In the US I think things are a bit different. The orthodox philosophy is that the government exists to serve the people, consists solely of the people it serves

In the US I think things are a bit different. The orthodox philosophy is that the government exists to serve the people, consists solely of the people it serves, and is only the embodiment of the collective ability of those people to act. The UK, on the other hand, seems to have a very ingrained (and, perhaps, inbred) centralization around authority. For a long period, it was even believed that the hereditary power structure was divinely appointed (maybe some still believe this?). So, there is this long history of accepting external authority over you and this has likely permeated the culture over the many centuries it has been developing. I don't know enough about UK legal theories to know if the government is still actually structured as an external entity, but I sometimes get the impression that people feel that it is, based on their phraseology. In the US, there is still a sense that the people make up the government and it can be changed as desired (though there is little consensus on desires), but I do hear people even in the US that speak of government like that (I may have done it on occasion myself).