ABSTRACT
Political institutions in the United Kingdom are well recognized for their gradual evolutionary development. With a Constitution that is largely uncodified and relying in large measure on "custom and convention", Britain has a unique capability for a democracy of altering its fundamental institutions by majority will of the House of Commons. British constitutional theory provides a preeminent position for the sole elected representative body of the whole British population, the House of Commons. The cabinet, as the center of the political executive, is the principal power source of British government in the late twentieth century. The British civil service is disproportionately made up of humanities and social studies graduates of Oxford and Cambridge, recruited at an early age and serving as career bureaucracts. Parliamentary government in Britain is a combination of ancient institutions adapted to modern practices and purposes.
