The English have always loved gossip

Our national conversation is overwhelmed by tittle-tattle, rumour and gossip. Last week, a salacious email listing George Osborne’s alleged improprieties was circulated among the Westminster bubble. Inevitably, it was then circulated to everybody else, too. Meanwhile, the internet is aflutter with rumours about the identity of a BBC journalist who’s alleged to have paid a teenager tens of thousands of pounds for sordid pictures – and this isn’t even the first sex scandal involving a broadcaster this year. 

Some might think our modern obsession with grubby tales shows a lack of seriousness. But a love of gossip is nothing new among the English. In the 18th century, coffee houses emerged in which pontification was of a more high-minded sort than that found in the ale houses. They were also the source of many a spurious tale, usually about the new and growing high-minded classes which frequented them.