It feels like the British establishment is particularly good at one thing: Being pragmatic enough to stay in power.

That appears to take precedence over anything else. It may have "saved" the UK from revolutions or major clearouts of its governing structures and legal system, and results in a system that is delightlyfully quirky on the surface.

But it's also a way of governing that seems to lead to managing decline over fixing things because managing decline is less risky in the short term.