The class war strayed close to comedy last night when Jonathan Dimbleby apologised for his privilege to a panel of prolier-than-thou writers, including postie-turned-politician Alan Johnson and Booker Prize shortlistee Stephen Kelman.
Dimbleby chaired the discussion — “Silver Spoons: can you write without them” — for the charity First Story. He joked uneasily about being born “with a silver microphone” in his mouth before asking his panelists: “Have those of us from comfortable backgrounds missed out on life, on illumination, on real things?”
Kelman, raised on a Luton council estate, was implacable — “Comfort breeds complacency” — so Dimbleby turned the tables. “In a more just society would you have found anything to write about?” Touché. The evening was organised by the Royal Society of Literature in the Folio Room of the Radisson Blu Hotel in Bloomsbury.
