Letter from London: New Orchestra, Same Tune (Parliament)‪.‬

WAYNE HUNT is a member of the Department of Political Studies at Mount Allison University. He spent the 1996-97 academic year as visiting scholar at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. In 1997 he was a visiting fellow in international studies at the London School of Economics. British politics is made interesting by its contradictions. One of the most important also seems to draw the least comment. The new Labour government is committed to the modernization of the great institutions of state in order to create a more meritocratic society. Yet it seems quite comfortable with the most antiquated and least meritocratic of these institutions: the monarchy. How is this paradox to be explained? Part of the reason has to do with another antiquated and far from meritocratic institution: parliament.