C-SPAN Does the Uncommon

No one should be deceived by the English habit of understatement. They are, in fact, a people given to immoderate and mysterious enthusiasms. Take, for example, their unwholesome affection for spaniels or their unnerving fondness for the music of Frederick Delius.

We Americans have our own quirks, of course. Among them is an obsessive interest in the one British institution the Founders rejected utterly--monarchy--and a studied neglect of another--parliament--from which so much of our democracy derives. At 5:00 this evening, the cable network C-SPAN will provide an opportunity to remedy that deficiency, when it broadcasts the British House of Commons’ U.S. television debut.

Those who tune in should not be misled by the implied dignity of all those chalk-striped suits, for the right honorable members of Parliament practice democracy of the bare-knuckled sort. The lines you’ll notice running through the carpet in the middle of the chamber, for example, originally were put there to keep members at least the length of a sword’s blade apart.

There also is more than entertainment value to be had here. While the British Parliament may not be the world’s oldest deliberative body (that distinction belongs to the Icelandic Althing) or the most raucous (that’s probably the Israeli Knesset) when it comes to parliaments, this is definitely the major league. Because the British nation has no written constitution or separation of executive, legislative and judicial powers, as the United States does, everything happens in the Commons. Parliament has another chamber, the House of Lords, but like most hereditary aristocrats, they have in this century lost all powers save that of delay.

Executive authority is exercised by the prime minister as leader of the majority party (now the Conservatives’ Margaret Thatcher) and a cabinet. They all will be present and vocal in the Commons. Mrs. Thatcher is easy to spot: She sounds like Ronald Reagan might have, had he done his homework. On a good day, she is tough enough to kick-start the Concorde. Casual viewers may not want to waste time learning the names of her Cabinet members, as she sacks them with some regularity. Levity aside, there is perhaps no more fitting emblem of this year of democracy’s triumph than the decision to broadcast the proceedings of the “Mother of Parliaments.” But why stop there? Perhaps C-SPAN’s program executives can cut a deal with Moscow to bring us the Supreme Soviet in action.