Occasionally, life throws up little synergistic surprises. Last Sunday, I was reading a rather interesting opinon piece in the Daily Telegraph in the morning and then (quite unexpectedly) found myself breaking bread with the author of that article in the evening.
In common with a great many pundits (both amateur and professional) John O’Sullivan casts his eye over the persistantly and curiously comatose Conservative Party and, in doing so, makes a rather astute observation:
Throughout the West, but especially in the English-speaking world, parties are changing their class composition. Working and lower-middle-class voters are moving Rightwards, middle and upper-class voters, Leftwards. George W Bush won the votes of West Virginia miners in the last two elections; in Australia, John Howard was cheered by loggers: both lost votes among their own progressive middle class. Most “missing” votes in Britain belong to the working and lower-middles who have left Labour and are repelled by the Lib Dems but have not been given good reasons to vote Tory.
That may seem like a strange and rather radical suggestion to some but, actually, it does make quite a lot of sense. A great swathe of what we now call the ‘middle-class’ are not really bourgeois in the true sense of that word. Rather they are public sector professionals or elsewise beneficiaries of the client-state whose wealth and status is entirely dependent on a bloated and active government. Lower tax and less regulation is simply not in their interests.
On the other hand, members of the lower-middle and working class are having to hand over ever more of their hard-earned (either directly or by stealth) for ever less in return. It is their elderly parents who are expiring, neglected, in the corridors of state hospitals; it is their children who are being turned out from state schools without being able to read, write or articulate themselves.
This changing dynamic is just begging to be seized by anyone with the political savvy to spot the opportunity. Mind you, that probably rules out the Tories.
David Carr writes:
” Mind you, that probably rules out the Tories.”
It certainly does the Notting Hill Set.
Hmm.. now why did I almost type ‘Sect’?
It was a great piece – the best column since the election that I’ve seen on the Tory situation.
On top of the point about working class voters, which certainly parallels my experiences on the doorstep, the other point I’d note myself is how much young people are – if not pro-Tory – then utterly open to the Conservative message. Perhaps because most ‘young people’ one sees on television commenting on politics are aged 25 to 30+, it seems not to have appeared on many media commentators’ radars that there is also a ‘new young’ who had a vote for the first time this election, and will have a vote in a good dozen elections in the future, too. People in their early twenties now have little or no memory of the days when John Major was trying hopelessly to hold his government together and the likes of Neil Hamilton were earning enormous public contempt, and so seem open to the Tory message in a way that I find very encouraging. Certainly there’s a silver lining in the usual reports about the famed 18-35s, and it’s one that will become more important as time passes.
As far as I can see it, there are approximately 3 classes, and no longer lower, middle, upper. Namely:
(1) the working class,
(2) the not-working class,
(3) the social-working class.
The way I see it, it’s really simple. If you work hard for your money, you don’t want big government to take it away. If you get handouts or are Hollywood-wealthy, you can easily vote Left because you’ll have enough left after taxation anyway.
The working class is slowly awakening form its slumbers and beginning to notice the vast, ranks of the klepto, taxpayer funded, middle class. Given the natural propensity to go to work, to raise families, to improve one’s station, to want the money to go on hioliday, to buy a new set of golf clubs etc, but also to be left alone to do so then the working class should be a natural Conservative Party constituency.
It’s no coincidence that the young, southern, dynamic working class voted Tory in huge numbers when she was PM. As for noticing the significance of this and responding appropriately, my money’s on the Conservative Party to do what it now does best and continue naval gazing.
the other point I’d note myself is how much young people are – if not pro-Tory – then utterly open to the Conservative message.
Would that be the “Tory message” about increasing state spending an infinitesimally small amount less than labour had planned?
How thrilling to learn that the young people of today are straining to charge headlong into this brilliant new dawn.
Now that the state owned industries are a bad memory, the working class are indeed more likely to vote Conservative.
What we need is a leader who can appeal to them.
David Davis for Leader?
Rather they are public sector professionals or elsewise beneficiaries of the client-state
No doubt some are cheesecloth-wearing bedwetters who work for the Arts Council, the BBC, and in local government, but otherwise your assumption is pure fantasy. Why do you keep banging on about this? We know where you stand, David, change the record. The lower and / or working classes are becoming more rightwing because they always do when they start to feel the pinch in their pocket. It’s a cycle. By and large they’re as likely to jump back on board the Tory bandwagon as they were to take up arms on behalf of Oswald Mosley. People see through you, David, and your Samizdata chums. Get over yourselves.
