Irvine Welsh takes a pop at the Man Booker Prize

The Trainspotting author argued that the prize took upper-class Englishness as a cultural yardstick for measuring literature

Speaking at the Edinburgh World Writers Conference yesterday, Welsh was giving the keynote speech on nationalism. He argued that the Man Booker winners had been: 'largely upper-middle-class English writers and citizens of the former colonies, presumably to stamp legitimacy on this "global accolade."'

'The Booker Prize's contention to be an inclusive, non-discriminatory award could be demolished by anybody with even a rudimentary grasp of sixth-form sociology,' he said. 'The academics who are custodians of the prize however, can only offer bland and complacent corporate PR speak in defence of an award based on the conceit that upper-class Englishness is the cultural yardstick against which all literature must be measured.'

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