I get it. This whole exercise (my first assignment) on the law degree is about proving that you've searched on the web (an appropriate law database, or good old Google or even Google Scholar) for some article or so. Yet, therein lies the problem. I love books too much. I have lately fallen in love with two dear friends: (1) A.V. Dicey's Study of the Law (as it's [apparently] known for short: Introduction to the Study of the Law of the Constitution - first published in 1885). (2) Turpin and Tomkins' British Government and the Constitution. The set text is also excellent.
Whom do I choose? The question comes in two forms, so I've set myself the task of evaluating the PROMPT (which I dub ROMP: Relevance, Objectivity, Method[ology] and Provenance/[biography]) criteria for these two sources, and the prognosis is not looking good. Yes Dicey is still read and indeed still relevant in some quarters, but not in others. Like Arnold van Gennep in anthropology, Dicey remains to be an influential author, still on the syllabus today.
But he's over a hundred years ago for heaven's sake, and in an England which was at its zenith. Then there is Turpin and Tomkins. Tomkins is a problem, well, he's not a problem, but holds a different view to that of the set text. Moreover, this work is older (2008) so before Brexit, Covid and the War. Do I go with the set text? My instinct tells me not to, my gut. On the other hand, never-mind intuition, we require marks. Magna Carta, the Bill of Rights, whatever. The 'T' in PROMPT stands for 'timliness' (id est contemporary). I prefer to think it means timelessness, like Dicey, or van Gennep, or even Homer himself.
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