Essex man
Encyclopedia
Essex man and Mondeo man are stereotypical
figures which were popularised in 1990s England
. "Essex man" as a political figure is an example of a type of median voter
and was used to help explain the electoral successes of Margaret Thatcher
in the previous decade. The closely related "Mondeo man" was identified as the sort of voter the Labour Party needed to attract to win the 1997 election.
is sometimes considered the "natural choice" for the working class
, there has traditionally been a group within that class who have voted Conservative
, who are distinct from the "Essex man" phenomenon.
After World War II
, there was considerable social change in south-east England. Working class families were encouraged to leave the war-damaged slums in inner London
and move to newly built council-owned properties in the suburb
s and "new town
s" in the home counties
, including Basildon
and Harlow
in Essex
.
With the decline of manufacture and skilled manual work in the 1980s, this group increasingly looked to middle class
professions for employment or became self-employed. Their children enjoyed housing, education
and employment opportunities far removed from the experiences of their parents.
's policies from 1979 to 1990 included lower taxation, control of inflation and sale of council housing stock at subsidised prices. These policies (in particular, the right to buy scheme
) are thought to have caused many people who had traditionally voted Labour in Essex to switch their allegiance in the 1979
, 1983
and 1987 elections
. The Oxford English Dictionary
(OED) lists the earliest reference to the Essex man as one from 7 October 1990 in the (conservative) Sunday Telegraph
, although a reference to 26 January 1990 issue of Campaign: "Representative[ David Amess
] of new Essex man, working-class, father electrician, right-wing, keen hanger, noisily rambunctious, no subtlety". Owing to the similarities between the politics of Thatcher's Britain and Ronald Reagan
's America, the contemporary term "Reagan Democrat
" is roughly analogous to "Essex man".
at the Labour Party conference in 1996. He recalled a Ford Sierra
owner he had canvassed in his Sedgefield constituency while campaigning for the 1992 election
. The man was a self-employed electrician met by Blair while polishing his car at the weekend and told Blair that he was an ex-Labour voter who had bought his former council house, owned his own car and wondered what the Labour party had to offer him given the party's history of raising taxes and mortgage rates:
This is the story that is often credited with inspiring Blair's concept of New Labour and the "Mondeo man" superseded the "Essex man" as the target of the 1997 Labour Party election campaign. (By 1996, the Sierra had been replaced by the Mondeo in the Ford model range, hence the misquote that gave birth to Mondeo Man). Blair subsequently won the 1997 General Election with a landslide victory.
Stereotype
A stereotype is a popular belief about specific social groups or types of individuals. The concepts of "stereotype" and "prejudice" are often confused with many other different meanings...
figures which were popularised in 1990s England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. "Essex man" as a political figure is an example of a type of median voter
Median voter theory
The median voter theory, also known as the median voter theorem or Black's theorem, is a famous voting theorem. It posits that in a majority election, if voter policy preferences can be represented as a point along a single dimension, if all voters vote deterministically for the politician who...
and was used to help explain the electoral successes of Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990...
in the previous decade. The closely related "Mondeo man" was identified as the sort of voter the Labour Party needed to attract to win the 1997 election.
Background
Although the Labour PartyLabour Party (UK)
The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...
is sometimes considered the "natural choice" for the working class
Working class
Working class is a term used in the social sciences and in ordinary conversation to describe those employed in lower tier jobs , often extending to those in unemployment or otherwise possessing below-average incomes...
, there has traditionally been a group within that class who have voted Conservative
Conservative Party (UK)
The Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...
, who are distinct from the "Essex man" phenomenon.
After World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, there was considerable social change in south-east England. Working class families were encouraged to leave the war-damaged slums in inner London
Inner London
Inner London is the name for the group of London boroughs which form the interior part of Greater London and are surrounded by Outer London. The area was first officially defined in 1965 and for purposes such as statistics, the definition has changed over time. The terms Inner London and Central...
and move to newly built council-owned properties in the suburb
Suburb
The word suburb mostly refers to a residential area, either existing as part of a city or as a separate residential community within commuting distance of a city . Some suburbs have a degree of administrative autonomy, and most have lower population density than inner city neighborhoods...
s and "new town
New town
A new town is a specific type of a planned community, or planned city, that was carefully planned from its inception and is typically constructed in a previously undeveloped area. This contrasts with settlements that evolve in a more ad hoc fashion. Land use conflicts are uncommon in new...
s" in the home counties
Home Counties
The home counties is a term which refers to the counties of South East England and the East of England which border London, but do not include the capital city itself...
, including Basildon
Basildon
Basildon is a town located in the Basildon District of the county of Essex, England.It lies east of Central London and south of the county town of Chelmsford...
and Harlow
Harlow
Harlow is a new town and local government district in Essex, England. It is located in the west of the county and on the border with Hertfordshire, on the Stort Valley, The town is near the M11 motorway and forms part of the London commuter belt.The district has a current population of 78,889...
in Essex
Essex
Essex is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England, and one of the home counties. It is located to the northeast of Greater London. It borders with Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent to the South and London to the south west...
.
With the decline of manufacture and skilled manual work in the 1980s, this group increasingly looked to middle class
Middle class
The middle class is any class of people in the middle of a societal hierarchy. In Weberian socio-economic terms, the middle class is the broad group of people in contemporary society who fall socio-economically between the working class and upper class....
professions for employment or became self-employed. Their children enjoyed housing, education
Education
Education in its broadest, general sense is the means through which the aims and habits of a group of people lives on from one generation to the next. Generally, it occurs through any experience that has a formative effect on the way one thinks, feels, or acts...
and employment opportunities far removed from the experiences of their parents.
Essex man and Thatcherism
Margaret ThatcherMargaret Thatcher
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990...
