Culture | Rich people’s problems

How today’s wealthy present themselves differently

A new book offers an engrossing but flawed takedown of Britain’s most privileged

Pupils from Eton College, 1906
The fat cats in the hatsPhotograph: Getty Images

Sir Peter Daniell went to Eton College, a grand private school favoured by royals and the rich. He was not a strong pupil but was admitted to the University of Oxford in 1927 after his cousin had a quiet word with a college. Daniell had a “wonderful” time there, doing almost no work, then took a job in his father’s financial firm. Did he feel at all guilty about his gilded upbringing? Certainly not. Meritocratic ideas were “damned stupid”, he later said, and nepotism was harmless.

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This article appeared in the Culture section of the print edition under the headline “Rich people’s problems”

From the September 21st 2024 edition

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