Why is it that by far the largest group in the population that supports Reform and other far-right parties is those over the age of 55?
It would be easy, and trite, to say that this is because these people remember when life was very different from what it is today. Easy, because these people do remember when life was, in very many ways, easier than it is today. But that was because social democracy delivered them something that the far right never will. And trite, because this is a projection, not an explanation, as to why people of this age are rejecting the policies that delivered for them through much of their lives, and for their parents throughout theirs.
There has, in other words, to be a better explanation than this, based on the experience of these people who seem to be so angry with the world as it now is.
The main explanation for this anger is that the world really has failed a great many of these people. Neoliberalism promised security, prosperity and rising living standards, and it has not delivered for this group. In fact, for many of them, life is getting worse.
Healthy life expectancy, in particular, is declining. For many men, chronic illness is now likely to affect them from around the age of 60 onwards, and many women face a similar prospect not long afterwards. The commonplace expectation is that people will spend the last 20 years or more of their lives coping with chronic conditions and progressive decline, reducing much of the pleasure and fulfilment that they might otherwise have found in those years.
This matters because this generation was promised something very different. It was told that economic growth, rising asset values, private pensions, home ownership and expanding consumer choice would provide security in old age. Instead, many now face deteriorating health, growing insecurity, declining public services, loneliness and a sense that the future they expected has not arrived.
The result is disappointment, and disappointment readily turns to anger when people feel that they have been misled. Many of those now in their late fifties, sixties and seventies worked hard throughout their lives, paid the taxes asked of them, raised families and believed that the social contract under which they lived would be honoured. They assumed that if they did what was expected of them, society would provide a degree of security, care and dignity in return.
Instead, many now find themselves living in a country where it is harder to see a doctor, harder to obtain social care, harder to find reliable public services, harder to help their children secure housing, and harder to believe that the government has either the capacity or the will to address these problems. They see decline around them and are told there is no alternative. They are told that the neoliberal way is all there is. They are angry as a result.
The problem is that much of this anger is being deliberately redirected and misdirected at the wrong targets. Migrants did not create the crisis in social care. Refugees did not undermine the NHS. Diversity did not cause stagnant wages, unaffordable housing or failing public infrastructure. Those problems arose from political choices around austerity made over many decades, and from neoliberalism steadily hollowing out many of the institutions on which people depend.
But for many people, admitting that is difficult. It requires them to recognise that the economic model they were encouraged to support, and which they embraced with enthusiasm from Thatcher onwards, has failed. It requires them to question assumptions that have shaped political debate for more than forty years. All of that is hard, and it is often easier to believe that someone else is to blame.
That is why far-right politics has such appeal. It offers simple explanations for complex problems. It provides identifiable enemies. It converts disappointment into resentment and gives anger a target. What it does not do is offer solutions.
The irony is that many of those now turning to the far right are seeking exactly what social democracy once offered them: security, belonging, decent public services, economic stability, good healthcare, affordable housing and confidence in the future. They are not rejecting those values. They are expressing their frustration at having lost them.
The challenge for those who oppose the far right is not simply to condemn the anger that many older people feel. It is to understand it. Unless the causes of that anger are addressed and a credible alternative vision of society is offered, the appeal of simplistic answers will only grow.
The issue is not that older voters are uniquely reactionary. It is that many have concluded, with some justification, that the promises made to them have been broken. The question is whether anyone can now offer them a better answer than resentment when, as a matter of fact, no neoliberal politician can do that, because they are the problem and not the solution.
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Older people also tend to read more newspapers, especially right wing ones that fill their heads with drivel.
Agreed. The sewer rags peddle an insidious Spitfire nationalist vision of England that only existed in fever dreams – cricket and ale on the village green, the village bobby, leaving your door unlocked at night, everybody knowing their place, and no forrins.
Thank you for this analysis. While what you say here necessarily generalises into trends that many elderly readers of your blog will not fit (I include myself), I recognise much wisdom in what you say.