's policies from 1979 to 1990 included lower taxation, control of inflation and sale of council housing stock at subsidised prices. These policies (in particular, the right to buy scheme
Right to buy scheme
The Right to buy scheme is a policy in the United Kingdom which gives tenants of council housing the right to buy the home they are living in. Currently, there is also a right to acquire for the tenants of housing associations...
) are thought to have caused many people who had traditionally voted Labour in Essex to switch their allegiance in the 1979
United Kingdom general election, 1979
The United Kingdom general election of 1979 was held on 3 May 1979 to elect 635 members to the British House of Commons. The Conservative Party, led by Margaret Thatcher ousted the incumbent Labour government of James Callaghan with a parliamentary majority of 43 seats...
, 1983
United Kingdom general election, 1983
The 1983 United Kingdom general election was held on 9 June 1983. It gave the Conservative Party under Margaret Thatcher the most decisive election victory since that of Labour in 1945...
and 1987 elections
United Kingdom general election, 1987
The United Kingdom general election of 1987 was held on 11 June 1987, to elect 650 members to the British House of Commons. The election was the third consecutive election victory for the Conservative Party under the leadership of Margaret Thatcher, who became the first Prime Minister since the 2nd...
. The Oxford English Dictionary
Oxford English Dictionary
The Oxford English Dictionary , published by the Oxford University Press, is the self-styled premier dictionary of the English language. Two fully bound print editions of the OED have been published under its current name, in 1928 and 1989. The first edition was published in twelve volumes , and...
(OED) lists the earliest reference to the Essex man as one from 7 October 1990 in the (conservative) Sunday Telegraph
Sunday Telegraph
The Sunday Telegraph is a British broadsheet newspaper, founded in February 1961. It is the sister paper of The Daily Telegraph, but is run separately with a different editorial staff, although there is some cross-usage of stories...
, although a reference to 26 January 1990 issue of Campaign: "Representative
David Amess
David Anthony Andrew Amess is a British Conservative Party politician. He has been a Member of Parliament since 1983, first for Basildon, and since 1997 for Southend West.-Early life:...
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....
's America, the contemporary term "Reagan Democrat
Reagan Democrat
Reagan Democrat is an American political term used by analysts to denote traditionally Democratic voters, especially white working-class Northerners, who defected from their party to support Republican President Ronald Reagan in both the 1980 and 1984 elections. It is also used to refer to the...
" is roughly analogous to "Essex man".
Mondeo man
The concept of the "Mondeo man" was popularised by a phrase used by Tony BlairTony Blair
Anthony Charles Lynton Blair is a former British Labour Party politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2 May 1997 to 27 June 2007. He was the Member of Parliament for Sedgefield from 1983 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007...
at the Labour Party conference in 1996. He recalled a Ford Sierra
Ford Sierra
The Ford Sierra is a large family car that was built by Ford Europe from 1982 until 1993. It was designed by Uwe Bahnsen, Robert Lutz and Patrick le Quément. The code used during development was "Project Toni"....
owner he had canvassed in his Sedgefield constituency while campaigning for the 1992 election
United Kingdom general election, 1992
The United Kingdom general election of 1992 was held on 9 April 1992, and was the fourth consecutive victory for the Conservative Party. This election result was one of the biggest surprises in 20th Century politics, as polling leading up to the day of the election showed Labour under leader Neil...
. The man was a self-employed electrician met by Blair while polishing his car at the weekend and told Blair that he was an ex-Labour voter who had bought his former council house, owned his own car and wondered what the Labour party had to offer him given the party's history of raising taxes and mortgage rates:
His dad voted Labour, he said. He used to vote Labour, too. But he'd bought his own house now. He'd set up his own business. He was doing very nicely. "So I've become a Tory" he said. In that moment, he crystallised for me the basis of our failure... His instincts were to get on in life. And he thought our instincts were to stop him. But that was never our history or our purpose.
This is the story that is often credited with inspiring Blair's concept of New Labour and the "Mondeo man" superseded the "Essex man" as the target of the 1997 Labour Party election campaign. (By 1996, the Sierra had been replaced by the Mondeo in the Ford model range, hence the misquote that gave birth to Mondeo Man). Blair subsequently won the 1997 General Election with a landslide victory.
See also
- Basildon constituencyBasildon (UK Parliament constituency)Basildon was a parliamentary constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It elected one Member of Parliament by the first past the post system of election....
- Essex girlEssex girlAn Essex girl is a pejorative stereotype in the United Kingdom of a female who is said to be promiscuous and unintelligent, characteristics jocularly attributed to women from Essex. It is applied widely throughout the country and has gained popularity over time, dating from the 1980s and 1990s...
- Holby City womanHolby City womanHolby City woman was a voter demographic which was identified by Conservative Party strategists in the United Kingdom as a key group of voters of the Conservative Party in the 2010 General Election. The term is taken from the fictional BBC hospital drama Holby City, which is set in South West...
- Motorway manMotorway man"Motorway man" is a political term used by polling companies in the United Kingdom. The phrase was coined by Experian in the run up to the 2010 general election and describes a type of floating voter who it is believed can determine the outcome of an election by the way he casts his vote...
- Reagan DemocratReagan DemocratReagan Democrat is an American political term used by analysts to denote traditionally Democratic voters, especially white working-class Northerners, who defected from their party to support Republican President Ronald Reagan in both the 1980 and 1984 elections. It is also used to refer to the...
- Worcester womanWorcester woman"Worcester woman" is a political term used by polling companies in the United Kingdom. It profiles or describes a type of median voter, a white collar professional who worries about quality of life issues....
- The Only Way Is EssexThe Only Way Is EssexThe Only Way Is Essex, is a British BAFTA award-winning semi-reality show based in Essex, England. It shows "real people in modified situations, saying unscripted lines but in a structured way."...