Hewart described this "new despotism" as "to subordinate Parliament, to evade the Courts, and to render the will, or the caprice, of the Executive unfettered and supreme".

[1] The evasion of the Courts referred to increasing quasi-judicial decision-making by the civil service and the subordination of Parliament which resulted from the growth of delegated legislation.

Examples from statutes The book created "a constitutional and political storm".

The book and the Donoughmore Report provoked a group of socialist lawyers and political scientists, notably Professor Harold Laski (a member of the Donoughmore Committee) and Ivor Jennings to criticise the Diceyan concept of the rule of law.

[4] In 1956, Richard Crossman published a Fabian Society tract titled Socialism and the New Despotism where he hoped reform of the judiciary would make the judiciary "regain the traditional function of defending individual rights against encroachment".