How the Conservatives can win back young voters

Election day polling by Michael Ashcroft showed a Britain divided not so much by class or region as age. The 45-54 age group split almost evenly between the two main parties. Older voters went for the Conservatives; younger ones for Labour. Among 18-24 year olds, only 18 per cent voted Tory, while 67 per cent supported Labour. Among 24-35 year olds, that first figure rose to only 22 per cent and the second dropped to only 58 per cent.

It is inevitable in the aftermath of these findings and June’s result that the Conservatives should mull younger voters’ embrace of Jeremy Corbyn; think that the latter have little grasp, because they have no memory, of why socialism doesn’t work; and conclude that Tories need not so much to ‘Change to Win’, as David Cameron once put it, as ‘Educate to Win’. The case for conservatism must be put to younger voters as it hasn’t been for the best part of 50 years.