spwa4
4/3/2026 at 5:27:51 PM
> paying 71% income taxDo you have a citation for this? I'm interested in how this figure was extracted from where it came.
by exe34
4/3/2026 at 7:34:07 PM
I think they're confused/disingenuous and talking about the _marginal_ tax rate at 100k.There's a segment of a few thousand pounds where your marginal tax rate skyrockets because you lose your tax free allowance at that income level.
It's stupid, annoying and has some minor economic effects, but it's very different from a 71% income tax rate.
by maest
4/4/2026 at 6:46:11 AM
It was a rhetorical question, of course they were being disingenuous. Marginal tax rate doesn't have the same ring as 70% tax.by exe34
4/3/2026 at 5:26:30 PM
More like 40% effective tax rate at £100k, even including employer side of things?by dmoy
4/3/2026 at 12:43:35 PM
Don't care. I don't want any of the wankers over there at Palantir involved with the NHS.(source: a UK voter)
by LightBug1
4/3/2026 at 12:52:24 PM
[flagged]by mhh__
4/3/2026 at 1:34:15 PM
No.I checked, and you can of course donate to Led By Donkeys either as a one-off or monthly via their web page https://donate.ledbydonkeys.org/ but they don't have a way to contribute to specific campaigns.
Thanks for mentioning them though.
by clort
4/3/2026 at 2:40:38 PM
Donated. Cheersby LightBug1
4/3/2026 at 3:45:10 PM
It'll come good any day now, the sensibles rightful place in charge of the plebs will be reaffirmed in 2029 I'm sureby mhh__
4/3/2026 at 4:54:42 PM
You're really bashing a straw man of "the sensibles rightfully in charge of the plebs" to argue in support of a system that will be overtly in charge of the plebs without even nominal democratic accountability? Talk about mental gymnastics.by mindslight
4/6/2026 at 8:33:09 PM
Which system is that?by mhh__
4/3/2026 at 2:49:56 PM
Entropyless? So you’re saying they’re highly efficient?by Apocryphon
4/3/2026 at 12:55:22 PM
Welcome to the club.by LightBug1
4/3/2026 at 5:37:55 PM
"dumb". Call it what it is, corruptionby gmerc
4/5/2026 at 2:27:57 PM
Sorry but the Adam smith institute is a ridiculous think thank that cherry picks Adam smith, he would be spinning in his grave at the misuse of his name.by stuaxo
4/7/2026 at 9:14:38 AM
it's not an Adam Smith fan club it's an independent research think tank, easily one of the best, up there with Brookings...by jpfromlondon
4/3/2026 at 1:25:05 PM
This is why I disagree with the idea that we should keep increasing funding to the NHS. The argument always seems to come to a false dichotomy of "either this or the American system" as though other systems don't exist, and as though the NHS isn't top heavy with bureaucrats and questionable contractsby dwedge
4/3/2026 at 1:49:32 PM
The truth is that the NHS is very bad not due to funding, but for structural reasons.The fact I can't even see a GP I'm not registered with (not even an option to pay extra) is ridiculous. You have absolutely no control over your health at all.
With private, you get exactly what you want, whenever you want it.
by mgaunard
4/3/2026 at 4:12:26 PM
> With private, you get exactly what you want, whenever you want it.In the US this isn't how it works. You can't see whoever you want unless you have a really, really good plan. Otherwise, you need referrals. And lots of specialists won't see you without a referral anyway.
And, the wait is often on the order of months. I know that's something people complain about in the UK but I assure you, it happens that way in the US too even though we're paying 10x as much.
I know private in the UK is quite good. What you need to understand is that the only reason it's any good at all is because of the NHS. It has to remain competitive. If you go full private, then it very quickly decays.
by array_key_first
4/3/2026 at 7:38:00 PM
A specialist also requires a referral in the UK. There are also much more medicines which are prescription-only than in the US.That's why in practice we have all these (private) services to get easy GP appointments via phone, video or even online forms. While everyone knows those appointments can't realistically do any real medical work, they serve to give you prescriptions and referrals.
