Class Gasp

Peregrine Worsthorne died not too long ago, at a great age. A former editor of the Sunday Telegraph and an ensign-bearer in retirement not only of the past, but also of long-passed notions. One of those was aristocracy, something Worsthorne adored and advocated. Yesterday I read his offering on the subject, the slight book In Defence of Aristocracy. This essay, taking in his most cherished notions and his most coherent effort at writing, serves both as review and, after a fashion, as obituary.

It is a terribly muddled book, and lax of definition. Oddly, one never quite knows what Worsthorne is trying to say, although it is very clear what lies at the root of his writing. He never attempts to define ‘aristocracy’ either in etymology or as a congruent political concept. Worsthone simply notes that, when he was a boy and a young man, much of the civilised world was led by ruling classes — ‘top dogs’.

They differed by country and, as time passed, these individual systems diverged yet more. Some were better than others. The English style of government, one where a nation was led by good chaps, was best. In many ways, this is as far as Worsthorne gets in establishing a sound basis for argument.

His view of what constitutes an aristocrat could not be looser. It includes his own Eton-educated idler of a father, and his upright stepfather, Montagu Norman, Lord Norman, a non-Etonian…