The Battle of the Boshes

It was, ultimately, a Chinese takeaway that pulled Big John into England’s flag debate. Until then, John Fisher, 52, was known locally as the owner of a cheese wholesaler, and online as the oversized bloke who films himself eating oversized meals and declaring “Bosh!”.

Then, last August, vandals scrawled St George’s crosses and the words “go home” across the windows of the Dragon House takeaway in York. Big John decided to intervene.

After a summer dominated by arguments over immigration and national flags, it felt like a line had been crossed. “I’ve got nothing against anyone putting flags up,” he told his 800,000 followers. “I’m patriotic myself. But when it overspills into hatred towards people who have worked here for a long time, that’s when it’s wrong.”

The intervention propelled him onto Newsnight, where he was swiftly cast as an avatar of common-sense England: patriotic but tolerant, plain-spoken but reassuring. Since that appearance last September, he's leaned into the role. “My dad just likes Chinese takeaways,” recalls his son, also called John. “But now people want to know his opinions on politics.”

That is partly down to his father’s enthusiasm for attention. But it’s also because, in his hometown of Romford, Big John isn’t the only man with strong views — or a fondness for saying “Bosh”.

Tom Skinner was also born in Romford, which he likes to describe as “the centre of the universe”. He first entered the public eye as a contestant on the 2019 series of The Apprentice. Like Big John, he posts videos of himself demolishing roast dinners and lasagnes, often for breakfast. Like Big John, he has amassed a huge online following: 695,000 on Instagram to Fisher’s 720,000.

Unlike Big John, however, Skinner is no darling of the Left.

That difference was made explicit last month after Andrew Rosindell, Romford’s Conservative MP of 25 years, defected to Reform UK. Skinner promptly announced that he was doing the same. Nigel Farage marked the moment by posting a photo of the two of them together, captioned simply: “Bosh!”

At first glance, it is tempting to dismiss the rivalry as a TikTok skirmish, a battle of influencers playing out online. But doing so misses its political weight.

In Essex, at least, the rise of Big John and Tom Skinner speaks to a deeper shift away from two-party politics. Pollster Luke Tryl, appearing alongside Big John on Newsnight, described the moment as a “battle of the Boshes”, one in which future governments could be shaped by which version of “Bosh” cuts through.

And in that battle, Romford is the frontline.

Much of Romford’s character lies in where its people came from, with most of its population — around 20,000 strong — tracing their roots to East London. In the decades after the war, Romford and the wider Essex hinterland swelled with a working-class, Cockney diaspora, as families eagerly escaped their bomb-damaged inner-city housing for new estates and a promise of space.