It's just a gatekeeping mechanism, that you can more easily bypass if you have money. The more you pay, the more they care about your user experience and how streamlined it is.
by mgaunard
4/3/2026 at 5:32:26 PM
In the US if I want to see my primary care doctor I need to wait 2 months for the appointment.I pay $500 per month for the privilege (and a $50 copay)
So I’m paying $1000 in the time period where I’m getting no service.
by reillyse
4/3/2026 at 5:36:29 PM
Where in the US are you? I was able to book a visit with my primary the very next day less than a month ago.by zdragnar
4/3/2026 at 7:42:47 PM
Not the person you replied to but I'm in North Texas and I just recently had to reschedule my physical. And yup, the next appointment is 2 months out.I also had cancer in the past and you might think that that would mean I get faster appointments. I do not.
And I have a very, very, very good PPO plan.
by array_key_first
4/3/2026 at 8:39:33 PM
> I also had cancer in the past and you might think that that would mean I get faster appointments. I do not.Sadly you do not may be because lower life expectancy -> lower return on treatment "investment".
by chrisjj
4/3/2026 at 5:56:44 PM
That was my thinking... even for specialists, I can generally get into a new one within a few weeks.My SO is on state Medicaid (cancer) and does experience the kinds of waits mentioned above... so I guess it does follow similarly for government/state backed healthcare, where I'm mostly out of pocket.
But even when I had relatively typical coverage, I didn't have issues getting into a doctor more often than not. I think getting my sleep study was the longest wait I had for anything, they were months backed up with appointments... but my kidney and retina specialists were somewhat easy to get started with.
by tracker1
4/3/2026 at 7:52:50 PM
As usual when people say "the US", we're papering over the fact that the United States is really 50 countries in a trench coat.by 0xffff2
4/3/2026 at 8:40:59 PM
> the United States is really 50 countries in a trench coat.Appropriate attire... when you're in a trench :)
by chrisjj
4/3/2026 at 3:13:42 PM
You can absolutely see a GP you’re not registered with if you are travelling and need to. I have done it multiple times. I have been offered it same or next day after calling 111.by IneffablePigeon
4/3/2026 at 5:52:57 PM
You can call any GP surgery to get emergency treatment for up to 14 days if you're not registered with a GP surgery or are away from home. https://www.nhs.uk/nhs-services/gps/gp-appointments-and-book...by harvey9
4/3/2026 at 7:20:44 PM
While away from home, my son (5 yo) cut his finger and was in need of disinfectant and a bandage (steri strips).Pharmacy was useless, no medical skills or knowledge of their own products. Asked me to figure out myself what I needed and put it on my son myself.
Local GP surgery sent us away: no registration, no visit. Me saying this was an emergency just made them suggest A&E.
A&E is where we ended up, and while that definitely works, going to the emergency services of a large hospital for every little thing is not only a waste of my time but also of resources. It seems however to be the NHS way: whenever the littlest of troubles arise, just go to the hospital, or even call an ambulance.
by mgaunard
4/3/2026 at 7:51:38 PM
Sorry for being too American to understand, but why would you need to talk to any medical professional to put a bandaid on your kid? Is this about NHS being paying for the bandaid? About medical expertise to apply a bandaid?by 0xffff2
4/3/2026 at 11:24:04 PM
Not all disinfectants are child safe, and the wound was serious enough to require steri-strips (an alternative to sutures) -- it was not a matter of a bandaid.by mgaunard
4/3/2026 at 11:39:45 PM
You would have been best served by a Minor Injury Unit but not every town has one, so A&e is not excessive. The great majority of people going there do not need the full capabilities of it (resuscitation etc).by harvey9
4/4/2026 at 7:01:49 PM
1. Water is child safe2. Steri-strips are available over the counter at any supermarket or pharmacy (in the U.S.)
by bookofjoe
4/5/2026 at 2:29:44 PM
The chemist can sell you the right stuff for that.by stuaxo
4/3/2026 at 10:40:27 PM
You call 111 if you don't want to bother the 999 guys. 111 will tell you what you need to do, including "go to A&E".What is wrong with going to A&E for an (as you said yourself) emergency?
