I'm just back from the Port Eliot Festival in Cornwall, an annual jamboree for the class John Maynard Keynes described as the "educated bourgeoisie". As my colleague Harry Mount pointed out, there was much to admire at Port Eliot, particularly the gentle curiosity of the Festival-goers. Few audiences are as polite or well-informed as those at literary festivals and I speak as someone who has delivered two-dozen talks on the subject of education this year.
What distinguishes Port Eliot from other, similar gatherings is the sheer number of people who camp at the site. I pitched my tent in a field of approximately 500 campers and we were opposite another field containing at least 1,000 more. The majority were couples with young children, creating a refugee camp effect. Wherever you looked there were couples hunched over tiny gas stoves, boiling up saucepans of baked beans and frying sausages as their children scurried about at their feet. What was so striking about them was how homogenous they were. Almost no black or brown faces and, without exception, middle class or above. This was the white, metropolitan elite at play. Indeed, I heard one yummy mummy scold her nine-year-old son for telling another child that his uncle was a Duke. It was the first time I've been camping with my wife and children and I felt as if I'd stumbled across a hitherto unknown subculture. (To read more, click here.)
