In Britain, the segregated world of public schools crops up in all kinds of institutions: A boy can pass from Eton to the Guards to the Middle Temple to Parliament and still retain the same male world of leather armchairs, teak tables and nicknames."

Muddle is the extra unknown personality in any committee.

"The real rulers of England are not so much in the center of a solar system as in a cluster of interlocking circles, each one largely preoccupied with its own professionalism and expertise and touching others only at one edge. . ."

"The great body of managers ... spend their whole careers climbing up inside one great Leviathan, with little contact with anyone outside."

"London clubs remain insistent on keeping people out, long after they have stopped wanting to come in."