A pharmacist dispenses medications and should know about their safe usage. They won't tell you how to bandage a wound.
by phatfish
4/3/2026 at 11:36:54 PM
Getting a minor wound bandaged up is not what A&E is meant for, it's for life-threatening injuries.Going to A&E and waiting there also means you're losing 4 to 6 hours.
111 you just get some robot asking you a never-ending list of inane questions before someone tells you to either self-care at home or go to A&E.
A pharmacist should be able to administer the supplies they sell, particularly wound dressing and care. It's a requirement in some other European countries like France (where pharmacists are doctors), but in the UK the reality is that most are unable to do so.
by mgaunard
4/5/2026 at 7:17:04 AM
111 do a lot more than that, they will get you a GP visit even if the GP claims to not have slots, and they will get medical professionals to come to you.If it was in hours, I'm surprised they didn't get a nurse appointment for the cut.
by happymellon
4/3/2026 at 11:35:53 PM
Pharmacy. Not pharmacist.Pharmacies provide much more than just medicine.
by chrisjj
4/5/2026 at 7:13:19 AM
And 111 was unable to help, even the GP they assigned to you turned you away?by happymellon
4/4/2026 at 4:26:14 AM
A pharmacist is someone who is a chemical practitioner though?“Man, these cryptographers didn’t know a thing about tailwind. Useless!”
by lambdas
4/3/2026 at 2:37:43 PM
With private, you get exactly what you want, whenever you want it... If you can afford it.by shigawire
4/3/2026 at 2:55:53 PM
Pending availability of specialists, willingness to travel, etc.by stvltvs
4/3/2026 at 5:57:12 PM
If you're in a major metro area it's generally not too bad.by tracker1
4/3/2026 at 3:57:00 PM
Compared to the system of no accessby dwedge
4/3/2026 at 6:45:46 PM
Same system, for the not-wealthy.by IAmBroom
4/3/2026 at 8:13:14 PM
So naive. Private only works this way in Britain because it doesn’t have to be responsible for anything. It’s a luxury good and works accordingly.We have insurance, it’s amazing! But it’s fake. If you want to know how a whole system of this would work, look at the US
by te_chris
4/3/2026 at 3:02:54 PM
* if available in your area or within your means of travel, which may include flying to another stateby iamtheworstdev
4/3/2026 at 4:26:59 PM
If only there were some system where the incentives could freely flow through and permeate every level of the sector. Where those organisations that provide sub-standard care die and those that excel receive outsized funding...by jaccola
4/3/2026 at 4:32:05 PM
Unfortunately, a system with these qualities doesn't exist in practice. You just end up with the same too-big-to-fail macro organization minimizing their point-of-care labor spend and maximizing their management spend either way.by thunderfork
4/3/2026 at 3:40:26 PM
As someone who largely worked at startups and smaller companies before joining the NHS it genuinely confused me how no one would ever say no to anything when I first started working there.The projects I worked on were genuinely absurd... My team alone spent millions on things that literally wouldn't have made any difference to the quality of healthcare in the UK.
Apparently we were given a budget and we had to find a way to spend it otherwise it would be cut. At any normal company we should have all immediately have been made redundant.
by kypro
4/3/2026 at 5:37:03 PM
The rate of increase of healthcare funding for the UK is 2,000% higher than France's rate of healthcare funding increases from between 2010 and 2019, according to World Bank data.The UK healthcare system is uniquely incompetent, administratively bloated and drives very suboptimal value for money.
UK citizens appear to be in a collective delusion about the NHS that allows them to continue ineptly bumbling through mediocrity while perpetually fleecing more tax money to line the pockets of administrators.
Meanwhile actual frontline workers in the NHS are completely ripped off in salary. Nurses get paid peanuts, while even neurosurgeons earn less than 1/6th of their American counterparts.
To plug the gap by skilled healthcare workers bailing over these horrific conditions, the UK has been importing people to fill these gaps, often with severely lower competence (usually because of completely faked qualifications or outright fraud [1]).
