Cabinet government, so-called, as practiced currently in the United Kingdom, differs in innumerable ways – some obvious, some subtle– from “presidential government” in the United States. To ask what one can learn about our own system by viewing theirs, may seem far-fetched, considering those differences.  But actually the question is a good one. For comparison should help us to discriminate between shadow and substance in both regimes. A look down Whitehall’s corridors of power might suggest a lot of things worth noticing in Washington.