I have been re-reading Erich Fromm’s work, from 1930s on, which brought together issues of nationalism, authoritarianism, capitalism and technology (Escape from Freedom, The Sane Society, Anatomy of Human Destructiveness, To Have or To Be?, etc.) which I commend. There has been a revival of interest in Fromm, as his work is very relevant again today. His social psychology argued that we have been formed by socio-economic experience (market economics, religious worldviews, and the “ambiguity” of freedom that alienates as well as liberates) and that an “authoritarian personality” (in both submitting to authority and wanting authority) emerges from such circumstances.
He reminds us in Escape from Freedom of John Dewey’s Freedom and Culture (1939):
“The serious threat to our democracy, is not the existence of foreign totalitarian states [abroad]. It is the existence within our own personal attitudes and within our own institutions of conditions which have given a victory to external authority, discipline, uniformity and dependence upon The Leader in foreign countries. The battlefield is also accordingly here—within ourselves and our institutions.”
As I think you know, I appreciate Fromm
Complicated, isn’t it? I am nearly 71 and luckily have a healthy dose of empathy. But I think many people bought into the terrible Thatcher mantra of money is everything, no such thing as society, only individuals matter and if you fall on hard times – tough luck, it’s your own fault. Quite how the elderly who are poor have no empathy with the children living in poverty I just don’t know. And I don’t know how you turn those people around when there’s no logic in their position.
Thatcher was a monster from whom we have yet to escape.
Your conclusion: I agree
You’ve pretty much nailed it – a good friend of mine has made a similar point over the past few years, saying that *she* did all that was expected of her, always in employment, bought her own place etc, but is now terrified of the abyss of poverty and lack of care she faces in retirement.
Rupture if the social contract indeed.
I hope you feel a video on that is worth your time.
Noted
I think educated older people are less disaffected because most of them are ‘comfortable’ financially. I hesitate to say that the majority of older people supporting extreme right-wing parties are uneducated, because it comes across as insulting to them. Nevertheless, it is probably true.
It’s too late to turn this ship around if older people are swallowing the nonsense spewed out by a deeply corrupt media. They cannot reason their way out of something they didn’t reason their way into.
There is a distinct category of older people who are, and have always been racists and borderline fascists, looking forever downwards for targets for their misanthropy. Immigrants, women, and LGBT are all on their radar. We can forgive those who end up there through ignorance, but educated people who follow this path deserve all the opprobium that can be heaped upon them. They really are a dangerous bunch. We see them and know who they are; it’s a pity everybody can’t.
At the age of 86, and having been a member of the S.N.P for many years, I seem to be at the other end of the spectrum. What I do believe is that persons of my age have seen the best of what reasonably good U.K Government can provide for its people. But I’m afraid, especially in the last 50yrs or so, that there has been a steady deterioration in the care, and protection, that such Government’s, of various hues, have provided. Of course, I speak as a Scot who wants us to be an Independent nation once again, and while I am under no illusion that my political party of choice is perfect by any means, at least, with one hand tied behind its back, is doing its best for the people of my country, unlike Westminster, which, if the current trend continues, seems to be heading in a mostly opposite direction, a direction which I want no part of, given their apparent beliefs.
Much to agree with
Is Scotland different? We’ve had a protest/vigil on Orkney mainland about the Gaza genocide ever week since it started. I’d say 75% of people on it are over 65. It would be the equivalent of 16000 people demonstrating every weekend in London if my maths is right.
I think it is the consequence of nearly 50 years of being told there’s no alternative by parties not only of the centre right but also the centre left. They are the only people old enough to recall a time when there was an alternative and when life was, as you say, a bit easier.
So, when people are repeatedly told Britain cannot afford this, it cannot afford that whilst simultaneously seeing an awful lot of wealth around, I think it goes one of two ways. People either reject that argument as bogus and go left or believe it and accept it.
In the case of a lot of older people I think they remain more trusting of what they are told. So they believe and accept the “Britain cannot afford it” lies but at the same time they are the cohort of “accepters” who nevertheless recall governments affording these things in the past. And so they go looking for scapegoats and it just so happens that the rot really started to set in economically at around the same time that a large contingent of the Eastern bloc joined the EU and got free movement to Britain.
