However airless and dull this election campaign has been, one thing remains incontestable: that, unless something very strange happens, we are about to reach the end of a long political era. The years between 2010 and 2024 will be seen as a clearly defined time – of austerity, Brexit, the post-2016 collapse of the Tory party into internal strife … and, underneath it all, a United Kingdom that will end its latest blue period in an immeasurably worse state than when the whole mess started.

One crucial part of the story, however, might be underplayed. Partly because so many powerful British people come from backgrounds characterised by wealth, privilege and private education, emphasising the importance of such things is still often seen as impolite. But if we are going to understand what has happened to us, how can that subject be avoided?

The latest period of Tory domination began with the love-in between David Cameron and Nick Clegg, chummy alumni of elite schools who affected to be enlightened centrists but governed as cruel cutters; it now ends with Rishi Sunak, a prime minister who is rich beyond the dreams of avarice, insisting that he knows about sacrifice because he once went without Sky TV. Of course, not all the disasters that happened in between can be reduced to this stuff. But a lot of them can, and now is a good time to remind ourselves of it.

The week when the election will finally arrive is also a good point at which to point out something else that has been ignored. This week, I got an advance copy of a very good new book titled Born to Rule: The Making and Remaking of the British Elite. Its authors, Aaron Reeves and Sam Friedman (based at Oxford University and the London School of Economics, respectively) have done fascinating work on the family backgrounds of current cabinet........

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