Although Essex man voted Conservative, many Conservatives viewed him with a mixture of fear and horror. “I don’t think people have to apologise for striving and achieving.”While Birds of a Feather was a warmer and more subtle commentary on class than many remember, the sitcom helped give the world the female counterpart to Essex man, Essex girl. And so a new sub-species was born: Basildon man, who was really just Essex man under a new name. But the spectre of Essex man is still haunting our politics – now as a gung-ho hard Brexiteer. (He was lovingly described as “every bit an Essex man” by Quentin Letts in the Daily Mail in 2009.)

Source: The Guardian June 27, 2019 05:00 UTC