The phrase "Middle England" is a socio-political term which generally refers to middle class or lower-middle class people in England who hold traditional conservative or right-wing views. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]
The phrase "Middle England" is a socio-political term which generally refers to middle class or lower-middle class people in England who hold traditional conservative or right-wing views. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]
The origins of the term "Middle England" are not known. Writer Ian Hislop found evidence of the British Prime Minister Lord Salisbury's using the term in 1882, but it did not gain popularity at the time. [6] Modern popular usage of the phrase has been attributed to Margaret Thatcher who, according to the historian David Cannadine, introduced the expression into political phraseology by adopting Richard Nixon's concept of "Middle America". [7] However, Joe Moran found that, although the concept originated in Thatcherism, the term itself was rarely used by Thatcher, or by national newspapers until the 1990s premiership of John Major. [8]
The primary meaning of the term is now a political or sociological one (as is also the case for the term "Middle America" or "Middle Australia"). It principally indicates the middle classes or lower-middle classes of non-urban Britain, but also carries connotations of "Deep England". John Major's 1993 speech to the Conservative Group for Europe is often cited, evoking romantic imagery of rural cricket matches, warm beer, suburban gardens, and "old maids bicycling to Holy Communion through the morning mist" (itself based on a quote from George Orwell). [9]
Although Middle England does not refer to a geographical region, it may be understood to refer to the inhabitants of suburbs in the South of England and the Midlands, typified by the small towns that make up "Metro-Land", the suburban areas north-west of London that are served by London Underground's Metropolitan line. [7] The BBC described the Kent town of Tunbridge Wells as the "spiritual home" of Middle England, with particular reference to the popular characterisation of "Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells", the pseudonym of an imaginary, incensed letter-writer. [10] Emphasising its lack of geographical location, the writer Nick Inman likened Middle England to J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth: "We know everything about it except where it is". [11]
The term is used by journalists to refer to the presumed views of mainstream English and to a lesser extent British people, as opposed to minorities of all types (the rich or the poor, ethnic minorities, gays, lesbians and bisexuals, the politically active, the intelligentsia, etc.). In particular, it is increasingly used to denote the more right-wing views of those who are not in such minorities. [9] [12] The phrase "Middle England" may be regarded by some as interchangeable with "Middle Britain", particularly with reference to political campaigns that seek to include middle-class voters in Scotland and Wales, but commentators such as Cannadine have assessed it as a designation specific to a segment of England, not Britain as a whole. [13] John Major's 1993 speech has been noted for its culturally selective evocation of Britain, omitting inner cities, football, people who are unemployed, coal mines, Muslims, and the other Constituent Countries of the United Kingdom. [14]
People who belong to the Middle England grouping are typically said to be white, middle class or lower-middle class, heterosexual, with a strong work ethic and a highly developed sense of conscientiousness. They may typically read the Daily Mail , a popular British newspaper known for its conservative editorial bias, and are also sometimes referred to as the "silent majority" or "moral majority" in the British media. [7] [11]
In British politics, Middle England is considered as a grouping to be especially important because of its potential to swing the results of United Kingdom general elections; according to the polling company MORI, Middle England is said to make up 25% of the UK population, its members are not devoted to any particular party and may be swayed by successful political campaigning, and many live in marginal constituencies. [7] Middle England was also considered to be a major force in the vote to leave the European Union during the 2016 European Union membership referendum. [15]
Members of the Countryside Alliance may be considered to be typical of Middle England, [16] [11] while members of the Women's Institute have been described as "the backbone of Middle England". [17]
Other demographic personas associated with Middle England include "Mondeo Man" (a term attributed to Tony Blair which describes a middle-class floating voter who owns a Ford Mondeo); "Worcester woman" (a provincial voter with little actual political awareness); "Essex Man" (an aspirational lower-middle-class voter from Essex); and "Pebbledash people" (a term coined by ICM Research to describe married white collar couples who live in semi-detached houses covered in pebbledash). [18]
Political correctness is a term used to describe language, policies, or measures that are intended to avoid offense or disadvantage to members of particular groups in society. Since the late 1980s, the term has been used to describe a preference for inclusive language and avoidance of language or behavior that can be seen as excluding, marginalizing, or insulting to groups of people disadvantaged or discriminated against, particularly groups defined by ethnicity, sex, gender, sexual orientation, or disability. In public discourse and the media, the term is generally used as a pejorative with an implication that these policies are excessive or unwarranted.
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The silent majority is an unspecified large group of people in a country or group who do not express their opinions publicly. The term was popularized by U.S. President Richard Nixon in a televised address on November 3, 1969, in which he said, "And so tonight—to you, the great silent majority of my fellow Americans—I ask for your support." In this usage it referred to those Americans who did not join in the large demonstrations against the Vietnam War at the time, who did not join in the counterculture, and who did not participate in public discourse. Nixon, along with many others, saw this group of Middle Americans as being overshadowed in the media by the more vocal minority.
Royal Tunbridge Wells is a town in Kent, England, 30 miles southeast of central London. It lies close to the border with East Sussex on the northern edge of the High Weald, whose sandstone geology is exemplified by the rock formation High Rocks. The town was a spa in the Restoration and a fashionable resort in the mid-1700s under Beau Nash when the Pantiles, and its chalybeate spring, attracted visitors who wished to take the waters. Though its popularity as a spa town waned with the advent of sea bathing, the town still derives much of its income from tourism.
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The 1852 United Kingdom general election was a watershed in the formation of the modern political parties of Britain. Following 1852, the Tory/Conservative party became, more completely, the party of the rural aristocracy, while the Whig/Liberal party became the party of the rising urban bourgeoisie in Britain. The results of the election were extremely close in terms of the numbers of seats won by the two main parties.
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Essex man and Mondeo man are stereotypical figures which were popularised in 1990s Britain. The "Essex man" as a political figure is an example of a type of median voter and was used to help explain the electoral successes of Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s. The closely related "Mondeo man" was identified as the sort of voter the Labour Party needed to attract to win the election in 1997. Basildon man and woman are narrower terms being used synonymously.
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The phrase "Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells" is a generic name used in the United Kingdom for a person with strongly conservative political views who writes letters to newspapers or the BBC in moral outrage. Disgusted is the pseudonym of the supposed letter writer, who is a resident of the stereotypically middle-class town of Royal Tunbridge Wells, Kent, in southeast England. The term may have originated with either the 1944 BBC radio programme Much-Binding-in-the-Marsh, a regular writer to The Times or an editor of the letters page of a local newspaper, the Tunbridge Wells Advertiser.
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