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If we left it all to 18 to 24 year olds we’d be so much better off
Richard Murphy
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It really hurts seeing this as you know the stock right/conservative response will be to mock the ‘6th form politics’, magic money tree, how they’ll change with age/experience, lack of wisdom, etc, etc. The belief in false realities is strong beyond a certain age. It does prove one thing though, the propaganda machine has been extraordinarily successful over the last 5 decades.
One can only hope that the current crop of youngsters are smarter, and I think this may actually be the case, about when they are being fed bullshit. I can’t see any way they’ll fall for trickle down, rising tides and privatisation/outsourcing.
18-34 in the picture. Even better.
I would have thought the Greens would have done so much better. Still only 1 seat
Instructive.
Psychologically then all us old farts who believe in trying MMT, GND, PQE, PR are 18-34 inside then!?
Suits me!
However, let us consider that the 18-24 year olds have yet to accumulate their wealth and assets – they want what the older, established lot want.
I’d like to know what the age groups attitudes to taxation are before I accept this. Out here everyone is down on taxation.
The older lot seem to have their assets and want to cling onto them. Both younger and older groups might be anti-tax – younger because they see taxes as holding back accumulation; older because taxes eat into what they have accumulated.
Younger folk are into their green agenda too – but are Labour a ‘green party’?
The answer: more real money in the system (wages, benefits, jobs, investment).
I was in Swindon last week. Honda will be leaving. Swindon looked like a lot English cities these days – down in the dumps – things needing repairing every where, deserted city centre at night. And there is still worse to come when Honda leaves. It’s all totally unnecessary.
I always knew there was something in the water in Powys…now the proof.
It is pretty weird!
Amazed to see so little support for the Greens, to me that casts doubt as to whether the exercise is really representative.
Indeed, Richard – and Scotland would already be an independent member state of the EU!
So much for the argument, sedulously advanced in some parts of the MSM, that Corbyn is alienating the youth vote.
I’m dismayed by the poor showing for the Greens.
…but they have only themselves to blame. They have not managed to shed the brown rice and sandals image.
I guess young people see Greens as harking back to an agricultural age and they have not clearly made the case that a green future (there isn’t any other kind) will be reliant on the technology that will make our species’ survival possible. 🙁
I am surprised by it…..
“I am surprised by it…..[the poor Green vote]
Perhaps it’s just down to pragmatism. There’s no way from here that the next government is going to be Green Party, and Labour is considered the least worst option. Or maybe it’s more positively pro-Labour (or pro-Corbyn) than that (?)
Whatever happened to youthful idealism ?
This voting trend is not determined by green issues.
This voting trend is determined by wealth issues as far as I am concerned.
Me too. When viewed against recent Green Party successes in Germany, Sweden and the Benelux countries maybe one can draw some logical conclusions as to why this is.
Greens in the EU have tended to benefit from disaffection for the major traditional Centre Left parties. Greens also seem to do well as a counter-balance to growing right-wing popularist parties (who similarly benefit under PR). Regionalism is another factor, whereby continental Greens have been able to use their provincial successes as springboards for national campaigns – most notably in Germany.
Here in the UK, by shifting the narrative to the left Corbyn has unquestionably made the LP more appealing to this particular age group via its greater grasp of social media. Tory Party attempts to woo younger voters have always been cringeworthy.
I’d also agree with Andrew (Andy) Crow that the UK Green Party has an image problem which needs to be addressed. That said, at least in England, the Green Party is the only genuinely progressive party and the only one with its integrity intact. With the environment finally finding its way on to the political agenda you’d have thought it should be doing better.
However, while I resolutely and faithfully maintain my membership, I’m not confident that the UK Green Party can realistically win many more seats. Not with FPTP voting, our right-wing controlled MSM, and the prevailing Household Budget analogy. Must be very frustrating for the leadership and local activists.
Pilgrim Slight Return says:
“This voting trend is not determined by green issues. This voting trend is determined by wealth issues as far as I am concerned.”
So they, like the current crop of adult Tories (in both main parties), don’t make the connection ?
Oh, dear.
With all those hormones raging, an excellent recruiting ground for cannon fodder on a front line. They think they are invincible and home by xmas. That like and uptick changing the world , maybe but most likely not
The Brexit map would be equally pleasant: there’s no fools quite like old Tory fools.
The seats result compared with percentages is a damning indictment of the FPTP system. So much for the wisdom of age and experience. A good argument for an upper age to voting although that would hit me.
good point Rod, I’d sacrifice my vote for a ban on over 50s deciding on the EU for example….we won’t have to live with the consequences.
I’m not surprised by the Greens poor showing, the MSM machine has been superb in denigrating their capabilities. Even young people seem to think nice ideas but not a real party capable of governance. We really have been hamstrung by our hidebound 2 party approach. The youth view of smaller parties probably wasn’t helped after the LibDems ‘betrayed’ them. I honestly think that between them, Clegg with his broken promises and Cameron with his referendum, may have damaged this country more than their less personable counterparts.
A few years back I remember a blind survey doing the viral rounds. Basically go through and choose the party policies that most represented your own views. The Greens scored far better than the others. But the final question was would you vote Green? and the answers were still invariably no.
It’s not much different to people that believe pay should be better but aren’t prepared to pay more for things.
Hi Andy
Yes they do ‘make the connection’ as you put it but I put forward the thesis that even the 18-24 year olds know that the Labour party is more likely to help them than The Greens.
You cannot ignore the fact that 18-24 year olds are more likely to be asset poor and on lower wages. You can have wage growth and asset growth from a Green perspective – look at the possibilities of GND.
But even the 18-24 year olds know that if you want to change the world you have to have more money or less unfairness in the distribution of income/economic output than there currently is.
18-24 year olds as idealists? No – not at all – they already know (and if you are a parent or a grand parent you will know too) that young people now are facing exclusionary economic forces that we post war older folk did not face.
We cannot condemn them for knowing that and letting it guide their voting preference.
For new ideas to compete with the old order, it has to be underpinned by wealth – inequality, fairness – whatever. Otherwise we know what happens.
As for the Greens, I have found many of them to be well meaning people but like many political types too many of them at a local level have not got a clue about new economic ideas to the point where they make many an 18-24 year old look positively world weary by comparison.