Tories. The Boomer Party.

[Si1]

From reading the politics forum here, it's pretty clear that the Tories have shamelessly tried to buy the over 50s vote, stupidly not realising that that alienates a now significant younger proportion of the population as well as their more enlightened parents.

I find it shocking.

Edited May 3, 2015 by Si1

[StainlessSteelCat]

They've always been the party for the wealthy, and oldies tend to have more dosh than young'uns (as well as be more conservative in their views).

[Si1]

They've always been the party for the wealthy, and oldies tend to have more dosh than young'uns (as well as be more conservative in their views).

But many of the elderly have been made wealthy by political transfers of wealth. The quadruple lock on elderly wealth - the fourth item being we'll protect your house price

At the very least the Tories used to try to be biased towards equality of opportunity.

Devil take the hindmost has been replaced by devil take the least privileged. This is not conservatism.

Edited May 3, 2015 by Si1

[Bruce Banner]

Speaking as a boomer, who, up until now, had always voted Conservative. The current Tory leadership are as socialist as Labour and interfere with anything that they see as a vote winner. Boomers tend to use their vote... QED.

[Executive Sadman]

They've always been the party for the wealthy, and oldies tend to have more dosh than young'uns (as well as be more conservative in their views).

Is that really true...I cant be bothered to dig it out but if you look at the historical income figures in the favourite charts thread for different age groups, its a very recent phenomenon that the old are seeing income growth.

The pre-war generation were an amazing generation. They fought in wars, re-built the country from the ground up, gave their children free university, affordable housing, a motorway network, cheap and plentiful energy. They were generally poor however, their sacrifice all for the next generation...who, as income statistics illustrate, arent nearly as benevolent.

[R K]

Tories havent won an election since Major in 92 and that was unexpected and led to a tired premiership.

Even Thatcher ran higher deficits and household debt than New Labour.

Theres some weird sort of nostalia at play re Tory party not borne out of any link to reality.

With a fixed 5 yr term country will have rejected Tory rule for at least 28 years and pretty soon their core vote will be dying off in droves.

Edited May 3, 2015 by R K

[stormymonday_2011]

The split in voting distribution between parties reflects geography and economics more than age. If you you think the Tories are the boomer party then you must also assume most boomers live in the South East of England or certain largely agricultural shire counties rather than Wales, Scotland and northern urban conglomerations. I am not sure the census data supports that assumption.

http://www.neighbourhood.statistics.gov.uk/HTMLDocs/dvc235/index.html

Edited May 3, 2015 by stormymonday_2011

[CyberNat]

The current Tory leadership are as socialist as Labour and interfere with anything that they see as a vote winner. Boomers tend to use their vote... QED.

Socialist. That's a good one.

[pig]

I think there is an idea of how its all meant to work that the conservatives, are loath to depart from (and to a certain extent Labour) - thats the problem that intersects with this site.

Winter of discontent, Thatcher, shift the economy, deregulate, on yer bike, work hard get a mortgage and hpi with high interest rates will do all the rest.

It all seems to have unravelled spectacularly for all sorts of reasons - no wonder the disaffected trying to cling on by sticking their head in UKIP sands.

[olde guto]

I'd say the Tory spinoff called UKIP is the boomer party, various polls have said that its the over 50s rather than under 50s who are more likely to vote for them.

One of the boomers fav papers the Daily Express (average reader age is 57ish) supports UKIP, Farage has a column in the paper and the owner gives them a lot of cash.

[EUBanana]

Farage has a column in the Indy as well...

[olde guto]

With the Indy you can at least argue that it's to get a breadth of viewpoints (and they aren't bunging him any money), I doubt I'll see George Galloway writing for the DE.

[campervanman]

Sadman, I fail to see how anyone from the generation you describe who had the opportunity to buy a house in the 1950's at then record low interest rates and retire 20 or 30 years later on the most advantageous pension in history (then and now) together with owning an asset that had increased in value x20 or x30 could be described as 'generally poor'. I certainly remember my father in law gloating over the fact that he had paid less than £1000 for his house in the 1950's when we paid over £20k for a similar one in the early 1980's.

[EUBanana]

With the Indy you can at least argue that it's to get a breadth of viewpoints (and they aren't bunging him any money), I doubt I'll see George Galloway writing for the DE.

True, the Indy seems to practice what it preaches at least.