Martin Chuckle-Wit writes:
“… but otherwise your assumption is pure fantasy.”
In what sense is it ‘pure fantasy’? The pages of the Grauniad’s ‘Society’ section and the number of middle class households receiving other people’s money (errr.. I think I meant “benefits”) would suggest all the weight of the evidence is against you.
Still, one has to keep reminding onself – never expect a Leftist to respond to facts.
GCooper, not sure what you’re saying. If you’re alarmed that a leftie newspaper advertises jobs that lefties go for, then pull me up a stool before I swoon. It’s just a paper for people who like that kind of paper. Relax. Have a jam sandwich. You’re not the only person, on the left or the right, who possesses a brain.
I don’t see any facts in your reply, just a vague distaste for the Grauniad, which is entirely predictable.
And…breathe in, breathe out…I ain’t no leftist I can assure you. Beneath all the fine talk, this website – of which I am a fan, and with which I often agree and often don’t – is a bastion of intellectual immaturity and selfishness.
In the States, at least, the persistance of Big Government can be attributed to the perpetuation of salaries for the governing classes. Those salaries are the only palpable accomplishment of the welfare state.
So who’s greedy, these locusts or thr productive private sector?
In the States, at least, the persistance of Big Government can be attributed to the perpetuation of salaries for the governing classes. Those salaries are the only palpable accomplishment of the welfare state.
So who’s greedy, these locusts or the productive private sector?
Martin writes:
“…not sure what you’re saying. If you’re alarmed that a leftie newspaper advertises jobs that lefties go for, then pull me up a stool before I swoon. It’s just a paper for people who like that kind of paper.”
Cutting through the patronising twaddle and attempts to sound kewl, it’s pretty clear you’ve missed the point by a mile.
Yes, the Grauniad is a rag, but what’s at issue is the size of the public sector in the UK and its metastasis in recent years – of which ‘Society’ (sic) is hard evidence.
David Carr’s point, which you airily dismissed as ‘pure fantasy’, has plenty of justification. Yours, nothing beyond a pose: certainly, not a shred of evidence.
As I said to the Labour hawker on my doorstep a couple of weeks ago, there is an undeclared class war going on in this country and all the political parties standing in my area are on the wrong side of it. There is a productive class and a parasite class. I firmly believe that is the most important message to get out and get recognised.
Of a UK workforce of 28 million, approximately one in five work in the Public Sector.
The Office for National Statistics reveals that the Public Sector has taken on 583,000 new employees since the beginning on 1998, of which 146,000 were added in the last year alone.
Since 1998 the number of jobs within the Public Sector in the UK has increased by 11%.
Since 1998 the number of jobs outside the Public Sector in the UK has increased by 2.1%.
Thanks, GCooper, I know what’s at issue. I can read, and I can think too (look ma, no hands).
You attempt to smokescreen the debate by resorting to the classic Samizdatist Gambit – clobbering the opponent with accusations of posturing, poor grammar / spelling, stupidity or being patronising.
It screams louder than anything you could articulate in a level-headed, open-minded manner. GCooper, like many who frequent these pages, has a chip on his shoulder the size of Tony Blair’s Big Government.
Martin writes:
“You attempt to smokescreen the debate by resorting to the classic Samizdatist Gambit – clobbering the opponent with accusations of posturing, poor grammar / spelling, stupidity or being patronising.”
Which, as you have still to advance a single justification for your cavalier accusation that David Carr was indulging in ‘pure fantasy’ is a laughable response.
Chris Goodman’s figures are interesting. I wonder what has been the % increase in the working age population (inc. immigration) during this period? I suspect that it’s more than the 2.1% increase in private sector employment, which tells you all you need to know about New Labour’s economic record.
Of course, it is not just that public sector employment has gone up, it’s the increase in the number of private sector employees who only have jobs because they supply the greatly expanded public sector. I am confident that ‘true’ private sector employment has plummeted since 1997.
HJHJ
That’s a very good point. In my industry many companies have been formed or have grown simply on the back of commissions from the public sector. Without these they’d be sunk.
It’s also common knowledge that where the commission results in a report or plan, said report or plan will be deposited on a shelf to gather dust.
