Quick Take: Britain's silent revolution
In 1920, Paul Cambon, the French ambassador to Britain, told Winston Churchill, “In the twenty years I have been here I have witnessed an English Revolution more profound and searching than the French Revolution itself.”
“The governing class have been almost entirely deprived of political power and to a very large extent of their property and estates; and this has been accomplished almost imperceptibly and without the loss of a single life.”
If Cambon was exaggerating in 1920, his words would prove prophetic by the end of WWII.
Britain was not a fully-fledged popular democracy until after the Second World War. Our entire system of government changed; we shed an aristocracy. I do wonder whether we overlook just what a huge impact, potentially, this has had.
“The governing class have been almost entirely deprived of political power and to a very large extent of their property and estates; and this has been accomplished almost imperceptibly and without the loss of a single life.”
If Cambon was exaggerating in 1920, his words would prove prophetic by the end of WWII.
Britain was not a fully-fledged popular democracy until after the Second World War. Our entire system of government changed; we shed an aristocracy. I do wonder whether we overlook just what a huge impact, potentially, this has had.