Magna Carta anniversary: Celebrating the past

For a document credited with delivering so much, this was a brief celebration, limited to a few speeches and musical performances.

Where powerful rebellious barons and a king had once sealed the Magna Carta, sat a Queen whose powers and those of her many ancestors were limited by the 800-year-old text.

The Latin text, written on sheepskin, failed to avert a civil war.

Today, in the meadow by the River Thames, the prime minister used it to highlight a future battle - the one to come over his government's plans to replace the Human Rights Act with a British Bill of Rights.

Reform - which will be contested - is for the future.

Today, the focus was more on the past and celebrating Magna Carta, which is revered and has had influence in America and at the United Nations; and which is considered by many to represent the foundation of democracy.

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