Sir Edward Grey was a fairly typical member of the British ruling class. He went to Winchester and Oxford. He graduated with a third-class degree, but did become Varsity champion in real tennis.

He spoke no foreign languages. Still, in 1905 he became foreign secretary. Even then he avoided travelling abroad. During the ‘July crisis’ of 1914, he continued to take long country weekends. Three days before First World War broke out, he was still dithering about whether Britain should fight.

He scarcely bothered discussing the matter in cabinet. Finally Britain drifted into a disastrous war. Andrew Adonis, the writer and Labour peer, calls him “arguably the most incompetent foreign secretary of all time”, although the 1930s appeaser Lord Halifax and 1960s drunk George Brown provide stiff competition.

Admittedly, not all ruling Brits have been incompetent. Still, the selection process, which excluded almost everyone except Oxbridge-educated British males, was limiting. That is now being rectified. The UK has begun recruiting its rulers abroad, chiefly in former white colonies. The government just appointed the New Zealand judge Lowell Goddard to investigate historical child abuse in the UK. Every nation grumbles about its ruling class. Britain is actually doing something about it.

Foreigners have already taken over British business and sport, in a process called Wimbledonisation: as at the tennis tournament, Britain provides the venue but not the leading players. The UK’s public sector began Wimbledonising much later. The Canadian Mark Carney was appointed governor of the Bank of England in 2012; Ross McEwan, Ms Goddard’s compatriot, took charge at the majority state-owned Royal Bank of Scotland in 2013.

Wimbledonising the ruling class may sound obvious, but the UK is possibly the only country on earth that can do it. It operates in the de facto global language. It is big enough to offer enticing salaries for top public-sector jobs. And it is open to rule by foreigners.

Reducing incompetence

Wimbledonisation should reduce elite incompetence, groupthink and cronyism. The British-only ruling class was cosy: members typically met at private school, university, or in a handful of London postcodes. Of the two previous appointees to Goddard’s post, one had to step down because her brother was attorney-general when a dossier containing sex-abuse allegations disappeared; the other because she was a neighbour and dinner-party pal of the minister who lost the dossier. The government had to go to the ends of the earth to find a judge who was not chummy with those being investigated.

For now, Britain prefers to appoint foreigners with reassuringly British surnames from former colonies. John Sentamu, the Ugandan Archbishop of York, is an exception. But recruitment will broaden. Oxbridge, the elite pipeline, is already about 30 per cent foreign.

This is bad news for mediocre Brits. For now, their chief defence is that foreigners cannot grasp the subtleties of British culture. MPs argued that the Australian Carol Mills couldn’t become Clerk of the House of Commons because she didn’t know Commons procedure: for instance, whether one MP can call another a “blackguard” (no), “git” (no) or “stupid, sanctimonious dwarf” (yes).

Longer term, the British must shape up or risk one day being under a foreign prime minister. They can model themselves on Andy Murray, the Briton who in 2013 won Wimbledon after taking himself at 15 to a world-class academy in Barcelona.

The Goddard-Carney-run Britain might have irked Sir Edward Grey. Yet he would have found it familiar. After all, it resembles the British colonies of his day: foreigners rule in the capital, while the natives live in distant outposts with inhospitable climates, such as Scotland or Merseyside. The rulers claim benevolence and competence. But the natives are getting restless.

— Financial Times