- access
- bad influence
- big wheel
- brass
- bureaucracy
- checking
- company
- construct
- court
- directorate
- elite
- eminence grise
- five-percenter
- fixedness
- friend at court
- good influence
- gray eminence
- heavyweight
- hidden hand
- hierarchy
- higher echelons
- higher-ups
- holdover
- influence
- influence peddler
- influencer
- ingroup
- John Bull
- key
- kick-off
- kingmaker
- leading edge
- lobby
- lobbyist
- lords of creation
- magasin
- management
- manipulator
- man of influence
- ministry
- officialdom
- Old Guard
- open sesame
- outfit
- person of renown
- phalanx
- plantation
- powers that be
- power structure
- prelacy
- pressure group
- Rasputin
- ruling class
- ruling classes
- salon
- sinister influence
- special-interest group
- special interests
- structure
- Svengali
- the administration
- the authorities
- the Crown
- the Establishment
- the government
- the ingroup
- the interests
- them
- the people upstairs
- the power elite
- the power structure
- the top
- they
- top brass
- Uncle Sam
- validation
- variety shop
- very important person
- VIP
- Washington
- wheeler-dealer
- Whitehall
- wire-puller