Chattering classes

When the much missed Frank Johnson (1943–2006), once editor of The Spectator, wrote in 1980 that ‘the peculiar need for something to be frightened about only seems to affect those of us who are part of the chattering classes’, I think that ‘those of us’ meant himself, and me and you, dear reader. It is true that, as the Oxford English Dictionary remarks, the phrase was ‘freq. derogatory’ of ‘a social group freely given to the articulate, self-assured expression of (esp. liberal) opinions about society, culture, and current events’. But between the establishment of the literati (in John Evelyn’s day) and the unexpected development of the twitterati (in our own), no commentator like Frank could avoid being a member of the chattering classes, nor could many of his readers.