Social class
Why everywhere should be more like Essex
Apart from the Wye Valley, where I grew up, there are only two places in Britain I’d consider living: Kent…
Why my friends love the idea of a nasty, stupid mansion tax
I see all the flaws with a mansion tax, I really do. And yet some little piece of me, some…
Nigel Farage’s class war
I initially thought Nigel Farage had made a mistake in unveiling Mark Reckless on the final day of his party…
The ‘no’ campaign’s problem was that it sounded like me
Journalistically speaking, it’s been a good year to be Scottish and Jewish. Had I been a Welsh Zoroastrian, say, I…
The squeezed middle is a myth
With soaring house prices and low interest rates, the middle classes are doing rather well. But you’d never think so to hear them
What’s the point in being married if I can’t feel superior to my single friends?
I’m due to speak at an Intelligence Squared debate on Saturday and I’m worried that I might be on the…
Want to be a neglectful parent? Come to a festival and learn
I spent last weekend at Port Eliot in Cornwall. This is supposed to be a literary and music festival and…
Want a fun job? You just have to pick the right parents
The old paths to the top for working-class children – sport, music, acting, writing – are now closed by nepotism
The internet is broken – and we can no longer do without it
‘The internet is broken,’ a corporate chieftain told me last week. It was an arresting remark, but he did not…
What Julius Caesar would have done about Nigel Farage
Our politicians are desperately keen to turn the toast of the people, Nigel Farage, into toast himself. But is that…
Why Ken Loach hasn’t made a decent film since Kes
He hasn’t made anything worth watching since Kes
After visiting the Cherwell Boathouse, I might spare Oxford from burning
It is now two decades since I lived in Oxford. I was then a drunk and lonely puddle of a…
Gordon Ramsay joins in the posh invasion of Battersea
London House is in Battersea, which some people call South Chelsea, but is more East Wandsworth to my mind; or…
Spectator letters: Bereaved parents against press regulation, and a defence of Tony Benn
Why we need a free press Sir: As bereaved parents and (to borrow from some signatories of last week’s advertisement)…
Six months as a TV critic, and I’ve seen enough corpses to last a lifetime
It was Shetland that tipped me over the edge. Not the place, but the TV series. Although that’s set in…
It’s time that Scotland’s timid posh folk spoke out
I took part in a documentary about Scottishness a few weeks ago, and it wasn’t bad at all. I mused,…
William Astor: My father, his swimming pool and the Profumo scandal
I was ten when the Profumo affair began at my home, Cliveden. Andrew Lloyd Webber has captured some of the story – but not all
Don't tax sugar - it doesn't make you fat. Gluttony does
Obesity isn’t a matter of addiction. It’s a question of self-control
The Wild Rabbit's food may be organic - but nothing else there is
The Wild Rabbit is a pub in the Cotswolds, that small corner of Britain full of evil grinning cottages; if…
Letters: Peter Hitchens vs Nick Cohen, and the case against the middle class
Piggies in the middle Sir: Your feature ‘The strange death of the middle class’ (24 August) assumes that young people…
Unpaid internships turned me into a banker – but I still think they’re a good thing
My thanks to ‘AndyB’, the only reader who posted an online comment on my column last week. It was ‘Don’t…
Never seen the need for a class system? Take a long-haul flight
Usually it is annoying when you have to board an aeroplane via a shuttle bus rather than an airbridge. The…
It’s the summer of the topless man – and there’s nothing we can do to stop it
Topless men. What does that mean, then? I was opposite one on the tube the other day, heading north from…
You’ll mock me, but I have to ask: why don’t any of my friends have holiday homes?
Hugo Rifkind 9 August 2014 9:00 am
This is to be one of those columns that makes the writer faintly wish there wasn’t an internet. It would…