[1] https://www.hrmagazine.co.uk/content/news/hundreds-of-nhs-nu...
by 0xy
4/5/2026 at 2:30:57 PM
The rate of increase is an interesting one to choose, what about some absolute numbers ?by stuaxo
4/3/2026 at 11:21:02 AM
Partially redacted details here. The award was over 5 years for half that amount, but could be extended to 10.https://www.contractsfinder.service.gov.uk/Notice/0f8a65b5-2...
by timthorn
4/3/2026 at 12:51:34 PM
The NHS is a huge organisation (~2 million employees alone) with enormous problems along these lines - they should pay 10x if it delivers.by mhh__
4/3/2026 at 2:31:24 PM
But they'll pay even if it doesn't deliver.AND they're putting private information at risk by working with Panantir
by RHSeeger
4/3/2026 at 2:43:30 PM
Isn’t this true for any project ever attempted? The only reason this project exists is because millions have already been wasted on trying to do this in houseby basket_horse
4/4/2026 at 6:25:09 PM
Yes, but the comment I was replying to sounded like it was saying that the large cost wasn't an issue, because it would have such a big impact. But the odds of it actually accomplishing anything useful need to be taken into account, too. If it has a low chance of success, then a large price tag isn't worth it.by RHSeeger
4/3/2026 at 2:30:10 PM
as often the case with eternal consultants it probably won't deliver, plus the NHS will be perpetually on the hook for maintenancethis isn't a "delivery" product, it should be an institutional pillar of the system
by micromacrofoot
4/3/2026 at 8:13:26 PM
A system whereby millions of people seek services from thousands of potential providers, with a life-or-death need to track which services and products were delivered where and when ... ya. It is a billion-dollar data problem. But that is the cost for the luxury of being able to walk into any hospital in the country and expect them to know everything about your conditions at a moment's notice.by sandworm101
4/4/2026 at 9:36:57 AM
I mean, for comparison, the UK Gov "Integrated Data Service" costed around £250m and delivered literally nothing.Building software for and integrating 200-ish NHS trusts, who generally have their own cloud/tech stack etc, is not actually super cheap.
by crimsoneer
4/3/2026 at 11:18:51 AM
I assume the purpose of Palantir is to enable the Federal government to circumvent the constitution by framing their new spy agency as a public/private partnership. From that lens the funding makes sense.by user3939382
4/3/2026 at 11:48:46 AM
The purpose of Palantir is to watch over Mordor and the other lands of Sauron. He's only got one eye, one attention span, he needs intelligent agentic processing to administrate the realm. Who are you going to entrust, Gorthak The Orc? The Nazgul? They have their own priorities, their own limitations.It was incredibly expensive to run East Berlin as a panopticon state, with a large fraction of the population on the payroll as informers to the 100,000 Stasi agents. Obvious conclusions were missed all the time because of the sheer difficulty of keeping track of facts cross-referenced on paper in filing cabinets in a large office building. This volume of classified siloed information is toxic for the occupation, operationally unusable. People were disappeared or even executed on mere suspicion because it would have been too difficult to rustle up proof.
Thiel looked at our prospects for effectively running an authoritarian surveillance state in Afghanistan and Iraq, looked at how many American contractors we would have had to devote to that, how many people we would have had to torture on a routine basis, how fast we might learn the language, and said "I think I can do better. A softer touch, a smarter system for controlling people. This is what AI is for, running society after this liberal democracy fiction falls away"
by mapt
4/3/2026 at 12:53:21 PM
NB: The Palantir were created by the Elves, not by Morgoth or Sauron. The problem is that it takes a lot of will to use one and not have things of importance hidden (it shows what you think is important, not what is important), and as it turns out holders of one stone can influence what holders of other stones can see, if their will is greater. The Enemy doesn't get ahold of a stone until Minas Ithil falls and becomes Minas Morgul, and that's well into the Third Age. Two thousand years after the Last Alliance of Men and Elves, the second defeat of The Enemy, and the first destruction of Sauron. Which is still a thousand years before the start of Frodo's adventure. Lots of time in Middle Earth.The rest of your comment is, unfortunately, spot on.
by da_chicken
4/3/2026 at 5:06:58 PM
It's amazing how some people can read Tolkien's works and come away with an idea that it would be a good thing to create new powerful artifacts that will inevitably fall under the control of evil. Perhaps because their minds have already been corrupted by the One Ring.I suppose it's just the Don't make the Torment Nexus effect with a different motif.
by mindslight
4/3/2026 at 11:20:51 AM
There's no federal government in the UK, nor constitutionby imdsm
4/3/2026 at 11:34:56 AM
There is absolutely a Constitution in the UK, it is simply not codified into a single document.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_the_United_Kin...
