The Peoples Constitution

Billy Bragg reckons in the Telegraph that what the UK needs is a formal constitution, decided through a peoples debate of some sort.

Nice idea, and it is good too that Mr Bragg realizes that our current political and legal classes are too venal to be allowed anywhere near such a thing.

However, I cannot imagine that "the people" are going to be able to come up with a reasonable constitution. Has such a thing ever occurred before? And especially in so large a place as the UK.

A decent constitution requires a class of people that are both legally savvy, and who have a strong stake in the long-term success of the organization in question, rather than their political careers, or profiting off legal conflicts. Sadly, modern democracies have no such class of people.