Jeremy Corbyn is to challenge Conservative economic policies in a bid to extend his young support base and win over more of the older voters who have long kept the Tories in power. Attacking the perceived safety of Conservative economics is the Labour strategy for securing more votes from wealthy baby-boomers to build on Corbyn’s pitch for younger voters including his promise to increase the minimum wage.
Pensioners are seen as a crucial demographic if Labour is to increase its vote share from the 40% it won in June’s general election to the 45% needed for a solid majority in the House of Commons.
In June Labour won the support of just 27% of people aged 60-69 compared to 62% of those aged 20-24 according to the pollster YouGov. That divide is even more pronounced at the ends of the electorate with 19% of the over-70s backing Labour compared to 66% of teenage voters.
Older Are Sceptical
One of Corbyn’s senior campaign strategists told the Guardian that Labour’s reputation on the economy was damaged by the recession and while younger voters had forgiven it older generations were harder to convince.
“With younger voters there was a lot of scepticism about the banks and why the economy had gone down the pan,” said Steve Howell (left), former deputy to Corbyn’s director of strategy Seumas Milne.
“The older voters maybe still believed that Labour had been profligate and it takes longer to win that ground back. But a lot has changed since the election – the divisions of the Tories over Brexit and its mismanagement and the state of the economy. The Tories’ economic credentials are severely damaged and rightly so. That is at the core and has got to be at the core of our offensive now to expand from 40% upwards.”
Tories Are Struggling
Howell’s comments came amid further speculation that defeat on the upcoming Brexit Bill could force a new election that might oust the Tories from power.
And according to the economic think tank the Institute for Fiscal Studies the Chancellor is under pressure to deliver a budget that funds public services struggling as a result of Brexit while somehow also reducing the deficit.
“Mr Hammond has been dealt a very tricky hand indeed,” the institute says. “The political arithmetic makes any significant tax increase look very hard to deliver.
It looks like he will face a substantial deterioration in the projected state of the public finances. He will know that seven years of ‘austerity’ have left many public services in a fragile state. And, in the known unknowns surrounding both the shape and impact of Brexit, he faces even greater than usual levels of economic uncertainty.”
An Opening
Winning over older voters will not be as difficult for Corbyn as his critics may suggest. A post-election survey by YouGov of 52,000 people who voted in the 2017 general election found that Corbyn’s policies appealed to all ages.
“Given Labour increased its national vote share by nine points, it would be wrong to say that it was young people alone that helped them improve their position,” said the YouGov report.
“Because older age groups are both more numerous and more likely to turn out, Labour was in fact more reliant on voters over the age of 40 than under it. More than half (54%) of those who voted for the party at the election were aged 40 or older, compared to 46% who were 39 or younger.”
Those aged 18-29 make up 19% of the adult population but the survey found they had been more likely to not vote than to vote Labour, whereas those aged 60-69 made up 20% of the adult population and were almost twice as likely to turn out. The opinion and market research firm Ipsos MORI said Labour’s vote between the 2015 and 2017 elections increased by 7% in the 45-54 age bracket, 3% for those aged 55-64 and 2% among those over 65.
by Stewart Vickers
The post Politics: Corbyn to Savage Tory Economics appeared first on Felix Magazine.
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