This volume is the third in a sequence about The Politics of British Democracy. In the future there will be an introduction bearing the sequence-title which will deal in its widest aspects with the period from 1850 to 1940 and will assess the methods used in the volumes which have now been published. Whether there will be anything more is uncertain. For that period an abundance of material is already available or will be shortly. For later periods there is a problem. It can be only a hope that a volume entitled The Development of the Class Struggle 1924–1935 will be followed by The Impact of Inflation (from 1936 onwards).

For this volume no general introduction is needed. Readers who want one should read the first twelve and last fortyseven pages of The Impact of Labour or pages 287–340 of Disraeli, Gladstone and Revolution. All it is necessary to say here is that no attack is intended. The sole aim is to remove misunderstandings based on an implied contradiction between expediency and principle, and to present democratic politicians in a multi-dimensional context where they display on the fragmented nature of God's handiwork the only rational way of acting politically.

‘Rational’ here means what politicians can understand. It means working through contingency and accident, not rising above them. It means that principles are manifestations of personality no less than interests and passions and that all three form the context of political consciousness.