ABSTRACT
This chapter shows the different reactions of members of the British ruling class to the nation's post-war decline and the process of decolonisation. In Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, le Carré uses the secret service as a microcosm of British society. Members of the Establishment retreat into a closed institution, where they lose contact with reality and fall for the illusion that nothing has changed. Faced an unsatisfactory present, le Carré's agents prefer to live in the past—in the days ‘before Empire became a dirty word’—as one character puts it. Unlike most of these modern-day clubland heroes Bill Haydon, a fictionalised version of British double agent Kim Philby, does not fall into hypocrisy and self-deception. He realises that the ‘Great Game’ on the world's stage is now played without Britain. Feeling betrayed by history he in return betrays his country. This issue, how members of the Establishment cope with the decline of Great Britain, has a very personal meaning for John le Carré. He, too, was brought up in the belief of the Empire and then had to adapt to the new post-imperialist world.
