Dominic Sandbrook on A Classless Society

Following hard on the heels of David Aaronovitch's review comes Dominic Sandbrook's take on my A Classless Society, this time in the Sunday Times. And I'm very happy to say that he likes the book more than Aaronovitch does: 'tremendously entertaining,' he says.

There's more: 'The author of two excellent but underrated books on the 1970s and 1980s, Turner really ought to be better known. He has a nice dry style, a prodigious appetite for popular culture and, above all, a lovely eye for outrageous quotations.'

And the bit I like best: 'His book has plenty of acute insights, as well as a sensible thesis that the 1990s saw a new post-Thatcher settlement, based on economic and social liberalism. But the stories are just so good, and often so funny, that you keep forgetting about the argument.'

That's pretty much what I try to aim at. Aaronovitch complained that I didn't include enough comments by 'sociologists, demographers, statisticians or academics', but I'd rather have the book described as being 'enjoyable'.

My thanks to Mr Sandbrook and to whoever at the Sunday Times made it the lead review for the week.