The week beginning April 28 1997 was a mixed one for Michael Howard QC. Some may recall that he started it as home secretary. On Wednesday Lord Woolf upheld one of his decisions, saying that he had behaved lawfully. On Thursday he, with his colleagues, was summarily stripped of power by the electorate, perhaps in his case permanently. These experiences, good and bad, were almost equally rare in Howard's interesting and memorable political career.

Howard saw himself as the elected representative of the people entitled to do much as he wished in their name. The judges believe they have an historic duty to safeguard the freedoms of the people against, among other things, errant and mighty home secretaries. The people could not be asked whether they preferred the verdicts of Michael Howard to those of the Lord Chief Justice. The recipe for conflict was obvious, if the parties were willing to allow it. They were.

Joshua Rozenberg, the BBC's legal affairs correspondent, here tells the story of what followed and takes a hard look at the exercise of power in modern Britain. Although scrupulously fair and not a party political book, to my mind it shows the need for regular changes of government and a strong and principled opposition.

It shows why it was necessary for the Conservative government to be replaced, and why, in time, it will be equally necessary for the new Labour government to go into the same democratic skip.

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The main subject is the fight which developed between the judges, led at the time by Lord Taylor, then Lord Chief Justice, and the Government in the person of Michael Howard. Other tensions are dealt with, but this is the most novel and direct.

Howard had a political agenda which involved seeming to be tough on criminals and being tough on "asylum seekers". The judges were an obstacle to him because they often ruled in court that he had a duty to act fairly and corrected him when he did not do so. They also asserted a right to speak publicly on subjects like sentencing when they considered that the home secretary was making errors and ignoring their private advice.

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He answered by relying on parliamentary sovereignty and there followed a campaign of political warfare against the judges. The myth of "soft judges" and "pinkoes on the Bench" was created by people who either had never met a judge or deliberately wished to distort the truth. During Labour governments the reverse myth has been used for similar purposes.

Some of the judges perhaps thought that they had a duty to provide opposition on sentencing issues because no one else would. The official opposition calculated that attacking the more absurd proposals of the Government would lead to vilification for being "soft on crime". With a courage which will serve the country well in the years ahead, they kept quiet. Therefore, only the judges were willing to subject the proposals to any form of rigorous and informed criticism.

This, I now know, is called a "democratic deficit". Rozenberg asks whether it is a good idea for the judges to attempt to fill such gaps or whether by doing so they bring their office into disrepute, since politicians will always be less scrupulous than they are and will win the arguments which follow. The Scott enquiry is analysed as an example of this simple truth.

One answer to the question is that the judges should keep out and leave it to the electorate. This is facile because there is no reason to suppose that any government will behave any differently on the general issues raised by this book. It may not be sentencing which brings the present government into conflict with the judges, but something will.

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The old constitutional theories have little application in practice. Parliament cannot control ministers. Tony Blair has appointed his most feared supporter to do this, but he, of course, is himself a minister acting on behalf of the Government and not Parliament. Ministers can only exercise sporadic control over their departments.

The daily business of government is carried out by ministers who are appointed to office rather than elected to it and by civil servants who are not elected at all. Governments have little time for sensible but unglamorous reforms of the law and none at all for measures which are difficult and of marginal electoral significance.

The regulation of the executive and the development of the law has to be undertaken by someone. Rozenberg expresses doubts about whether that should be the judiciary (who have done it for centuries), but does not suggest anyone else for the job.

His great merit lies not in the answers he gives (which are quite modest), but in the profound questions he raises for lawyers, judges, politicians, and most pertinently citizens. He writes for the general reader but with real specialist insight.

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Andrew Edis QC is a practising barrister.