This chart is from the FT this morning:
The argument is a simple one. It is that as people get older they are no longer moving to the right but are, instead, moving leftward. The millennial generation (born 1981 - 1996) are the first to display this trend.
Why? The reasons seem obvious:
- Reduced access to housing
- No jobs for life
- No pension security
- Student debt
- Climate change
- Growing up with austerity
I might also add, better education may play a part, because it always does on this issue.
There are consequences:
- The older vote will no longer be as right-wing
- Recruiting able people will be harder for the right
- The left can think about the long term
So the real question is, why in that case are Labour playing to the right wing so very hard when that is not the required direction of travel?
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This is, indeed, encouraging. However, three things…..
First, if the definition of moving right is switching to vote Conservative (from, Labour, mainly) then the data may say more about the rightward shift of both these parties rather than a leftward shift of voters.
Second, they measure difference from the average. So, the it could be that the average is moving due to a large switch to the Tories by the old folk rather than a shift by youngsters.
Third, if we do take the data at face value it is hardly the stick we need to get Labour to change.
Finally, as my father always quipped “while there is death there is hope”
🙂
Clive, your father seems to have been a hoot. Very clever. Thank you for sharing. If you don’t think your father would have minded, I will use it.
Young Richard is correct.
I am 76 and very much against the Right. I have moved from a 1970s type Conservative ( I confess ) to being on the left, if not quite Corbynite.
Now for something completely different.
My older daughter gave me a thick book ‘A Decade in Tory’ by a Russell Jones . He is on Twitter, which I’m not. She says he is hilarious. She’s right. I know most of you are very busy whereas I am a lay about pensioner but if you want a bit of fun this is good.
I have nit read it
But his tweets are great
Thanks Ian – I’ll check it and the book out.
Did you ever read ‘Dancing with Dogma: Britain under Thatcherism’ by Ian Gilmour (1992)? A not so hilarious but far from dull read.
I am still in my 60s. Have always been left and more so as I age. I have left Twitter and look forward to reading Russell Jones. Thanks for the tip.
I think the Labour leadership and HQ wallahs are haunted by the 1992 defeat after Neil Kinnock made his pre-election speech ending with rah rah contemplating victory. Caution has been their byword since – never upset Sun and Daily Mail editors, keep to financial responsibility blah blah blah………
I’m in my early 70s. I have *never* voted tory. I find myself moving further left of centre as I grow older and see the damage the tories have done in the last 40 years. The last 12 have been unforgivable.
I think a number of my generation have moved leftish in response to the Grand Charlatan and his successors… We may be a generation of houseowners (not that I’ve ever understood why that makes people right wing) but we see our children and grandchildren struggling with little prospect of improvement.
Interesting. Two questions immediately follow on as the data is contrasting millennials with other age groups (who if I am reading this correctly are moving in different directions)
1. What %age of potential U.K. voters are millennials?
2. What % of millennials actually turn out to vote (IIRC correctly older people have a higher tendency to vote)
Does anyone know the answers?
There’s been some research suggesting that in fact people don’t really move to the right as they age. Such as this
https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/706889
‘contrary to folk wisdom, our results indicate that political attitudes are remarkably stable over the long term. In contrast to previous research, however, we also find support for folk wisdom: on those occasions when political attitudes do shift across the life span, liberals are more likely to become conservatives than conservatives are to become liberals, suggesting that folk wisdom has some empirical basis even as it overstates the degree of change.’
And the research mentioned here
https://www.livescience.com/2360-busting-myth-people-turn-liberal-age.html
I don’t know of any large studies looking at the changing politics of a group of identified individuals over time, but these studies looking at age cohorts suggest that your political identity is adopted when young and then most people stick with it.
The evidence I quoted suggests this has changed
I’m a ‘child of the 70s’ just. I’ve always been left wing in my views but was informed by a relative that I would become more right wing as I got older. However, I’ve probably become more left wing instead. We, as a society, should be proud to say that if people struggle either because of things such as physical disabilities or health issues, mental health issues, caring responsibilities, losing their job etc. that they will be looked after and have a decent standard of living. The previous so-called PM said profit is not a dirty word. How about tax is not a dirty word.
Happy New Year to all who read and contribute to this blog and especially to you and your family, Richard.
Craig
Thanks Craig
I know that experience
There’s an old joke that Tony Blair & Gerhardt Shroeder were driving in a car early in 1997, Blair at the wheel. Tony says – I don’t know whether to turn left or right? Gerhardt replies – that’s easy – indicate left but turn right…
Am I being a daft, optimistic (and increasingly left wing) mid 60’s boomer? Is it just possible that Starmer is indicating right but will, in fact, turn left once in power..?
Hang on to your optimism and prepare to be deeply disappointed
Sadly I am… As I always say – if you can’t get more cynical as you get older, what’s the point?
What it really indicates is that people have stopped getting richer as they grow older.
I’ve been reading “confronting leviathan” by David Runciman. What we are really talking about here is the difference between Burke and Mary Wollstonecraft: between conservatives with something to lose and those with everything to be gained by revolution.
While canvassing for Labour in Oxford the 1970 general election. I can remember the Labour candidate saying something like “I had similar [left-wing] views when I was your age, but you’ll grow out of it.”
At 75, I’m still waiting for that to happen. However some of my fellow students who were far more to the left than me ended up as members of the Tory party. Including one who regularly opined that the House of Lords should be burned down but ended his days as a lord himself.