I wonder too whether there’s a degree of unconscious calculation involved. To address the real issues requires solidarity and the work of joint effort trusting neighbours to also play their part. That’s something those deeply inhabited by the neolberal mind virus recoil from without even consciously thinking. The billionaire media has succeeded in maintaining the infection.
I’m 73, so probably am an older person, and definitely do not support Reform or the Tories and the like, also neither do any of my friends. At the same time I think that your logic is sound and can also be applied to other age groups. People are struggling.
I think many groups are struggling but without over 55s Reform would be struggling.
And when does old start? I do not feel it, yet.
Mentally “being old” doesn’t just happen – it needs to be invited in. Just keep thinking critically, and that should keep it out. It’s still working for me at (almost) 80, so you should be absolutely fine.
Physically is another matter, I fear…
Paul
🙂
There used to be a saying. “If you aren’t a socialist before you are 30 you have no heart. If you are a socialist after you are 30 you’ve no head”. While the older person’s right wing tendency has more opportunity now with reform and their ilk, they were always conservative voters (I generalise of course). So I am not convinced this is a recent phenomenon. And I have no idea why.
There is the group of older people who have experienced a relative poverty of wealth, education and opportunities who’s attraction to the far right might be explained by a loss of individuals and collective hope. Plenty to be found in left behind Northern communities.
There is another group of older people that life has treated very different whose support for Reform and Restore is more perplexing. Free university education. A stable career. Affordable home ownership. Good even excellent pensions (I remember pensioner poverty as a persistent headline issue growing up in the 1970s). Car owners. Maybe even an inheritance. A relatively secure and comfortable retirement. Yet a seemingly similar disappointment at the direction the country has taken. An underlying broth of negative emotions. Unprompted some may express opinions that might best be described as entitled prejudice (until they realise you think differently).
After the Brexit referendum older voters in the South East of England were identify has having voted Leave in way higher numbers that anyone had predicted.
I suspect your readers tilt towards the 55+ demographic. Another year and I’ll be joining them. Suffice to say these hateful right wing politicians won’t be getting my vote.
I can’t really remember much of politics before 1979 so I don’t really have a golden age to look back upon with my rose-tinted glasses, but it seems to me that far too many English people of a nationalist “two world wars and one world cup” bent – many younger than me – haven’t really reconciled themselves to the fact that the British Empire ended before they were born and the UK has been in decline for decades.
We are a relatively small and rich but increasingly unequal island off the coast of Europe. We could turn against each other and fight about the small share that the superwealthy let us have.
But we have the human and natural and financial resources to live much better, happier, healthier lives than we do. So how do we get there?
That is the question
Do you remember Ingmar Bergman’s film The Seventh Seal? youtu.be/swdUKiTxP-g
A disillusioned Swedish knight returns from the Crusades to find his country ravaged by bubonic plague, the Black Death. He sees religious fervor, ignorance, cruelty, crime, and poverty everywhere.
The knight has lost his belief in God on the Crusade. He has confirmed his loss of faith in seeing how the Deity deals with humans in the grip of the bubonic plague.
Meeting Death, the knight challenges him to a chess match for his life. Death remarks that he always wins. But the knight decides to evade Death long enough to commit one redemptive act while he still lives.
Why does Knight Antonius Block make that decision?
Because he is a Knight. He will not have his Spirit defeated by any sonofabitch, even Death. He will do as he says he will do.
Let’s us just go out and Commit some redemptive acts, you all.
One mitigating factor is education. I am 79, was lucky to get to grammar school and university (I have 3 degrees in maths) and benefitted immensely from the social democracy of that time. More than 70% of my fellow cohort left school at 15 with the most rudimentary of educations and I believe that as a result, a significant proportion of that cohort is poorly equipped to make informed decisions on political questions and more easily manipulated by the right-wing press. That is also something that I have observed amongst many of my acquaintances of that generation. Headlines from the Mail etc. are often quoted verbatim and with obvious strength of belief. When I said a mitigating factor I meant that in the sense that it is often beyond their critical reasoning to see past the obvious lies and half-truths of newspapers that have been their staple diet for many decades.
