ABSTRACT
When Dicey asked ‘how far does a Constitution affect the character of a people?’,1 it was a question about the political culture. When Bryce described a ‘democratic’ person as ‘a person of simple and friendly spirit and genial manners, “a good mixer”, and who, whatever his wealth or status, makes no assumption of superiority’,2
it was an observation about the character of a democratic culture. Both agreed on the connection between a people and a politics. The nature of that connection, with its two-way flow between structures and attitudes, takes us inside a political system. In the case of Britain, what we find is a political culture in which democracy has been the uninvited guest rather than the active participant.
