Friends in High Places: Who Runs Britain?

by Jeremy Paxman

Book Overview

This title presents a though-provoking and engaging search for the true sources of power in Britain today. Paxman examines the pillars of the Establishment - their origin, influence and future. An... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0140156003
• ISBN13: 9780140156003
• Release Date: January 1991
• Publisher: Penguin Group
• Length: 400 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.

Customer Reviews

HUNTING THE SNARK

The Fristindula of Biccle and the Clintistorit of Wintistering seem to have been inventions of the late Peter Cook, but there really is, in the third millennium after Christ, a British functionary known as the Fitzalan Pursuivant Extraordinary; and as recently as the 1960's Major-General Lord Michael Fitzalan Howard found the idea that a black man could be admitted to a Guards fighting unit simply incomprehensible. When Jeremy Paxman of the BBC's Newsnight set about writing a book that tried to define the British `establishment' his task was described to him by Enoch Powell as `hunting the snark'. For my part, I'd say he has made a very good fist of it. He is not naïve and he doesn't underestimate the complexity of the issues involved. He is not arguing from any particular political standpoint, which in my view would have invalidated his arguments a priori. Above all, his great strength is that nobody impresses him and he is not prone to `showing respect'. The test of any `establishment', I suppose, is what happens when it is exposed to the glare of daylight. Traditions of any kind thrive not so much through avoiding or rebuffing attack as through avoiding scrutiny. The British way of appointing judges and bishops goes on much as before mainly because nobody is much bothered how it is done, and reformers tend to be preaching to the apathetic. There is no public demand for change to the antiquated style of the Bank of England either, and such innovations as have occurred within royalty itself really seem to me only fine-tuning, a skilful response to TV arc-lights. These are cases where the establishment has come through exposure unscathed or nearly. In other instances, such as the unspeakable clubs at which the great and good come together to reinforce their sense of greatness and goodness, careful vetting of membership ensures discreet continuity, the public in general having better things to worry about. In the long history of Britain certain families dominated the scene. They owned the land and the wealth, they provided the employment and it was their job to lead armies and the church. Come industrialisation new wealth was generated by a different kind of person, and the old establishment naturally closed ranks, but the new money could afford the best education, and gradually the older attitudes and manners were imbued into the families of the arrivistes. The 20th century saw the Labour party form governments under five prime ministers, but there was no serious attack by these on the establishment. That came from Margaret Thatcher, whose dislike of the entrenched class was as vehement as her sense of her own rightness. She was a Samuel Smiles in skirts, all self-help and `merit', but even her onslaught on the tradition of civil service mandarins had only limited effect. The truth, I believe, is that the various pillars of the establishment genuinely did and do possess merit. This is not to say that modernisation and opening out to the communi