More importantly, the UK is a Constitutional Monarchy, with ultimate legislative power vested in Parliament rather than the Monarch.
by codeduck
4/3/2026 at 3:45:48 PM
From your link: "This enables the constitution to be easily changed as no provisions are formally entrenched."It doesn't look like a duck, it doesn't quack like a duck, yet you insist that this goose-shaped creature is a duck.
by istjohn
4/3/2026 at 4:54:11 PM
>It doesn't look like a duckSome special amendment procedure is not the only or even defining feature of constitutional law. There is non-constitutional law that has this property and there is constitutional law that does not.
by ponkpanda
4/3/2026 at 6:27:21 PM
I notice you are using the phrase "constitutional law" now, where as the original question was whether the UK can be said to have "a constitution."The oddities of this "duck" go far beyond its lack of entrenchment. It also lacks form and definition in the way that a puff of smoke lacks form and definition. It includes such nebulous elements as common law, unwritten convention, and even legal commentary of various law scholars. It's also said to be in constant flux as it evolves over time.
It may be a useful abstraction within the context of UK law to refer to this amorphous blob as the "constitution," but for anyone unfamiliar with the UK's system of government, to say the UK has a constitution is grossly misleading in as much as all of the conclusions the listener will draw from that assertion will be false. It's like characterizing a chicken eating grain out of your hand as being "attacked by a dinosaur." The chicken may belong to the clade "Dinosauria" and may have inadvertently pecked your palm in its feeding frenzy, but in as much as it communicates information contrary to fact, it is a confabulation. At best, it's a lawyer's lie, to coin a phrase.
by istjohn
4/3/2026 at 5:58:49 PM
I've heard it said that they have a constitution but it's written in pencil...by FuriouslyAdrift
4/3/2026 at 6:28:04 PM
...in the airby istjohn
4/4/2026 at 7:08:09 PM
ice cream castles…by bookofjoe
4/3/2026 at 2:34:14 PM
And that's absolutely not what the commenter up-thread meant.by OJFord
4/3/2026 at 1:03:15 PM
I find it weird that people would downvote this, I know you should not complain about it, but this comment is correct. The UK does have a (uncodified) constitution. Also of note; even countries with a codified constitution have parts that are uncodified.by howerj
4/3/2026 at 2:21:47 PM
>> There is absolutely a Constitution in the UK, it is simply not codified into a single document. <link>That's got to be the understatement of (many) centuries. AFAIK the UK constitution isn't even even codified into millions of documents, let alone a "single" one. Saying it's not in a "single" document is like saying my trillions of dollars aren't in a "single" bank account. The number of partitions really isn't the problem with that statement here.
Is there a single human (or even computer program) that could even definitively list all the sentences in this "constitution", let alone an arbitrary citizen who needs to be able to become aware of them to be able to follow them? (Note I'm not asking for interpretation, but literally just listing the sentences.) Could they even do this with infinite time? Is it even possible to have an oracle that, given an arbitrary sentence, could indisputably tell you if it is in the constitution?
Maybe that's asking too much. Forget enumerating the laws. Per your own link: "...this enables the constitution to be easily changed as no provisions are formally entrenched."
If this doesn't itself sound silly, hopefully you can at least forgive people for getting irritated at the proposition that there totally exists a "constitution"... that nobody can point to... and that doesn't actually do the one thing many people want from a constitution: being more entrenched than statutes.
> Also of note; even countries with a codified constitution have parts that are uncodified.
Not sure what countries you're referring to, but at least in the US, this is not the case. There is a single document that is the constitution, and (thankfully, so far) nobody is disputing what words are in fact written on that document. And that document absolutely is supreme to statutes.
