In this provacative 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, suprising and unsparing to intellectuals and politicians of all parties.