Which class are you?

Continuing her series tackling socially unacceptable questions, Christine Manby asks whether Brits still relate to the traditional social scale

Illustrations by Tom Ford

Are you upper, middle or lower? I’m sure you know exactly what I’m referring to.

Is there any subject more fascinating to the British than class? Is there any subject, not including Brexit or Heinz Beans versus Branston, more likely to start a fight amongst the British on social media?

Asking a Brit where they think they come on the social scale is on a par with asking how often they change their underwear, and yet at the same time people will fall over themselves to tell you. Encompassing as it does the twin lotteries of money and breeding and all the spurious moral judgments that can be assigned to both, the British are obsessed with class.