内容

目次

Introduction - in the bleak midwinter; whatever happened to checks andbalances; the rich rewards of incompetence - Asquith and the saving ofthe sovereign premiership 1914-16; a crowned but tethered goat - theresistable rise of Lloyd George 1916-19; too little, too late - thereaction against the excessive concentration of power 1919-1923; insafe hands - Baldwin and his fussy alter-ego 1923-25; Baldwin'sprogress via the steps of the guillotine to political heaven 1924-1931;overkill and aftermath - from Baldwin to elective dictatorship withoutelections 1931-40; from supreme warlord to headmaster 1940-1951;Churchill's Indian summer, Eden's winter and Supermac's false dawn;1959-70 "not Amurath an Amurath succeeds but Harold Harold" (with aninterlude from baronial usurpation); Humpty Dumpty and the King's men -Heath, Wilson and Callaghan 1970-79; Thatcherite epilogue - reductio adabsurdum or plus ca change?