While for generations Polly Toynbee‘s ancestors have been committed left-wing rabble-rousers railing against injustice, they could never claim to be working class, settling instead for the prosperous life of academia or journalism enjoyed by their own forebears. So where does that leave their ideals of class equality?
Through a colourful, entertaining examination of her own family – which in addition to her writer-father Philip and her historian-grandfather Arnold contains everyone from the Glenconners to Jessica Mitford to Bertrand Russell and features ancestral home Castle Howard as a backdrop – Toynbee explores the myth of mobility, the guilt of privilege, and asks for a truly honest conversation about class in Britain.
Polly Toynbee is a British journalist and writer. She has been a columnist for The Guardian newspaper since 1998 and previously worked as social affairs editor for the BBC and also for The Independent newspaper. She is a social democrat and was a candidate for the Social Democratic Party in the 1983 general election. She is Vice-President of Humanists UK, having previously served as its president between 2007 and 2012.
Her book An Uneasy Inheritance: My Family and Other Radicals will be available on the day.