Is any fascist tendency more of an English thing I wonder? In many respects the English have lost their way; loss of status on the world stage (England as Britain), no clear identity other than past glories, the Spitfire generation as another poster called it, or sense of purpose/vision of England as Britain’s place in the future world order. Meanwhile in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, all now with independence supporting administrations, there appears to be a much stronger sense of identity, even if it’s simply not being English. For many of us in these non English parts of the UK there is also a sense that change is possible if we can only wrest the levers of power away from the British State. I appreciate Northern Ireland is a little different, particularly for the increasingly benighted pro-Unionists who probably feel abandoned by the UK Government, which may be an underlying factor in the recent riots.
We are all – including older people – fed deep state propaganda, day after day after day after day<p>
Including today – ‘oh look we do actually have functioning ships and helicopters and can teach the Russians a lesson’. <p>
Then there are ‘opinion polls’ which ask who we support and surprise surprise quite a few of us repeat the views we have been relentlessly fed – through our gaping Springwatch-like beaks .<p>
It really is 1984. <p>
The daily official message this week ‘we pay more in interest than we do on defence, so we have to cut welfare’ . An innocent query – such as ‘but do we have to pay all that interest – the ECB doesn’t’ can never be asked.<p>
Journalistic curiosity is not allowed. Only the message is allowed.<p>
Older people have always been a bit more right wing – people seem to become more conservate as they grow older. But as Richard points out they are now going Reform almost the opposite of ‘conservative’ – as their only way of expressing their disillusion with the system.<p>
Its either funny or terrifying. Nazis had 2.4% of the vote in 1928. Five years later Hitler became Chancellor. After that their ‘vote’ was always 90% plus.
main parties.
As a long term follower of yours i’m sorry to express disappointment in this article, because you didn’t seem to answer the question you posed.
You mention neoliberalism, that old people are scapegoating migrants. You imply, as many of the replies above affirm, old people are ill educated/ media duped etc
I’ve been following American politics since Trump’s rise; i’d say what’s happening has a wider geopolitical context.
I’m not even sure the terms ‘left wing’ or ‘right wing-‘ fully cover the opinions and fractionated tribalism we see today. People blame social media for the alienation of both young and old: anyone else noticed how acceptable ageism is? Especially by those prefering older people would vote ‘left’.
However, the steady destruction of communities & severing of the passing down of traditions and cultural heritage started long before smart phones imo. British societal norms have been actively dismantled by a bureaucratic state with a global agenda. First in favour of America (Thatcher), then ‘bridging’ EU with US money (Blair), then US, now EU again…
To be clear, you seem to be talking about why older people vote ‘right’ without referring to the new pictures on bank notes, just the monetary value of them.
It used to be the case that older people were deemed wise. What has changed? Has this changed?
Imo your question is existential. About families & work culture. Class and values. ‘Right wing’ is just one form of pushback on a ruthless and undemocratic imposition of rapid socio-engineering of decades that hollowed meaning.
To some, real life barely makes sense any more. We do not see what we are. People voting ‘right’ is surely what it is to be human?
Thank you for the comment.
What puzzles me is the conclusion you draw from your own argument.
You suggest that communities have been weakened, traditions disrupted, families put under strain, work made more insecure, and meaning hollowed out. If so, we appear to agree on a great deal. The question then becomes: who did that?
My answer is that neoliberalism did. It prioritised markets over communities, competition over cooperation, individualism over solidarity, and consumption over belonging. It weakened many of the institutions that previously gave people security and identity.
Yet you then suggest that voting for the political right is somehow a natural human response to these developments, even “what it is to be human”. I cannot see why that follows. If people are reacting against the consequences of neoliberalism, why would support for parties that largely continue to defend neoliberal assumptions be the obvious response?
The idea that voting right is simply “human nature” strikes me as especially odd. Human beings have voted in every conceivable political direction. They have built welfare states, trade unions, cooperatives, mutual societies, public institutions, and systems of collective provision. Those are every bit as human as markets, competition, and individualism.
