Generation wars | 8 June 2017

British general elections have often evolved from contests between parties into battles between two opposing themes or ideas. In 1964, it was modernity vs the grouse moors; 1979, trade unionism vs individualism; 1983, Cold War strength vs unilateral nuclear disarmament. This year was supposed to be the Brexit election, yet instead developed into something loosely associated with that, but at the same time quite different: it became the intergenerational election.

Jeremy Corbyn was never supposed to have had a shout. Way to the left of any Labour leader who had ever won a general election, his economic policies were considered by many to be simply incompatible with the values of the modern, aspirational British population. Hadn’t Tony Blair proved that for a left-of-centre party to win power it is necessary first to renounce socialism; or at least to use that term as a cover for what is really social democracy?

But then came the manifestos, and the dramatic narrowing of the polls.