It's not today's Britain, either. Wizard Britain seems to be an archconservative British middle class society in some undefined decade gone by (the official timeline places the entirety of the story in the 1990s with the climax in 1997, if I recall correctly, but if you leave out some elements here and there, earlier dates would make more sense on the whole). Which is funny, because Rowling is clearly far from conservative politically, and I strongly doubt she set out intentionally to create such a conservative society without any real internal pressure for progressive change (as politics go, the series is really just conservative against aggressively reactionary, or fascism if you will), it just seems to have kind of worked out that way.

While we're on politics and Harry Potter, did anyone catch the hilarious exchange between the Chinese and Japanese ambassadors to the UK? I guess the Chinese ambassador felt using Harry Potter references in his indignation about Japan would resonate with the British audience and make him seem hip and modern.