Nor did I suggest that older people are ill-educated or incapable of independent thought. What I suggested is that many people have been exposed to decades of political narratives that encourage them to blame migrants and other convenient targets for problems that are much more deeply rooted in economic failure.
So the real question is not whether voting right is human. Of course it is. The question is why people who correctly identify that something has gone badly wrong are so often persuaded to blame the wrong causes and support the wrong remedies. It seems that is exactly what you are doing.
Much appreciate your response, thank you. Plus enjoying the comments. Its an interesting line of discussion.
My point is based on the understanding, which may of course be in error, but that currently in Britain we have two aspects of liberalism in play: Neoliberalism – I understand this as an economic & global ‘free market’ where money matters most.
But also social liberalism, perhaps as a consequence of the former.
No ‘left wing’ party seems to be offering to question any of the consequences of the latter, with the possible exception of the Marxist party, This is the one thing that the ‘right’ currently offers, though obviously in limited, vague & sometimes offensive terms. But it offers it.
Liberalism -and in the current formation ‘progressive’; a constant force for social change-works fundamentally in opposition, I would argue, to old traditions that provide people constancy and support such as religion.
I am saying that these days, we do not share many of the same social realities in common. We are becoming a low trust society.
What is the exact nature of any ‘caring’ government, if in promotion of social responsibilty we cannot draw upon societal roots? Shared understandings. Our human past, as individuals, and as a people. Another question I ask myself in relation to this discussion, is about what exactly a ‘nation’ is, therefore why we owe tax to it? Etc
I would equate the rise of the ‘right’ with other phenomenon, such as the rise in church attendance, pagan spirituality & old traditions eg stoicism.
Some people argue that old people are being left behind. I say everyone is being left behind. That’s why this current ‘left’ government has to resort to authoritarian measures.
Thank you for this comment.
I think there is, however, a problem with the distinction you are drawing between economic liberalism and social liberalism. The evidence we have suggests that many Reform supporters are themselves socially liberal on most issues. They are generally accepting of divorce, cohabitation, women working, same-sex relationships, and a great deal else that would have been regarded as socially radical a generation or two ago.
In other words, there is little sign that Reform voters are seeking a return to the social norms of the 1950s, or indeed of any earlier era. The old social conservatism of church, family, and deference is largely absent from their politics.
That is why I think there is a real dichotomy here. The one area where social liberalism often appears to be rejected is with regard to race, migration, national identity, and questions associated with them. It is not social liberalism in general that is being challenged. It is a much narrower set of issues.
That matters because it suggests that the explanation for Reform’s rise is not a broad cultural revolt against modernity. If it were, we would expect opposition to social liberalism across the board. We are not, however, seeing that.
I agree that people are searching for meaning, belonging, identity, and community. I also agree that neoliberalism has weakened those things. But I am not convinced that the evidence suggests a widespread desire to return to older social structures. Instead, people appear to want security, recognition, and a sense that they belong somewhere.
The challenge is not to recreate the past. It is to create forms of solidarity, care, and common purpose that work in the society we actually have. That seems to me to be a rather different task.
The failure is that the party who should be the vanguard of social democracy are captured, it’s a pervasive neoliberal capture – which even the IMF recognise.
Hum……..
OK the ‘Greatest Generation’ who fought WW2 are almost all dead but the comments from the survivors seem to suggest a more open and ‘Pro European’ outlook. It may be luck of the draw of course and those who fought the Japanese may justifiably have a different outlook.
Then of course if you are retired then you have the time to make your views known, run political events etc even if they come over like the Dementors from Harry Potter* I suggest that there is partly an element of prejudice in it after all many of us on here are over 6o.
Danny Dorling suggested in ‘Rule Britannia’ that the ‘Boomer’ Generation hasnt come to terms with Britain’s diminished status in the world unlike its parents, and I suggest that may well be a big part of it. Unlike France which remade itself we did not.
