Britain | Not the only way

Essex is rebranding

A county with a reputation for brashness is trying to show off its posher side

Wait for me, babes!
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THE NICEST stereotype about Essex-dwellers is that they do not take themselves too seriously. That is lucky, because Britons’ fondness for regional cattiness has long been indulged at their expense. For Charles Dickens, their county town of Chelmsford was “the dullest and most stupid spot on the face of the Earth”. Essex Man, shorthand for the archetypal Tory voter of the 1980s, was not meant as a term of affection (“right wing, keen hanger [of people], noisily rambunctious, no subtlety”, explained Campaign, a public-relations trade magazine).

This article appeared in the Britain section of the print edition under the headline “Not the only way”

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