Should not the impeachment of President Clinton cause us to think twice before changing to the American system?
We should certainly think carefully before making any constitutional change to make sure that we have learnt from the experience of other nations and that we have chosen the best system. However, nothing that happened in America suggests that replacing the Queen with a President would lead Britain into the same kind of turmoil. The United States has a President who is a partisan politician with executive powers. That is bound to make him the subject of political controversy. Britain is likely to follow the example of Ireland. There the President is more of a figurehead, somewhat like our Queen but with the great advantage of democratic legitimacy. Even in the United States it has taken more than an executive presidency to bring about the current state of affairs. It is the Independent Counsel law that has allowed Kenneth Starr to carry out his partisan investigation. That Act is of recent origin and not intrinsic to the American system of government. Many Republicans and Democrats have
