Essex Man - Mondeo Man

Mondeo Man

The concept of the "Mondeo man" was popularised by a phrase used by Tony Blair at the Labour Party conference in 1996. He recalled a Ford Sierra owner he had canvassed in his Sedgefield constituency while campaigning for the 1992 election. The man was a self-employed electrician met by Blair while polishing his car at the weekend and told Blair that he was an ex-Labour voter who had bought his former council house, owned his own car and wondered what the Labour party had to offer him given the party's history of raising taxes and mortgage rates:

His dad voted Labour, he said. He used to vote Labour, too. But he'd bought his own house now. He'd set up his own business. He was doing very nicely. "So I've become a Tory" he said. In that moment, he crystallised for me the basis of our failure... His instincts were to get on in life. And he thought our instincts were to stop him. But that was never our history or our purpose.

This is the story that is often credited with inspiring Blair's concept of New Labour and the "Mondeo man" superseded the "Essex man" as the target of the 1997 Labour Party election campaign. (By 1993, the Sierra had been replaced by the Mondeo in the Ford model range, hence the misquote that gave birth to Mondeo Man). Blair subsequently won the 1997 General Election with a landslide victory.