Damien Grant: Law changes would let big banks off refunding thousands of customers, if legal case lost

We do not have a written constitution. We rely on precedent, embedded legislation and convention to provide the guardrails of our democratic infrastructure. This ad-hoc regime has evolved over a millennia of cartas, ordinances, one monarchial beheading and revolutions, both glorious and inglorious.

We are governed by the rule of law. Not that of man. Yet there is nothing in the formal arrangements to prevent power being abused, civil and property rights usurped and legal protections stripped away.