* https://www.harrypotter.com/fact-file/creatures/dementor
Sadly it seems that one consistent thing in life is that people always seem to drift increasingly to the right as they age. I agree with Richard’s analysis here and think it must be part of the answer, but also old have always seemed to become more right wing as they age.
I remember in 1990, when I was somewhat younger, my age cohort (now just approaching 55 personally) was very much to the left. Not as much as today, but still significantly more left wing than the 55+ at the time, which was 60% or more conservative.
In the early 2000s, before the full realisation of what Blair was doing sank in, some 55% of voters in the 25-55 group were Labour supporters. A few more would be green, fringe left parties and lib dem. This is largely the same cohort that is now massively Reform supporting.
Throughout most of my political life I have actually bucked the trend and become increasingly radicalised to the left, but one thing has been consistent. From 1990 on, I’ve looked at age related polling and thought that once this current (at the time) older generation leaves the scene then we can at last have proper left wing governance. Nope, every time people get to 55 it seems like some ultra right wing lever is pulled and the 55+ vote for whoever is the most extreme right winger (all present company excepted). I would not bet against millennials and Gen Z going exactly the same way, sad as that is to say. I do hope that’s not the case though.
Their world broke, the rules changed, and they don’t yet understand who and what broke it. The BBC Mail etc certainly won’t tell them. Political and media class have their noses in the neoliberal trough.
They believe in TINA.
Enter Reform stage-right.
Guess that’s the work to be done.
And LINO certainly won’t do it, we have to…
Back in the 60s and 70s, the right wing working class were either cap doffers or racists. Thatcher promised to unleash untold riches previously constrained by the unions and the left. Huge numbers bought into that, and just like Brexit, people find it difficult to admit they’ve been conned. I still encounter those who idolise Thatcher for ‘beating the unions’. The racists continue to be racist. As I’ve noted before, I was a Bennite in the 70s and still am really at 74. I am of course now extreme left.
You have not moved, the world has.
They also venerate her for allowing them to be Kings of their own Castle. One isn’t allowed to criticise selling off Council houses, but that is the true root of the so-called housing crisis, and those who bought their Council houses will never admit it was wrong.
Agreed
I think it is also to do with older people’s perceived own status. That it is about recognition, respect and collective identity as much as it is about material economics. That older people feel that their nation and their social group within it has declined in stature and that this is also, in part, why they hark back to a time of perceived political and socioeconomic stability
(This may be unreadable – I can only get a next line by pressing enter, it isn’t flowing: sorry if so, just delete, not include)
I much agree but with less pessimism I think (!). It is of course the case that many believe they were promised the Earth
decades back and it wasn’t – of course again – coming. But this was a very intentional thing – the inculcation in many people in
thir 20s and 30s back in the 1980s (Thatcher obviously) of the belief that society and working together with other people was
inherently stupid, wrong, even evil. This covered all sorts – and I was politically active from the mid-70s onwards – trades
unions (collective action to benefit everyone in the union, not individual work to benefit just the individual); protest campaigns
(as above, but the story constantly put out that Someone was backing this – a Conspiracy – Russia back then, Russia again
now of course, surprise surprise); community action for a myriad reasons (the above again, but allied to the constant
consumerist push that buying more things makes you happy, other people around you be damned). These people are older
now, but most are politically indifferent – even most Reform voters are not fully on board with Reform ideology. But that was the intentional push also – Don’t Take Part, Be Quiet. I’m pleased to say that in anti-fascist action in Scotland – and I’m active (aged 74) from Inverness to the Central Belt – older people are well represented. Sometimes it’s the younger ones we can do with. Sorry – the text is overlying again losing letters now, so I’ll end there.
Thank you.
I am nit sure what your posting problem is, but if necessary compose in a note writing program, which all computers come with and copy and paste in.
I drink in a Cornish micropub and it’s mainly retired people that frequent it. I have to listen to the right wing drivel that comes out of their mouths every time I’m in there. It’s practically word for word what they’ve read in the Daily Mail, be it immigrants, Gaza, Royals etc.
My uncle and aunt, both nice people spout the same Daily Mail nonsense to us and their children.
