“Cliveden is the only time of year I get bored of champagne,” the historian William Dalrymple belts at a panel talk about the Mughals and the Romanovs. It's 10am on Sunday morning. “There’s just so much of it,” he exclaims. We are at the world’s “most dignified” literary festival, per writer and founder of the School of Life, Alain de Botton. Set in the grounds of a five-star Relais & Châteaux hotel that was once home to a Prince of Wales and the Viscounts Astor – as well as, notoriously, the site of the Profumo affair – Cliveden Literary Festival has become a fixture of the social calendar on par with Ascot and Wimbledon.
It has been a tough year for others in the genre: in June, Hay, Edinburgh and Cheltenham (which takes place in two weeks’ time) were forced to sever ties with their sponsor, the asset management firm Baillie Gifford, following a divestment campaign led by Fossil Free Books. No such issues have befallen Cliveden, which is sponsored by Citibank and whose partners include Chanel, Tatler and the John Sandoe Bookshop in Chelsea. As such it is rather like that wafer-thin slice of society – the 0.001 percent – which sails through life unaffected by the travails of the populace. This is a festival that begins unironically with a panel on “Toff Lit”, involving such experts as Plum Sykes, Nicky Haslam and Henry Somerset, 12th Duke of Beaufort (nickname: Bunter). “Why are we so obsessed with the upper classes?” asks the festival’s Vice-Chairman, Catherine Ostler. She is interrupted by the sound of Haslam’s phone ringing. He picks it up. “It’s only Nadine Dorries.” He hangs up.
