Like every American disease, the obsession with “nepo babies” has infected Britain. If 2022 was, as New York magazine claimed, the year nepotism went mainstream in Hollywood, 2023 has been the year the Brits lumberingly caught up.

An article in Vice argues that “nepotism in the U.K. is different in the same way that Ricky Gervais’ The Office differs to Steve Carell’s: it’s subtler, nastier, and arguably more effective in achieving its aims.” It goes on to link nepotism to the class system and private education. This being 2023, it also, inescapably, makes a reference to colonialism and slavery. Back in the 18th century, apparently, Benedict Cumberbatch’s family owned a plantation in Barbados.