I think there is quite a complex role that public opinion plays in conventions. I wouldn't agree with a blanket statement to that extent. I think public opinion is sometimes very difficult to know on a specific event, and particularly in reference to an election—whether an election either casts doubt on a past government's actions or legitimizes them.
One of the problems we have with our electoral process is that we have no idea, and it is very difficult to know, if there is majority support for a particular action or against a particular action, because governments are elected to majority position without a majority vote. So it's very difficult to interpret raw election statistics as to whether or not they support what has or has not happened.
The other thing about conventions is that, I would say, there are times when governments get away with something, and in hindsight and over time it's quite clear that a convention was broken. Whether or not there was a public outcry at the time, the consensus afterwards is that the government should not have done something or the government should have done something. Public opinion at a particular time is informative for us to try to determine whether a convention exists, but it's not determinative in and of itself.