Comparing Westminster

The Westminster system is a familiar point of reference in the political worlds of Australia and New ZeaJand. The Westminster heritage is also recognizable in the structure of government in both Canada and South Africa. Each of these four polities adopted Westminster as an important model on which to base their systems of government even if some local variations on the theme were incorporated from the outset. These polities still regard themselves, in part, as variants of British parliamentary democracy, originating in Westminster, despite each having subsequently undergone substantial transformation. For the British, however, to use the words ofJohn Bright (18th January 1865), 'England is the mother of Parliaments' (Bright 1910), and the term Westminster, if used at all, is but a shorthand term for 'their' system of government. The 'British government' and Westminster are treated as synonymous. If used 'inside' the UK, its meaning is not clear to actors, as the epigraph by the former Home Secretary David Blunkett makes apparent.