Interpretation of the words is obviously left to courts in the US, and courts can interpret it differently changing the effective law, but "constitution" is not a synonym for "effective law", and nobody argues over what the words to be interpreted are. And even those interpretations are still written down!
by dataflow
4/3/2026 at 3:55:49 PM
I believe interpretation is a part of the definition of a constitution, you do not, we have different definitions, oh well. I also believe the uncodified/codified distinction is not binary, it is obvious that the US constitution is far more codified than the UK constitution, the two are at opposite extremes.by howerj
4/3/2026 at 4:24:16 PM
> I believe interpretation is a part of the definition of a constitution, you do not, we have different definitions, oh well.You can't just brush it aside as some quibble about definitions. It's a fundamentally substantive difference in the two structures: one of these has an indisputable source of truth (a foundation everyone can witness) that everything else is built on top of -- however shakily! -- and the other does not. Regardless of whether you include the upper parts of this metaphorical building in your definitions or not, the foundations are not the same.
by dataflow
4/3/2026 at 5:04:35 PM
> It's a fundamentally substantive difference in the two structuresYes, it is a substantive difference but it does not follow that this difference provides the 'constitution' property.
> one of these has an indisputable source of truth... the foundations are not the same
They are so similar as to be almost the same and if an 'indisputable source of truth' exists anywhere, it is not in the written documents or their structure but unwritten norms and rituals sit beneath both.
What stops a President from simply choosing to ignore a Supreme Court ruling and what prevents the King from returning to personal rule?
The lack of arbitrary rule is a defining feature of both and relies on something that emerged rather than something imposed from without by written words.
by ponkpanda
4/3/2026 at 5:35:29 PM
> What stops a President from simply choosing to ignore a Supreme Court ruling and what prevents the King from returning to personal rule?Legally? The fact that everybody under the president -- including those in the military -- understand they are swearing their oath to the constitution -- not the King, not the Crown, not God, not the Supreme Court, not anything else. And that the Supreme Court says what the constitution means. And that if there is a clear and direct contradiction between the Supreme Court and the president, the former trumps (no pun intended) the latter.
Physically? "Nothing", yeah. Same goes for non-presidents. If you can get enough people to follow you (or maybe at least enough of the people with guns) everything else becomes irrelevant, including whether your title was president or King or God or Constitution or whatever.
> The lack of arbitrary rule is a defining feature of both
It is emphatically not. There are lots of countries with constitutions that nevertheless have arbitrary rule. As there are countries without constitutions or arbitrary rule.
> They are so similar as to be almost the same and if an 'indisputable source of truth' exists anywhere, it is not in the written documents or their structure but unwritten norms and rituals sit beneath both.
No, that's exactly what those are not. Unwritten stories, traditions, and rituals are very much disputable. That's kind of the entire point of writing things down, and the point of the game we call Telephone. The indisputable bits are physical artifacts everyone can see with their own eyes.
by dataflow
4/4/2026 at 10:01:54 PM
> And that if there is a clear and direct contradiction between the Supreme Court and the president, the former trumps (no pun intended) the latter.The extent to which members of the executive branch adhere to their oaths is not written down. Ofc the oath is written and its power may partly derive from its written nature (clear; predictable; well publicised etc) but there is a lot more than its written nature that might cause a general to refuse to follow a Presidential order to arrest all people suspected of voting for their opponent.
> The lack of arbitrary rule... is emphatically not [a defining feature of both]
I guess it depends on whether you (or most reasonable people) would call countries like Russia a 'constitutional republic'. Of course there are plenty of dysfunctional and dictatorial countries which superficially describe themselves as XYZ but it lacks substance.
While there may be a textbook answer, I strongly suspect it is debatable within the field and comes down (like so many things) to how you define your terms. Do you define 'constitutional' as attaching more to the codified and written nature of any rules or whether it is more to do with predictable and enforceable rules limiting arbitrary government. My view is that it attaches more the latter.
