Essex man

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.

Although the Labour Party 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 the Second World War, there was considerable social change in South East England. Working class English families were encouraged to leave the war-damaged slums in inner London and move to newly built council-owned properties in the suburbs and new towns 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.

Margaret Thatcher'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.

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