The Birmingham council estate I grew up on has just elected its first BNP councillor. The working-class defensiveness and isolation I fought so hard to escape are alive and well

How can we in Britain learn to live together more successfully? We should cultivate an "encounter culture," in which it becomes easier to interact with others. This may require compulsory community service for young people

The postwar working class felt betrayed by immigration and new welfare rules

Social mobility does not work as most people imagine, and it's hard to do much about it

The Daily Mail speaks for this mythic region—the Guardian against it. The butt of snobbish jokes, "middle England" is still the place in which politicians most want to be loved. So where is it?

Britain's class structure has become harder to describe. Ferdinand Mount does his best but leaves out the end of empire and the public service elite

Who is going to provide public goods in our market-driven societies? Do we need to consciously create a new governing class?

When foreign financiers stripped London of its snob class, the money woke up. But to stay slick, the city needs to regain an old honour system

The knowledge that genetics can provide about our future health could play havoc with the life insurance industry. How can we balance the competing demands of consumers' right to privacy and the insurers' need to assess risks?

Britain's famous obsession with class is, paradoxically, the result of an unusually high level of social mobility

I can clean my own floor, thank you.

Why has Britain's state run health system been so much more successful than the state education system? The answer lies in the success of the NHS in creating an effective cross-class institution which has survived the rise of the new…