There’s absolutely no fact checking done by them. They believe every word that’s written in front of them by the Daily Mail or said to them by the BBC.
We in the United States have the identical divisions and the identical drivers. Neoliberal policies leave everyone behind, some sooner than others. Those who’ve lost careers, identity, self-respect, usefulness, dignity, security, a future for themselves and their families, have perfect reason to resent the policy makers. Not surprisingly, the easy path, fostered by right wing media, is to blame an out-group. Immigrants, people of color, whatever.
Your governments and ours have failed people.
We are suffering under consequences more advanced than those you are facing.
It’s necessary to identify the common enemy – the rightwing media, policy makers, cowards, poseurs, frauds – and the common alliances, and foster those alliances. Here, we are realistically afraid of armed assaults on voters in November.
We are in a television series and on the seventh installment, while you appear to these eyes to be on the fifth installment. We have identified the representatives to defeat, the candidates to promote, and the means necessary to prevail.
We may not prevail, but we will act.
Thank you
I’m 70. I whole-heartedly agree with your analysis. I went on a march a few weeks ago and decided I need to have a badge made … ‘I still blame Thatcher’.
🙂
If Blair had not enthusiastically adopted Thatcher’s neoliberal zeal, there is a possibility it might have been a largely reversible aberration.
Instead, he normalised it, making it many times harder to undo. And making it almost inevitable that we’d be suffering it decades later.
For this reason, I have an ‘I still blame Blair’ badge.
Margaret Thatcher famously stated that her greatest achievement was “Tony Blair and New Labour,”
Several people have mentioned 50 years ago as when the decline started. In 1975 Granada TV released a World in Action documentary called ‘ Farewell to the Welfare State’.
Several people have mentioned 50 years ago as when the decline started. In 1975 Granada TV broadcast a documentary called ‘Farewell to the Welfare State’.
How easy it is to make people believe a lie, and how hard it is to undo that work again!
The above, dictated by Twain in his memoirs, covers the long-versions above.
The older generation, (I’m 55), were sold a meoliberal “pup”. The pup seemed real and true, while propped by the sales of previously nationalised services and of course, the oil and gas “bonanza”, from Scotland.
Unfortunately, these streams of revenue were temporary. Now, the coffin-dodgers suspect the pup was not-quite right. Therefore, they cling to (what they believe), is “the closest thing”, to the pup-seller.
In my experience, the higher the education level one has, the harder it is to convince one that, ultimately, there is no single political-party that has all the solutions. That plus Westminster, Cardiff and Holyrood politics are extremely bereft (as mentioned frequently here) of folk with vision and genuine leadership qualities.
Much to agree with
Your analysis is spot on. I was 90 last week. Atlee’s inheritance was quickly frittered away and utterly destroyed by Thatcher. So why did Labour not defend it? One could argue it was the sheer weight of propaganda. Believe me (or believe me not) I remember the Daily Express’s opposition the foundation of the NHS. Almost within days they were sounding off about all the people wanting dentures – with no discussion of the years of neglect that created this need. We had a radio in our Morrison shelter and we heard about the Beveridge Report when it was published – my parents discussed with me when I was all of eight years old, Mum and Dad admired Atlee and despised Churchill (other than as a war leader) – and later loathed Blair.
Labour were gradually overwhelmed by the neoliberal culture – Fabian pamphlets were no match for IEA releases to the press and MPs. However, after the early socialists were removed from the party we had a Labour leadership that was steeped in the Gladstonian Liberalism that was at the core of the party’s foundation. So they were very vulnerable to the arguments of the IEA et al. Early organised labour was also also embedded in the friendly society movement and were very opposed to people getting ‘something for nothing’ from the state when they had been contributing to their funds for years.
Thank you – and for using your recall as a weapon for action.
I think your post is an excellent description of how horribly the elderly have been let down at the end of their lives, as the rules have all been rewritten and they are left struggling.
I feel as sad and angry for the young, being expected to make lives in a totally changed and corrupt country of distorted politics, managed well away from Parliament.
