In December, the Labour Party announced a new demographic that it would appeal to: “Middle-aged mortgage man.” This was met with understandable derision from some on the left. Middle-aged males with mortgages don’t need any help, surely? Not, at least, in comparison to the young people who have been the most vocal part of the left in the last few years: graduates who rent their homes, struggle with debt and precarious jobs, and live in big cities.
Yet middle-aged mortgage man is merely the latest in a long line of focus-grouped terms that try to capture the condition of the silent majority of supposedly ‘normal people’ in the UK. There have been many over the years. Thatcher had Essex man, Blair had Mondeo man. Since then we’ve also had motorway man, Duncan Weldon’s excellent Barratt Britain, and Deano.
All these terms are vague proxies for describing a specific, elusive class that is essential to understanding British politics today: the petty bourgeoisie. Historically defined as small artisans, shopkeepers and small farmers, today they make up a sprawling class of self-employed traders, small business owners, salespeople and others.
