Peter York / Tony Buckingham
(Picture: Tony Buckingham)Is it the end of the Sloane ranger? That’s what Tatler seems to think. The magazine’s latest Little Black Book of society’s ‘most eligible’ men and women, once once full of aristocrats, is different this year. The top spots this time are filled by Chelsea footballer Mason Mount and Love Island’s Gemma Owen, daughter of former England striker Michael.
But Peter York, who wrote The Official Sloane Ranger Handbook in the Eighties, says society is as unequal as ever. “It’s a sweet sentiment that Tatler seems to be expressing, but it doesn’t line up with the facts,” he told us today. “We’re not an equal society”. York points out that while 7% of children go to private school, around 50% of students at Oxbridge are privately educated. “Every analyst here and overseas says that inequality has increased and may be increasing yet more in this country” he said. “So it isn’t really like that. People point to footballers because they are the special exception, and every poor boy wants to be a footballer.”
