Only Americans seem to think Magna Carta is of any significance. It isn't (and never was ). Signed under duress,the King immediately retracted it. In fact, it achieved nothing then or since.It's surprising that this document is proclaimed as declaring the rights of the ordinary man. The ordinary man was the last person it was signed for. It was signed because the barons had the upper hand and it was signed to the benefit of the barons and to humiliate the king himself.However it suited the romantic notions of the Victorians to sell the idea that it was a declaration of the rights of all.
It follows that it barely gets a mention, if at all, in the school curriculum here and whole generations have been raised in ignorance of it. Daily Telegraph readers (average age 75?) are probably the last generation to have been taught about it
,