In this updated edition to his provocative and ruthlessly frank book, Ferdinand Mount argues that there is a new class divide in Britain which is just as vicious and hard to get rid of as the old one.
Through acute observation and vivid illustration – drawing on every aspect of life from soap operas, speech patterns and gardening to education and the distribution of wealth – he demolishes the illusion that we live in a classless society and shows how the worst-off in Britain today are more culturally deprived than their parents or grandparents.
The author’s solutions, like his explanations of what has gone wrong, are original, surprising and unsparing to intellectuals and politicians of all parties.

“Beautifully written, deftly argued – and true” Matthew Paris

“A rollicking account of the class divide in 21st-century Britain” Simon Jenkins, Sunday Times

“An excellent book that breaks with tradition... with refreshing humanity” The Spectator

“A book which offers the first real breath of fresh air in Conservative thinking since the Thatcher revolutionaries imposed their own intellectual orthodoxy” Polly Toynbee

“A brilliant book which analyses the ways the working class has been consistently denigrated and disempowered.”
London Review of Books

“ A splendid book: sparky, persuasive and brave”.
Evening Standard

About the author

Ferdinand Mount is a former editor of the TLS and columnist for the Sunday Times. He was head of the Number Ten Policy Unit and director of the Centre

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