The elderly make up the majority of those who still buy a newspaper. There are now no decent left wing newspapers (bar the Morning Star, ironically) and as others have said, they have relentlessly groomed their readers into believing that the country’s woes are caused by immigrants. They can’t even tell the difference between legal and illegal (who make up a miniscule proportion if immigrants). The papers will not go near that truth.
At the same time they are being groomed to believe this country is being forced into a war with Russia – a war we are waging for others’ ambitions.
My huge fear is that we will be lured into the pit of an extreme government that will totally end the post war consensus that gave us all what we are lamenting, and the only prospect if regaining it will be the mass destruction of another World War.
I’m not sure which is the greatest lie, that the problems are caused by immigrants or that we ‘can’t afford’ to change. Both lie way beyond the ‘damned lies’ end of the lies spectrum and yet are spread incessantly by politicians, economists and the mainstream media. They are the real root of the problems, not the nonsense spouted by Reform et al. Neoliberalism is a cancer which has spread from Thatcher’s Tories to Starmer’s Labour. Reform offers Snake Oil to treat it. We need to go back to post war Britain to remind ourselves what the country wants and do what needed to achieve it, having recognised those ‘snake oil’ lies as causes not solutions.
I’m not sure where the statistic comes from, that suggests that ‘by far’ the largest group of people who support far-right parties are over 55. When I look at photos of people attending pro-right demonstrations, the large portion of them seem to be younger than that. Or certainly not much OLDER than 55.
Opinion polls on who supprts Reform. See https://www.statista.com/statistics/1379439/uk-election-polls-by-age/?srsltid=AfmBOormSAtXfpaj932JUd2DfpzOd670PP85O-OW0LXe-Ql3kyzyNBYb
Well support for the Conservatives has shifted since they were not Conservative enough (see the ‘Boris wave’ of immigration) so it goes to Reform (now largely the old Conservative cabinet) and now looking for fresh faces/actual policies in Restore
This has been a most engaged and valuable discussion. I greatly appreciate reading people’s thoughts on the combined topics of neoliberalism, Reform, social and economic liberalism, what’s missing, what’s needed.
In the United States, a culture of solipsism has taken over since the late 1960’s. It’s evident in the resentment of laws, regulations, distribution of access to resources.
I observe that since about 1969, the public have been directed toward consumerism and the majority have not fought against it. Strong minorities in the USA have kept alive a sense of Purpose. We have since the late 1960’s passed laws now being destroyed to protect children, health, environment, civil rights, human rights.
Like your Thatcher and our Reagan, the solipsists have disavowed the existence of any duty to society or to the earth.
My personal belief is that the greatest joy in the world is in restoring the earth and that savvy leaders would fund transnational and national corps to do just that. We all need Purpose.
But instead, we in the USA have gone to what I call Evil.
I realize that it may be unseemly for a person of an advanced age to exhort anyone to Keynesian idealism.
Tough.
I like purpose
“The challenge is not to recreate the past. It is to create forms of solidarity, care, and common purpose that work in the society we actually have.”
This.
I see my comments yesterday were not posted. Any reason why?
I can find no evidence of any. Sorry. They are not in the system. They are not deleted or spammed. They just never got here.
Absolutely spot on Richard. I have to admit that I was one that bought into those promises too during the 80s & 90s, until I learned that it was all a big con by the rich and powerful. Although I am comfortable (and lucky) enough not to have the worries that many of our generation has, it’s true that everything is now harder than it was – and so I feel misled nonetheless!
It’s the jump from that to blaming immigrants that still mystifies me though, when every day we hear from the real villains – Trump, Musk, the Tech Bros, and yes, Kier Starmer too, etc. Surely it’s staring us all in the face?!
Regards…Bob
It is
But we need a better story to tell so people understand that.
More on that tomorrow.
I am an intercultural trainer and author. Numerous psychological research papers shows that many people across cultures, as they grow older, become less tolerant of uncertainty and ambiguity. They start to gravitate towards politics that offer certainty, consistency, tradition and a strong rules-based order, and so they gravitate towards conservative and even hard-right politics.
So why do ssome go the other way?