The US has some of this, and it's much of what the prep school to Ivy League pipeline is for. "There is no door in this entire country that cannot be opened by a Choate graduate".
"Class", by Paul Fussell, is amusing, if dated.
Okay so you've made a pile of money, but the people that think they've got a god given right to wealth from birth still thumb their noses at you and don't want to be friends. My question is, why should anyone care if clearly shitty people don't want to know them?
For the same reason people in the US care about what a bunch of high-follower Twitter accounts think of them. We're hard-wired to seek status even when that status is counterproductive and contrary to our instrumental goals.
What exactly is the “ceiling” one hits if one capitalizes on opportunities, succeeds in career and family, and makes a pile of money? That the 6th Earl Postlethwaite won’t invite them to tea at Shrumsbury Hall?
The subtle signals are about who your parents are, which of the different educational streams you went through, and - more than anything - who you know. Clothes will display all of that indirectly, but the core is always about families and networks.
The idea that opportunities exist is very much a middle class mindset, and anyone who pursues it will inevitably run into the class ceiling. You can make a huge pile of money but it won't buy you entry into the upper classes. At best you'll be a nouveau "someone we can do business with" - or the technical help.
Under the considerable surface polish and politeness the defining characteristics of the upper classes are effortless social - not just professional - confidence, personal entitlement, and exceptionalism. Members are strongly encouraged to believe in all of the above from birth, and it's very hard for outsiders to understand this. There's also a curious affinity with more successful - let's say almost managerial - working class criminals.
I used to live in an upper class enclave, and it was quite astonishing how much time these people spent trying to screw each other over with disputes over family inheritances, property and land rights, various investment scams, and so on.