UK election: Conservatives ditch young to chase gray vote

LONDON — Barely a week into the U.K. general election campaign, the Tories appear to have located their key audience: old people. 

Since Rishi Sunak stunned Westminster by calling a snap election despite dire opinion poll ratings, his ruling Conservative Party has been working hard to shore up its core support, with a brace of policies appealing to older voters. 

First came a promise to require 18-year-olds to take part in a form of national service, which the party insists was designed to appeal to young voters despite polls suggesting such a scheme would be far more popular with older age groups. 

Next, the Tories made a clear play for the gray vote by pledging to increase the income pensioners can receive before they are taxed.

Pensioners already receive an amount designed to keep up with rising prices and wages, known as the “triple lock;” the latest offer to raise the tax-free state pension allowance has thus been dubbed “triple lock plus.”

What do the seemingly disparate commitments have in common? “Both of these things make headlines and start conversations at the knitting club,” said a Conservative aide who, like others in this article, was granted anonymity to speak frankly.

Numbers game

The strategy is unsurprising given the demographics at play. The Conservatives have long fared better with older voters, who are in turn more likely to show up and vote. 

Keiran Pedley, a pollster at Ipsos, said it was “common sense” for the Tories to court this cohort, as “we know that those aged 55 and over are the most likely to vote, and we know that they’re most likely to vote Conservative.”

Alarmingly for the Conservatives, however, the age at which voters are more likely to vote Tory is rising, with one recent poll suggesting the crossover point now stands at 70.

William Atkinson, assistant editor at the Tory grassroots bible ConservativeHome, said the two policies “very obviously” show the Conservatives hope to push a core vote strategy of hanging on to past voters rather than pursuing new ones, and “this means plying pensioners.”

The Conservatives have long fared better with older voters, who are in turn more likely to show up and vote. | Andrew Yates/AFP via Getty Images

The strategy is aimed not merely at older voters per se, but at those the Tories fear are at risk of lending their vote to the anti-immigration right-wing upstart rival Reform UK, a large proportion of whom are older men. 

Sunak is far from alone in this, with French President Emmanuel Macron recently taking a more right-wing tack — including proposals for national service — as he tries to head off the threat from National Rally. 

Young at heart?

An outright bid for older voters was not always a foregone conclusion ahead of the U.K. general election, however. Sunak, the country’s youngest prime minister since 1812, surrounded himself with a squad of “X-ennial” advisers who sought to contrast his relative youth with Keir Starmer’s more mature aspect — the Labour leader is 61. 

Starmer has also come under pressure to revitalize the Conservative pitch to younger voters, for example by taking action to make housing and childcare more affordable.

Housing has consistently been a hot topic among young Conservatives, and rarely has this conversation been flattering to the government. At a recent event hosted by Conservative think tank Bright Blue, former minister Robert Jenrick, a potential future leadership contender, was asked if the Tories had failed to tackle the housing crisis due to a lack of “will or competence.” 

Yet the pitch for the youth vote appears to have fallen victim to a hastily assembled election campaign. 

Atkinson said those within the Conservative Party calling for a better offer to young people “are banging their heads against a brick wall when, in the short term, the incentive is to drum up the vote amongst elderly voters.”

In private, some Conservative figures are scathing about the core vote approach, and the party has been forced to take rearguard action.

Rishi Sunak stunned Westminster by calling a snap election despite dire opinion poll ratings. | Peter Nicholls/Getty Images

Conservative Party HQ scrambled to arrange a briefing for candidates Sunday with campaign chief Isaac Levido and Home Secretary James Cleverly, after activists were inundated with irate responses to the national service announcement, according to two people on the call.

A second briefing, with Work and Pensions Secretary Mel Stride, was set up in advance of the “triple lock plus” announcement to keep candidates onside.

Health on the horizon

One Tory MP said: “Anyone who has spent time looking at it knows that the triple lock [on pensions] is barely affordable” and the bid to extend it looks “desperate.” 

Another complained that “it really is the boomer election,” referring to the post-World War II baby-boom generation, while adding they hoped the announcement on thresholds for pensioners would be part of a package that also appealed to voters of working age.

Liv Lever, director of right-leaning think tank Blue Beyond, told POLITICO the pensions announcement was a “kick in the face to young Conservatives” and accused the party of “engaging in a pissing contest with Labour over who can win the gray vote.”

Others sought to defend the Conservatives’ main announcements so far, arguing the two pledges balanced each other. 

One former Cabinet minister said: “I don’t think the national service announcement is anti-young people at all,” and should be taken in concert with the pensions promise. 

A senior No.10 official weighed in: “National service is very much geared to boosting opportunities for young people. Just because Starmer thinks all young people are lazy and can’t be bothered doesn’t mean he’s right.”

The Labour Party has since published 101 “unanswered questions” about the proposal, with shadow minister Jonathan Ashworth describing the scheme as “confusing.”

The trouble for the Conservatives is that these policies may ultimately pale beside the core issues in the campaign, such as the cost of living, the economy, the state of the NHS, and immigration — where they will face just as many tough questions from over-55s as from younger voters.

Ipsos’ Pedley said his research indicated that every age group ranked the health service as their top priority, with this trend becoming more pronounced among older respondents.

“The Conservatives will need to have something to say about public services,” he warned. “When every age bracket is telling you that the NHS is the number one issue, at some point you have to talk about it.”