Theophrastus & electioneering

John Lanchester has been writing regularly on the LRB Blog in the run-up to the UK election; today he describes Mosaic, a package used by the Tories to get insight into the electorate:

Mosaic is well worth a look, and is very striking for its mixture of first hand research and thundering clichés. The population of the UK is represented by 15 groups, broken down into 67 household categories – one of which will be applied to you, whoever you are, by Mosaic's all-knowing postcode-centred...