HJHJ – I was just about to add my own endorsement of your astute comment. I hadn’t thought of it before,but of course! There are now feral colonies of workers in the private sector scampering around gnawing on the public sector’s juicy bones and giblets. Meaning, they have been inducted into the socialist “to each according to his need” sector. So, in effect, as is your point HJHJ, the public sector has now begun territorialising the private sector.
This is horrifying.
HJHJ – Yes! I hadn’t thought about that before. The deadweight loss to the economy when factoring in the extra private sector workers supporting the swollen public service would be considerable.
GCooper – I’m starting to think that Martin’s having you on. Surely no one would be so doltish as to seriously forward such an insubstantial position, utilising verbiage that consists of, as you aptly put it, “patronising twaddle and attempts to sound kewl” AND THEN say that OTHERS are erecting smokescreens?
ISFMA:
“The deadweight loss to the economy when factoring in the extra private sector workers supporting the swollen public service would be considerable.”
Yes, indeed. Add me to the list of those both impressed and appalled by HJHJ’s point.
If you start thinking about wretched parasites like Capita, which one can only assume is counted as a private sector business, then the degree of problem is greatly magnified. I wonder if any economic research has been done on this?
As for Martin ‘having a laugh’ who knows? Everytime I see the lead story in the Independent I keep expecting to see an April 1st dateline.
The biggest trap in all of this is to use the work “class” – like the use of “subject” instead of “citizen” it doesn’t mean what it used to, not does it mean very much any more in a world where welders own stock.
Since 1998 Labour government has increased the amount of tax that the State extracts from the UK economy by 50%, and has increased government expenditure by 54%.
According to figures supplied by The Office of National Statistics this increase in spending on itself has produced a 12% increase in measured outputs in the public sector.
” The working class votes Labour”
” The middle and upper classes vote Tory ”
“The poor vote Labour, the rich vote Tory”
“Labour is good for the poor, the Tories are good for the rich”
I wonder where the cut-off line is, that is how much money do you have to switch from Labour to Tories? 1M$ ?? 1/2M$ ?? (I’ll do my best to become a Tory voter soon … )
I mean – aren’t those old cliches a little bit ridiculous ?
Do people vote exclusively according to their bank account ?
Don’t they have brains ? Do they aquire their brains with money ? Are their brains conditioned by their wealth, or their class ? That is what Marx postulates, but we don’t have to parrot all his nonsense.
Jacob writes:
“I mean – aren’t those old cliches a little bit ridiculous ?”
They were never true, anyway. There was always a large number of “working class” Tories – not just the Alf Garnetts, either – plenty of rural workers voted Conservative and probably still do.
Aren’t the most pronounced divides regional, rather than socio-economically based these days?
It IS true enough to say that a great many working class people do vote Labour because they are working class. The assumption is that Labour is (or was) the party of the workers, and therefore the workers’ best interests are served by voting for them rather than anyone else – despite the fact that the current Labour party is led by a conservative and has advanced Thatcherite privatisation notions further into education and healthcare than the Tories ever seemed to have planned.
Then there is the atavistic vote that Labour has always been able to count upon. Many people vote Lbaour because their father voted Labour, because Labour is the party of the workers.
Having a brain is one thing. Using it is quite another. People do not, on the whole, cast their vote as the end result of a logical and rational process of analysis.
EG
” People do not, on the whole, cast their vote as the end result of a logical and rational process of analysis.”
So people vote:
1. As their father voted.
2. The opposite of their father’s vote – if they don’t like their fathers
3. The opposite of their mother in law vote .
4. According to their wealth.
So why do we need elections and election campaigns ?
Jacob wonders?
“So why do we need elections and election campaigns ?”
The maintain the illusion that we have some influence on government.
Any numbers of factors influence an election result.
1) Psychological e.g. vote for the tallest candidate with the most hair.
2) Sociological e.g. Catholics for Clinton.
3) Economic e.g. give me your money I deserve it.
4) Historical e.g. I oppose the ex-Stern gang terrorist.
5) Intellectual e.g. socialism equals tyranny.
I mean of course…Give me THEIR money I deserve it.
One factor influencing voting has not been mentioned and that is the BBC.
There were more than the usual virulently anti-Tory programs posing as plays, serials etc in the late nineties.
There was one about a murderous prime minister (Tory of course) I seem to recall, no doubt watched by many of the middle classes.