If you go into the etymology of the term, I don't think codification is baked in - that you can find a large number of books discussing the English or UK constitution (using that term) is testament to the fact that it's not just some niche view. I do suspect the influence of US popular culture (e.g. Hollywood) has biased the term towards the US' arrangement vs. the alternatives.
by ponkpanda
4/6/2026 at 3:24:31 AM
> The extent to which members of the executive branch adhere to their oaths is not written down. Ofc the oath is writtenSo... it is written down...
Notice the president isn't even mentioned. [1] And it even says all enemies, foreign and domestic. The oath is 100% unambiguous and crystal clear that in the event that the president becomes an enemy of the constitution, you defend the constitution, not the president.
> but there is a lot more than its written nature
We're not playing no-true-Scotsman here, right? There are always going to be more factors both in favor and against such a position than any human can enumerate ahead of time. This in no way contradicts anything I wrote.
>>> definition of a constitution
>> The lack of arbitrary rule... is emphatically not [a defining feature]
> I guess it depends on whether you (or most reasonable people) would call countries like Russia a 'constitutional republic'
No, the fact that Russia has a constitution doesn't depend on what I (or most reasonable people) may call Russia or its form of government at all.
> I strongly suspect it is debatable within the field and comes down (like so many things) to how you define your terms.
Russia has a constitution, end of story. There's even a Wikipedia article on it! [2]
If you believe otherwise, just assert "Russia doesn't have a constitution" directly. No need to dive into the debate over whether "Russia is a constitutional republic" when Russia clearly has a constitution. Of course, you're not going to claim it doesn't have a constitution (otherwise you already would've), which... well, I rest my case.
> Do you define 'constitutional' as attaching more to the codified and written nature of any rules
I'm not defining "constitutional" (adjective), whose definition comes in conjunction with the noun following it. I am merely defining "constitution", which is a simple noun. Recall that the sentence I was originally replying to -- word for word -- was: "there is absolutely a Constitution in the UK." Not "the UK is a constitutional <noun>." That's all. The debate is not over anything that involves the <noun> following the word "constitutional". The dispute is over whether the UK has a constitution, and in that debate, it is indisputable that e.g. Russia indeed has a constitution, whether it is well-followed or not, or whether we like it or not.
I think what's becoming pretty clear that people just really desperately want to say the UK has a constitution regardless of how many contortions of the definition of "constitution" that requires, because... well, a constitution is a good thing, the UK sees its form of government as good, so of course it must have a good basis. (Global virtue-signaling, I guess?) Which I find ironic, because a good constitution-less government would be something to be proud of, not something embarrassing to avoid.
If this is hard to wrestle with, consider this: imagine a world where the UK was the same as it is today, but everything else was flipped. i.e. the US & every other country that has a constitution was suffering, and every other monarchy was flourishing. Do you really believe the experts "in the field" would still be arguing the UK has a constitution today, or would they just stick with calling it a monarchy and vehemently deny any constitution existing? It's pretty obvious to me the answer is the latter, but of course, I can't prove anything about an alternate timeline.
by dataflow
4/3/2026 at 5:00:33 PM
Yes, the foundations of the constitutions are not the same, one of them has a mostly codified constitution, the other has a mostly uncodified (uncodified but mostly written down, that is not a contradiction!) constitution. They both have constitutions however, so the phase "Britain has no constitution" is wrong. To be clear, I am not saying that is good or bad that Britain has an uncodified constitution, just that from my definition (and most political and legal definitions) of what a constitution is the phrase "Britain has no constitution" is wrong. Britain of course has laws, and laws about how new laws are made, etcetera. This forms a constitution.by howerj
4/3/2026 at 3:31:22 PM
> Is there a single human (or even computer program) that could even definitively list all the sentences in this "constitution"No, it's a living thing. Why is this your sticking point on the existence of a constitution or not?
by AlecSchueler
4/3/2026 at 4:10:24 PM
>> Is there a single human (or even computer program) that could even definitively list all the sentences in this "constitution"> No, it's a living thing. Why is this your sticking point on the existence of a constitution or not?
Do you never write down or sign contracts? Are verbal promises adequate for you in all transactions?
If you don't see the value of laws being written down - especially the most important ones! - I can't really convince you of it here on HN.
