A third of van drivers under the age of 35 are privately educated – and nearly half hold foundation or university degrees, according to research published by Mercedes-Benz vans. These numbers not only suggest that the end is nigh for ‘White Van Man’, the apocryphal working-class, white-collar ‘tradie’, they also ask us to reconsider the labour market outcomes for those who attended fee-paying schools.
I think we all know White Van Man but let me draw him just in case. In a meme on Reddit, the ‘White Van Man starter kit’ includes a picture of a dirty white van with ‘clean me’ written on the back door with someone’s fingerprints, a picture of the van illegally parked on a double-yellow line outside a school, and an image of what looks to be a roll of carpet hanging out of the van’s rear doors on a motorway.
Typically, White Van Man is working-class, probably a Brexiteer and holds a healthy skepticism for state interventions (he thought Covid was a load of bollocks). He is socially conservative, married to the Missus with children (little ‘uns/nippers) and likes dogs. His driving is much like his politics: high risk, occasionally high reward and anarchic.
In 2014, Labour MP Emily Thornberry fell foul of White Van Man by tweeting an image of a house in Rochester, Kent adorned with England flags and with a white van parked on the driveway. She soon resigned amid uproar from both sides of the political divide. David Cameron condemned her tweet as ‘appalling’, citing it as evidence that Labour held the patriotic working-class in contempt. Ed Miliband, Thornberry’s close political ally and then Labour leader, lambasted Thornberry publicly, blustering that of course Labour could speak to White Van Man as voter. These days, the only politician capable of speaking to White Van Man is probably Nigel Farage.
But just over ten years later, White Van Man is no more. Apparently. Instead of a van that looks like a moving rubbish bin from the dashboard, the gentleman you’ve hired for a job asks if you wouldn’t mind him charging his electric Mercedes-Benz Sprinter in your driveway or looks at the school pictures in your downstairs loo affectionately.
When we had our house decorated just over a year ago, I did meet one tradesman who could reasonably be said to fit into the new class of White Van Man. Young and courteous, he tiled our bathroom with great attention, refusing a cup of tea and asking instead for an espresso.
On his break, we had a chat about our village church and the state of the Church of England before he tidied up his dust sheets and went on his way. So far so White (Collar) Van Man. I would wager that he was privately educated, and he almost certainly had a university degree.
By and large, however, the ‘tradies’ I have encountered both before and since have absolutely fitted the White Van Man description of old: patriotic, punctilious to a degree and perfectly chivalrous. Arriving early (7 a.m.) and leaving early (3 p.m.), they drink tea in alarming quantities and force me to start buying sugar cubes: ‘not sweet enough darlin’.
Our discussions in the kitchen orbit around children, dogs and B&Q. Occasionally we have stumbled into politics, and I find them to be almost unanimously pro-Brexit and pro-Boris, a man they see, rightly or wrongly, as a champion of the working class. When it comes to matters of (cash) money, payment, and invoicing, they bypass me completely and deal with my husband.
For real answers on the ground to this perplexing new research about privately educated White Van Men, I ask my builder Dave. By his own admission, Dave did not go to private school and did not attend university but he wanted me to note that is proud to drive his van.
When he eventually replies to my text from the pub, he says that he had to read it three times because he found it rather confusing. ‘If that statement is correct, which I highly doubt it is’ he writes, ‘then we have a serious problem with our private schools’. Who is White Van Man then, I ask him. ‘He’s generally an ill-educated muppet who throws his chip wrappers out of the window on the way home’ he replies with a laughing emoji.
And there you have it. Dave says White Van Man is alive and well and thinks the research is a load of cobblers. I myself am in two minds given the dire state of employment prospects in this country for anyone – privately educated, higher education graduate or not – although I have yet to open the door to an Old Etonian in overalls with a dust sheet. This I do know: Dave is not to be crossed. I decide to send a van emoji back to him.
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