He made a name for himself peddling pillows with all the gusto of a modern-day Del Boy: the “absolute guv’nor” of “graft” who belts out “Bosh!” like a battle cry and has somehow made the way he pours gravy a key element of his persona. This is Thomas, or Tom Skinner, or “The Original Bosh” as he calls himself, a Very British Businessman who found fame on The Apprentice – and just a few years later, improbably (or not, as it may be) finds himself sharing beers with the vice-president of the United States, and at the centre of a burgeoning class culture war.
This week, 34-year-old Skinner is facing a wave of criticism over that meeting and his latest career turn. The circulating image of the latter created somewhat of a storm – Skinner, wearing a suit and his famous grin, leaning over a much more casually attired JD Vance, both awkwardly giving a thumbs up.
Writing on social media, Skinner said: “When the vice president of the USA invites ya for a BBQ [and] beers, you say yes. Unreal night with JD and his friends n family. He was a proper gent. Lots of laughs and some fantastic food. A brilliant night, one to tell the grandkids about, mate. Bosh.”
Within hours, the photo of the unlikely diplomatic exchange was ricocheting across social media, accumulating tens of thousands of likes. The meeting – at a “booze-fuelled” summer barbecue in the Cotswolds – took place during Vance’s English holiday, in the same week he met Reform UK leader Nigel Farage for breakfast.
The pair bonded in recent weeks after Vance sent him a supportive meme on X and their online friendship culminated in the invitation to the event with the vice-president.
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The question is, why would Donald Trump’s right-hand man have any interest in being seen with Skinner, a perennially tanned, former market trader from Romford, Essex? For the same reason that the BBC announced him as an upcoming contestant on this year’s Strictly Come Dancing.
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Since he made a big impression on viewers of The Apprentice in 2019, Skinner has traded on his “man of the people”, plain-talking, working-class image and, unsurprisingly, it’s made him extremely popular. For the right, it has been political gold dust.
Skinner is the supposed embodiment of the ordinary British families – no airs, no graces, just so-called authenticity and greasy fry-ups. His relatability has amassed him more than 700,000 followers on Instagram, just over half a million on TikTok and a similar figure on X.
Across his platforms, you’ll find him posing with “proper English grub” like pies at the pub or toad in the hole, which he pours gravy over, making sure not to look at the plate as he does so – a trademark of his, albeit quite a baffling one. His pride and joy is his Ford Transit van; his brand, a nostalgic celebration of British culture, family, land, and hard graft, pitched as the mirror image of “ordinary working voters”.
Except, “ordinary working voter”, in 2025, has shifted significantly in meaning – and so now, apparently, has Skinner’s politics. His brand draws heavily on a certain kind of working-class masculinity: entrepreneurial, salt-of-the-earth, no-nonsense, “honest” people “left behind” by modern Britain. The sort of people who hate being told what to do, especially by middle-class politicians they can’t relate to.
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Skinner’s relatability has amassed him more than 700,000 followers on Instagram(BBC)
“We need leadership that understands the streets, the markets, the working class,” he wrote recently on X, in a post that caught the eye of those noting his recent, subtle shift. “People like me.”
However, despite his white-man-van persona, Skinner attended the prestigious Brentwood School, which carries day fees of ￡29,112 per year, or boarding fees of ￡56,358 on a sports scholarship and grew up in relative affluence in a house worth more than ￡2.5m. His father, Lee, was a “mega-rich marketing boss and businessman who was once able to have a garage full of Lamborghinis” (before being bankrupted over his role in a suspected investment fraud).
This part of Skinner’s life, however, doesn’t fit into a carefully crafted rags-to-riches narrative. According to readers, his book, Graft: How to Smash Life, glossed over much of his childhood.
So how authentic is the “hard-working” hero his marketing suggests? Certainly, cosplaying in a working-class identity is hardly new nor rare, particularly on the political right, but rather a strategic decision.
From financier Nigel Farage’s well-worn pub pint pics to trust-fund Trump’s blue-collar bravado, the trick is more than familiar: adopt the aesthetics and language of a class you do not belong to, then trade on the credibility and, particularly when it comes to working classness, the protection from criticism that it grants you.
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The picture of Skinner and JD Vance that has caused controversy(Thomas Skinner/X)
For Skinner – who openly showed support for Donald Trump last year and has said he’d like to run for mayor of London – the point is that the spin he’s put on his background offers hope, or some sort of proof that happiness and success can come from true grit alone if you just have the right attitude, no matter how much society shows you that simply isn’t the case.
The Conservative Party, following Reform UK’s lead, have taken the idea very seriously. And it’s Tory MPs who have acted as Skinner’s gateway to his latest association in US politics.
Vance was not Skinner’s first political collaboration – that was with shadow chancellor Robert Jenrick. The politician, who also had his meeting with Vance this week, once filmed a pretty excruciating video with Skinner in which he claimed that “tool theft” among tradesmen was high on his political agenda.
They were reportedly introduced by James Orr, associate professor of philosophy of religion at the University of Cambridge – the man who spotted Skinner’s potential to “speak human”, as he puts it.
“I guess the way I look at it is kind of in the same way organisations have secret agents,” says Dr Mikey Biddlestone, of the University of Kent. “Where they pinpoint and target the nerdy scientist who’s the perfect person to groom into helping with their mission.
“They’re hijacking this brand that already exists to be a mouthpiece for the content that they want to spread, to the demographic they want to reach.”
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Skinner is the supposed embodiment of the ordinary British families – no airs, no graces, just so-called authenticity and greasy fry-ups(Alamy/PA)
Agreements with influencers are valuable, according to Professor Stephan Lewandowsky, because of a “fantasy industrial complex”, an imaginary world, or closed loop between politicians, influencers and audiences in which reality is less important than emotional recognition (or facts, Biddlestone adds).
The mechanics are simple: Skinner’s cheerful posts and “everyman” appeal draw eyeballs; the algorithm rewards the content with further reach; the association between the two men and, crucially, what they stand for, quietly settles into the minds of their shared audience. And yet not a single policy point has been uttered publicly between them.
The danger lies in what comes next or, as Biddlestone describes, the likely “mission creep” that ensues in partnerships like this one. “Like an insidious push towards an extreme idea,” he explains, “where you introduce very small amounts of changes in perspective or messaging. And then it’s a bit like that frog in boiling water analogy – before you know it, you’ve been nudged into an extremist right-wing perspective.”
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And who’s going to argue with the guy who got famous simply by saying that hard work and family values matter? Skinner might have avoided being overtly political so far, but he’s certainly at least right-wing coded. More worryingly, he’s also one carefully selected mouthpiece in a much broader trend of political actors talking to influencers they see as being able to “play” the working class for power.
He might insist he’s only interested in a hard day’s graft and having a laugh, but already he’s making very big political statements. The question is not just what Skinner will do with that, but how others might benefit from it. Bosh.