Poll: young ex-Tories won’t return to party in 2029

There’s an oddly upbeat mood here at Tory party conference in Birmingham. You might have thought that with just 121 MPs left, the Conservatives would be fairly despondent about their future. But it seems that the bromide of the leadership election has helped assuage such feelings. After all, who can be miserable when there are endless invites to rallies and much merchandise to be purloined?

Yet Mr S has a big bucket of cold water to douse on Tories rousing from their conference hangovers this morning. Savanta has done some polling for The Spectator and it looks like the future of the party is not looking too peachy. A majority of young former Conservative voters say they won’t vote for the Conservatives at next election, with 56 per cent saying they cannot see themselves returning by 2029. A sub-optimal development where one in six voters are expected to be dead by then…

Savanta’s research of over 7,500 UK adults split under-45 Conservatives into two main groups: ‘defectors’ and ‘considerers’.