Essex Man is 30 today

Today Essex Man is thirty years old. Simon Heffer wrote the original piece that created Essex Man in the Sunday Telegraph of October 7 1990. So what would Essex Man, aka "Maggie's mauler" be like today? 

Essex Man would be close to retirement age with electric gates on his gaff in Southend and a bolthole in Portugal. You won’t step over pools of his vomit at Liverpool Street anymore because he drinks Pinot Grigio at home with his missus and has been told to slim down before Covid gets him. Though he still supports Brexit and thinks that even if there are 7000 lorries parked in Dover he might be able to send over a few mobile coffee stalls and get a good mark-up. He’d certainly be knocking out a nice sideline in West Ham face masks going at a tenner a time. 

He’d be more into marketing wellness and beauty apps to the metropolitan liberal elite in Islington rather than videos on Romford market and would be trading in one-day Sky passes for the Premier League rather than the satellite dishes of 1990. He’d approve of Priti Patel’s idea of sending asylum seekers to Ascension Island, but accept Priti as one of 'us' because she’s spiritually Witham. With Priti and Mark Francois in charge we might even win the next war. He would hate snowflakes but be very sensitive to any criticism of his own views on twitter. 

Essex Man would have been puzzled by his grandchildrens’ liking for Jeremy Corbyn, who reminded him of that muppet Wolfie Smith. But he might have a little more respect for Keir Starmer. Essex Man and shiny suits go back a long way and it’s not hard to imagine the besuited Starmer with a brick-like mobile phone in the 1980s. Just as long as long as he doesn’t tax white van man or tanning salons, though he can have a go at Amazon as their delivery drivers are always leaving packages outside the electric gates because they can't get past the security. 

Essex Man admires the front of Dominic Cummings in breaking the lockdown rules, but still thinks he deserves a slap for being a posh git who reads books. Much of the origins of Essex Man can be found in the Victorian costermongers described by Henry Mayhew in the classic London Labour and the London Poor. Selling fruit and veg from moveable barrows, they developed a heightened street sense and quickfire humour. Some of them were known as “patterers”. And today’s Essex Man would certainly recognise Boris Johnson as a dodgy patterer who doesn’t really know what he’s talking about with his world-beating test and trace system, particularly as Nanny Pat is at risk. Essex Man can forgive much but not poor marketing or being mugged off.