Rising taxes, empty shelves and fuel shortages – why do conservatives seem so invincible? | Phil Burton Cartledge

As the Conservatives are heading home after their annual conference, they have good reason to be joyful. Their rise in national assurance over workers, empty shelves and unwitting conga lines in garage forecourts barely shook their poll. The last YouGov poll, reporting Thursday morning, puts them at 39% against 31% for Labour. Clearly, something remarkable is happening.

No matter what we throw at the Tories and what they throw at us, their lead remains constant. It’s almost the new normal. So how are we to understand their seemingly permanent polls? Is it because they correspond to the interests of the majority of voters? Have millions of people – mostly former Labor voters – embraced the Conservative Party’s war on revival, its authoritarianism and its gutting of social benefits?

It is a bit of a mystery to the Prime Minister why the Conservatives won the last election in style. Knowing that Jeremy Corbyn was divisive and the opposition was split between various second Brexit referendum bids, Johnson had the relatively easy task of uniting the Leave side of the equation. A task he undertook with theater and fireworks, kicking out left-behind MPs, shutting down Parliament and suggesting he could ignore international law to push through Brexit. This most unserious politician was able to show an unusual seriousness on this question alone. And he won. Most conservatives accept this, but differ on the whys and hows.

Reflecting on his defeat of Laura Pidcock at North West Durham, Richard Holden Advanced what we might call a lazy labor assumption. He said he faced a local Labor party used to taking its constituents for granted and doing little for them. Corbyn and Brexit were the last straw for many, and they made the change. Holden, however, was under no illusions that their support was conditional. The Conservatives should deliver for seats like his. Transport links, local utilities and money for the police and schools were essential to making the Conservative revolution permanent.

James Frayne, public relations specialists Public First, weighed, warning conservatives against confusing their new voters with foot soldiers in the war on revival — arguing that while these new working-class voters abhor any notion of “metropolitan excess,” they were otherwise for most “indifferent to social change”. Other than that, they offered the Conservatives the option to carry on as usual. Because those voters all knew someone who was “gaming” the Social Security system, Frayne argued, the government would find broad support for further attacks on welfare. In public transport, he explained, the so-called “red wallists” were not so restless. Few trains used and most didn’t care about buses so no need to go the extra mile for infrastructure expense. The tax cuts, however, were good because these voters do not like wasteful public sector spending. In other words, apart from paying attention to his P and Q so as not to offend his new support, there was nothing to learn. Or, a compulsion to do something new. Meet new Conservative voters, as well as former Conservative voters.

This opposition of interests and values ​​is also played out in the cabinet. Johnson’s messy big spending clashes with tax hawks from the Treasury and Rishi Sunak in particular, a debate in which “values” seem to have the upper hand. Brexit has been delivered and the country is out of the EU, with only passport covers and truck driver shortages to prove. The coronavirus may fade into the background now that the vaccine has been rolled out, along with, the conservatives hope, the memories of the tens of thousands of needless deaths. But there is nothing else. No visible signs of upgrading, no visible signs that the places left behind are leading forward. Yet their support remains solid, seeming to confirm Frayne’s analysis of inaction.

The Tories can also count on Britain’s aging population to provide a steadfast bulwark of support. As is well documented, for a variety of reasons – property, pensions, and labor release in mind – retirees are disproportionately predisposed to conservatives. Not just because they are (or were) the triple-lock party and remain determined to fuel property prices, but because Toryism, especially in the guise of Boris Johnson, appeals to the anxieties at heart of their social position.

As many academics have noted over the decades, populist and far-right political formations tend to appeal more to small business owners than other social strata. The competition they face from larger competitors and/or employee salary expectations can put them out of business. This sublimates into an authoritarian politics that, on the surface, offers stability and certainty, while promising action against foreign groups identified with change or fear of the unknown.

Interestingly, millions of retirees now live in a similar location. In my book, Falling Down: The Conservative Party and the Decline of Conservative Britain, I argue that fixed retirement incomes and disproportionate land ownership leave them feeling vulnerable. The Tories seem to be offering a balm, protecting the old from direct reductions in their standard of living from the leadership of David Cameron until today, while doing less for the working-age population: this is the key to understanding the differing appeal of Johnson’s populist politics to different age groups.

It’s amazing to think that someone like Johnson, easily the most chaotic figure to ever hold No. 10, is the beneficiary of a desire for certainty. And yet, this is where politics is at in the 2020s. Older people are mostly spared direct harm to their standard of living, while those of working age bear the costs and risk. . The generational divide is here, and unless Labor and the other parties take their blinders off the ‘red wall’ and see what is really fueling the stubborn Tory support, the longer the political dominance of Johnson and his successors will last. long time.