The rise and fall of class dysphoria in Britain
British politicians have stopped pretending when it comes to class
For a brief period in the middle of the last decade, the easiest way to flummox a Labour politician was to offer him a cup of coffee and a choice of biscuit. In an interview in 2016 Owen Smith, a former Labour MP, panicked when a waiter brought him a “frothy coffee” in a cup and saucer. “Seriously, I would have a mug normally,” he said, playing up his credentials as a mug-toting, working man and forgetting the word for “cappuccino” in the process.
Explore more
This article appeared in the Britain section of the print edition under the headline “Class dysphoria ”
Britain October 28th 2023
- The most typical place in Britain is Basildon
- Is the Windsor framework in Northern Ireland working?
- Britain must overhaul the way it approves infrastructure
- Liz Truss and Jeremy Corbyn still haunt British politics
- Do by-election results in Britain matter?
- Britain’s family-court system is overwhelmed
- The rise and fall of class dysphoria in Britain
From the October 28th 2023 edition
Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents
Explore the editionDiscover more
British MPs vote in favour of assisted dying
A monumental social reform is closer to being realised
The slow death of a Labour buzzword
And what that says about Britain’s place in the world
Britain’s Supreme Court considers what a woman is
At last. Britons had been wondering what those 34m people who are not men might be
Can potholes fuel populism?
A new paper looks at one explanation for the rise of Reform UK
Are British voters as clueless as Labour’s intelligentsia thinks?
How the idea of false consciousness conquered the governing party