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. Ostensibly, the shift in opinion was coming from the elderly, who were upset by the prospect of having to use the value of their homes to pay for their care costs. Yet the polling returns tell a different story. While there was certainly some shift in the elderly vote towards Labour, it was not nearly as dramatic as among the young. An ICM poll on 18 April, at the beginning of the election, put the Conservatives ahead with 60 per cent of the over-75 vote and Labour on just 4 per cent. By 29 May, the Tory lead had softened to 52 per cent against Labour’s 18 per cent. Among 18-24-year-olds, the earlier poll had Labour ahead with 28 per cent and the Tories on 16 per cent. But by 29 May, Labour’s support among the youngest voters had rocketed to 61 per cent while the Tories had fallen back to 12 per cent.