But what I can tell is that most people who care about the legitimacy of government believe it is fundamental to fairness that there be a single source of truth that can tell them the laws under which they would be rewarded or punished, before those happen.
by dataflow
4/3/2026 at 4:25:55 PM
I think you have diverged too much...well from reality, in order to try to prove a point. Do you think most people, or lawyers, or judges in the UK spend their time trying to enumerate all the laws of the land before they proceed in their court cases? Do you think that people think that the UK system of government is illegitimate? What point are you trying to make? Because it is not grounded in reality. You can debate the merits of a codified constitution versus an uncodified one, but the UK does have a constitution, the vast majority of which is codified into many documents. The following two links might help you:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncodified_constitution
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_(political_norm)#Un...
Note the second one applies to the US - a country with a mostly but not completely codified constitution.
by howerj
4/6/2026 at 3:19:11 PM
> I think you have diverged too much...well from reality> What point are you trying to make? Because it is not grounded in reality.
Your comment would have been much more valuable without these insults and I would have been much more likely to respond, to point you to where you seemed to be misunderstanding my point. But it seems you're not here for a discussion so let's leave it.
by AlecSchueler
4/3/2026 at 5:33:38 PM
> If you don't see the value of laws being written downI don't think this is helping much in the US right now. The orangefuhrer has shown he is willing to ignore clauses that are inconvenient.
by exe34
4/3/2026 at 5:43:17 PM
Nobody claimed it's helping or hurting. The debate is over what constitutes a constitution, whether good or bad. There have been great governments without a constitution and terrible governments with one. "You don't have a constitution" does not mean "your government sucks", but it seems somehow people take it as such.by dataflow
4/3/2026 at 8:46:24 PM
> If you don't see the value of laws being written down - especially the most important ones! - I can't really convince you of it here on HN.It's a shame you can't really explain it. It's ineffable, isn't it.
by exe34
4/3/2026 at 6:52:14 PM
"I like scrambled eggs.""I do too, but the way Trump is behaving, pretty soon it will be illegal to ..."
by IAmBroom
4/3/2026 at 8:46:46 PM
Pretty soon you won't be able to afford eggs.by exe34
4/4/2026 at 9:11:56 AM
> Do you never write down or sign contracts? Are verbal promises adequate for you in all transactions?I generally deal with written contracts but verbal contracts are recognised as having equal legal validity. I'm not sure how that's relevant.
> If you don't see the value of laws being written down - especially the most important ones! - I can't really convince you of it here on HN.
Where have I made a value judgement either way? I'm only pointing out that the constitution needn't be explicitly codified in order to exist.
> But what I can tell is that most people ...
[citation needed]
by AlecSchueler
4/3/2026 at 4:44:47 PM
That's an excuse for the list being not bang up to date. It is no excuse for the list being non-existent.by chrisjj
4/4/2026 at 9:12:25 AM
It does exist, it's the house of lords.by AlecSchueler
4/3/2026 at 11:35:17 AM
You are technically correct. But the distinction between devolution and a Federation of states gets very blurry when you take a look at what's happening with voting in the US these days.You are technically incorrect about the UK not having a constitution. It's just not all compiled into a single written document.
by Zigurd
4/3/2026 at 2:03:32 PM
Technically correct only if you accept "vague set of traditions" as a valid definition for "constitution". This both contradicts common usage and enables tyranny, so I recommend rejecting it.by mrob
4/3/2026 at 2:10:40 PM
The UK constitution isn't a "vague set of traditions", it is spread across a number of acts of Parliament.by rounce
4/3/2026 at 2:17:00 PM
Where can I find the official list of which acts are part of the constitution? And what additional obstacles exist to changing those acts beyond the obstacles to changing non-constitutional acts of parliament? In common usage, a constitution is something that restricts changes to ordinary law. If a "constitution" is made entirely from ordinary law it cannot function as a constitution.by mrob
4/3/2026 at 4:43:34 PM
Before you demand more explanation on the spot, you know there's a Wikipedia page for that. It explains the components how they are legitimated and the mechanisms of the UK government that rely on it.by Zigurd