Five reasons why nobody under 60 likes the Tories

There is something that this generation of Conservative frontbenchers is doing particularly badly

Despite the change in prime minister, Labour remains miles ahead in the polls. The Big Mo is behind them and it’s becoming harder and harder to see how Sunak’s Conservatives can turn it around in time for an election that is likely to be less than two years away.

One of the biggest psephological (look it up) drivers for this are the massive leads that Labour is recording among young people. Finding a young person (say 18-24-year-old) who is considering lending their vote to the Tories has always been hard, but these days it’s close to mission impossible.

Why is that? Obviously, Starmer is doing well. He is presenting himself as a sensible and plausible potential prime minister. Voters of all ages are very comfortable with the idea of him entering Downing Street, and, indeed, expect him to do so. And then, of course, there’s the huge financial meltdown that most of the electorate blame the government for.

But why are the Tories doing so very badly with younger voters? There are obvious presentational issues – but these are not particularly new or unique to this generation of Conservative frontbenchers. No, there is something specific that this group is doing badly. So badly that they are managing to move the dial of support among young people even further in the wrong direction than it already was.

To my mind, there are five areas – all a mixture of policy and politics – where they are managing to do exactly the wrong thing when it comes to younger voters. This short list does not include the wider economic crisis, the cost of living crisis or the NHS crisis because while all three of those are in an incredibly parlous state and all three are being handled badly by the Tories, none of them have any specific generational connection.

So there are five areas of public life where the Conservatives need to urgently change their tune if the next generation is to even consider changing its collective voting intention.

• They need to fix the housing market. The country needs to build more houses so young people can imagine buying them, putting down roots and starting families. At the moment, the supply of new homes is not keeping up with demand, house prices are eye-watering and the Tories are collectively paralysed when anyone in their ranks suggests doing anything to boost housebuilding.

• They need to double down on renewable energy. They are doing some stuff – and under their watch, offshore wind has really taken off – but it’s not enough to suggest that this country really believes it can reach net zero and combat global warming. The ridiculous debacle in the last few weeks about supporting onshore wind farms is illustrative.

• They need to invest in education and support services such as youth mental health provision. The chancellor magicked some extra funding for schools out of his august statement red box, but it’s not enough. And as the 2017 general election taught us, people really do notice when a government is not prepared to invest in young people.

And then there are two things that Tories need to stop doing. They need to stop talking about culture war issues. Most young people and most key voters don’t care about this stuff. They just don’t. It’s a minority pursuit that might titillate certain right-wing newspapers, but most people – especially the young – are either baffled by it or alienated.

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They also need to stop talking about Brexit. It is fast shrinking down most people’s list of priorities. But amplifying the European Research Group headbangers is the opposite of catnip for most young voters, who, polling tells us, would rather we rejoined the EU eventually, but who are very likely to be further alienated from the Tory brand every time Andrew Bridgen is given airtime.

Starmer and Labour are on the right side of all these five tests: they are on the way to becoming more persuasive on renewables, housing and education and are rather cleverly neutralising both Brexit and the culture war.

To be clear, even fully reversing their positions on all five issues is unlikely to see Sunak returned in 2024, but it might mean that the Conservatives are not out of power for a generation when they lose.

Ed Dorrell is a director at Public First