Why is this election so divided between Britain’s old and young?

Rishi Sunak targeting core older voters while Labour woos the young is widening the age gap in politics, says Sean O’Grady

Rishi Sunak’s wife, Akshata Murty, meets residents at a Royal British Legion care home in Ripon on Wednesday (AFP via Getty)

In this battle for votes, it is often said there isn’t much difference between Labour and the Conservatives, especially on the broad thrust of economic policy. But one of the more striking features of the campaign is the very different ways the two main parties are chasing the support of particular generations.

With every fresh policy announcement, the Conservatives seem to be targeting older voters while Labour is targeting the young. It exacerbates what has been a growing intergenerational divide. The latest in a long list of demographic dividing lines is Rishi Sunak’s pledge to scrap “ripoff” or “Mickey Mouse” degrees. This polarising trend carries some important implications for the future of British politics.

How deep is the divide between old and young?

As deep as it can be. For example, the latest YouGov poll of overall voting intention puts Labour on 47 per cent to the Tories’ 20 per cent, which is fairly normal these days. But among the 18-24 age group, Conservatives only have 4 per cent support vs 65 per cent for Labour. In fact, it’s not unusual to find the Conservatives languishing in fourth or fifth place behind the Liberal Democrats, the Greens and the SNP/Plaid among younger voters. Nigel Farage’s Reform UK, it must be added, is even less fancied by the teenagers than the Tories.

Only among the over-65s does Sunak’s party enjoy a lead, and even then a slim one – 36 per cent to 32 per cent. That age group is also Reform’s strongest base, and why the Tories are working hard to peel them back by pointing out that a vote for Reform will put Starmer into No 10.

Looking at the phenomenon another way, another recent poll finds the age at which Britons are more likely to choose the Tories over Labour has risen to 70 from 39 at the last general election (which went relatively well for Boris Johnson’s party by recent historical standards).

Hasn’t it always been true that people drift to the right as they get older? That is the traditional pattern, but there has been some suggestion the trend isn’t as strong as it used to be. That could be very concerning for the long-term future of the Conservative Party.

What is driving this?

Younger voters are much more pro-European than their parents and grandparents and, to use a much-abused label, more “woke”. The long-term housing crisis has tended to work against the Conservatives and hindered (even reversed) the evolution of a “property owning democracy” in which everyone has a financial stake in the nation. The young feel aggrieved that they are denied the same opportunities as previous generations, having to pay for their higher education, finding it impossible to get on the housing ladder, suffering stagnant wages and meagre pensions.

Are the Tories pursuing a ‘core vote’ strategy?

It certainly looks that way. Janet Street-Porter asked Sunak the other day why he hated pensioners but the general stance of his government and the latest announcements suggest the opposite. Thus far in this campaign, the government has announced a return to national service, a further boost to the “triple lock” for the state pension, and the rubbishing of “Mickey Mouse” degrees while fears grow that some universities may have to close. Victoria Derbyshire put it well on Newsnight, telling transport secretary Mark Harper: “Force them to do national service. Tripled tuition fees, frozen thresholds. Extend the student loan repayment term, invested only a third of catch up, rents rose 9 per cent in the last year, and houses are at their most expensive since 1876”.

National service and protecting the value of pensions are precisely the kinds of things that appeal to disillusioned Tories who’ve vowed not to vote for the party again. The idea, perhaps, is to push support up to above the 30 per cent “core vote” mark and win 150 seats on 4 July. That would mean Sunak could beat Hague and Major’s records, and avoid going down in history as the worst Tory leader ever.

How is Labour maximising the youth vote?

It needs to because older people are far more inclined to turn out and vote than students and other young citizens. Labour is promising a “fairer” (though unspecified) deal on student loans; possibly allowing local authorities to control rents; a more socially progressive outlook and, rather tangentially, votes at 16. The Tories rightly fear that extending the franchise would skew the electorate strongly leftwards but they did the same in the other direction with photo ID and granting Tory-inclined expats the right to vote indefinitely.

Will younger people turn out to vote Labour?

It’s hard to say because it partly depends on where students are registered to vote, if at all. The rule used to be that they tended to find more exciting things to do on polling day, but a mixture of anger and fear at what the Tories have in mind for their generation might motivate them, even if they think the result is a foregone conclusion.