Essex Man - Essex Man and Thatcherism

Essex Man and Thatcherism

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. 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 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".