Starting from the premiss that British democracy, as it has been traditionally understood, is under threat, this book examines what has happened. It claims that the system has seen power flow away from its traditional centres of Whitehall, parliament and local government, and that the decline of mass democracy means the decline of an acknowledged common cause among all social groups to build a stabler, juster and richer country. The book concludes with a call for politicians to put the cause of democracy once more at the centre of their thinking.