Where are the GOMs?

Somerset Maugham’s Cakes and Ale described how a writer might acquire eminence through longevity, as the Grand Old Man of English letters. Maugham had the middlebrow Hugh Walpole in mind. Since then we’ve seen more worthy GOMs, Bertrand Russell and Malcolm Muggeridge, people to whom we deferred on the quesitons of the day, people whose opinion mattered, [...]