The British Imperial Establishment, Post Imperial Era, and the ‘Churchillian’ World View, 1945-2016. (Adjustments & Challenges in Contemporary British Diplomatic Strategy)

19

offend as
few voters as possible and, at the same time, retain freedom of action
should political power be own. In
Schumpeter’s words, “Democracy is an
institutional arrangement for arriving at political decisions
in which individuals
acquire the power to decide by means of a competitive struggle for the
people’s
vote.”16 The crux is ‘the power to decide’ and
thus democracy is the most effective
method of organising elite political rule in modern, developed
society.

As this
is a work about policy making and historical adjustment in Britain
(in relation to the ‘Ending of
Empire’) it may be concluded from this discussion
of elite theory, and its relevance in a democratic as
in any other system, that
whether one votes for the Conservative Party to become the government or
the
Labour Party, it would make no difference in respect of rule by a political elite.

The British Political Elite: social and
historical context and background

As class
and social structure has a direct impact on political life, it seems
appropriate to start the discussion by
giving an outline of the social structure of
Britain and of its modern history. To begin with we shall define
the nature of the
state and nation. In the political sphere, constitution remains unwritten and
probably
unwritable, and contains large elements that are the effect and residue
of long-established custom and
convention, rather than legal or executive
recognition, and is completely open to amendment in every
particular, containing
(and probably able to contain) no equivalent of the entrenched
clause.
Sovereignty resides, according to many observers, in the ‘Monarch in Parliament’,
an
expression which indicates the peculiar combination of hereditary monarchy
and parliamentary representation
that has led to the contemporary institutions.
The actual locus of this sovereignty is in fact hard to
determine: executive power
is considered to reside not with the monarch but with the Prime Minister or, to
be
more exact, the Prime Ministerial Cabinet.

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