It completely disregards the possibility that people's outlook, priorities etc change as they age
Tory Death Spiral
- Thread starter Kaka Tim
- Start date
Monkeygrinder's Organ
Dodgy geezer swilling vapid lager
Agree they're not going to die out but it's already clear that their membership is diminishing. That might change but it's hard to see them turning that around very soon. They're already becoming less representative of the traditional Tory club Bufton-Tufton types and more of big business and I'd think they'd go further that way.
Streathamite
ideological dogmatist
I think you're probably right, but nonetheless the tories themselves are clearly worried by their fast-ageing membership and their near-total failure in youth recruitment (and by 'youth', that basically means anyone under 40 as far as they're concerned. Their member rolls fie completely when they hit that age group). Ditto, the withering of their base, full stop
The Tories are putting a huge effort into addressing this; hence 'Activate' and 'YourConviction'. Unfortunately, both were pretty clueless, and have more or less failed completely,already
BemusedbyLife
Well-Known Member
They certainly have, I'm in the target range and this is literally the first I've ever heard of these just googled them and found a guardian story rubbishing the idea.
Streathamite
ideological dogmatist
Tbf, the Guardian barely needed to try to slate them: the whole things were done so excruciatingly badly, they more or less shot themselves down
redsquirrel
This Machine Kills Progressives
Sure, the last GE showed what an large and active membership can do and this is an area that the Tories are weak on. But they aren't going to become a minor party and they can still pull in large number of voters even with a small base.
It is an area for concern for them but I really dislike these 'oh the demographics will kill off X' arguments. Beside being shown to be false time and time again they (as JTG pointed out above) ignore the fact that people's outlook/positions change, and change in response to material conditions.
Almost no efforts were put into Activate and YourConviction, fairly obviously.
bemused
Well-Known Member
It is the trap of confusing correlation with causation.
The Conservative Party still captured more votes than Labour whilst at the same time executing possibly the worst election campaign in recent history. I'm not sure the theory of 'one more big push' is that valid. The next election isn't due until 2022, I doubt the Tories are going to pull the trigger on an early one until they believe they are in a strong electoral position.
bemused
Well-Known Member
I don't really understand how Momentum came about, was is a group set up by parts of Corbyn's leadership campaign or was it a spontaneous happening?
It was set up in response to the number of younger people joining to vote for Corbyn, in the expectation that they may be put off by the normal business of local party politics - so set up by members of Corbyn's leadership campaign to respond to a spontaneous happening.
bemused
Well-Known Member
Thanks, do you think it was the fact it was built around Corbyn rather than the Party is what made it so successful and ultimately very difficult to replicate?
bemused
Well-Known Member
I think Party membership is overblown to some extent. I know from Labour members where I live they were amazed how many warm bodies they had to bang on doors. so having 600,000 paid members is cool, however, with four times the membership of the Tory Party, I don't think they were four times more effective electorally. I'm not sure votes are swung by people knocking on doors and pushing leaflets through letterboxes - IMHO.
Crispy
The following psytrance is baṉned: All
I thought that stuff was for getting known supporters to actually vote, rather than change minds.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Usually - but also for getting a new or possibly unknown policy with specific local impact out there. Tailoring the issues to highlight in specific areas is one way of producing new voters rather than just encouraging existing supporters. The new labour manifesto provided loads of opps for that.
bemused
Well-Known Member
It would seem to me that the Tories would struggle to create their own version of Momentum because that movement is comprised of people who wanted to take the Labour more to the left and found a figurehead who they thought represented that aspiration. I don't think there is a candidate (a popular one at least) in the Tory Party who wants to move further to the right, whenever they do they lose. If anything they seem to want to move onto the ground of new Labour in the hope that Labour is vacating it as they move further to the left.
not-bono-ever
meh
.
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butchersapron
Bring back hanging
If you were planning an extension to the back of your house would you make sure to knock down the front at the same time? Or would you prefer a larger house overall?
I don't think there is a similar group of currently unrepresented supporters on the right, just waiting for an exciting new tory leader to fire them up, more to the point.
bemused
Well-Known Member
There isn't, which is their problem.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
i too hope a tory leader would seize the opportunity to bring back burning at the stake for fascists. but i don't think it's on the cards.
I was wondering about this. Given the tories ability to raise more than sufficient funds from donors and the way people access information increasingly how important is having a large grass routes movement to them? It seems to me something that will always be more important to Labour especially if they continue down this route because they will have to rely on numerous small donations for funding.
TremulousTetra
prismatic universe
339 years too late.
Fraternal Greetings, ResistanceMP3
Fraternal Greetings, ResistanceMP3
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
Looks like the priest in the pic is having some good catholic fun under his robes, the sick fuck!
not-bono-ever
meh
So where are the new tories going to come from ? Cannot see much sloppage from UKIP crashing and burning as not that many kippers seem to be politcally engaged enough, Not many fucked off labour members left to jump ship - they are well gone already. The Lib dem vermin have precious little to spare.the disparate rightist groups meh
is there a bulge of privately educated yoot coming along who have inherited their self made parents lust for success?
any ideas ?
is there a bulge of privately educated yoot coming along who have inherited their self made parents lust for success?
any ideas ?
Streathamite
ideological dogmatist
I certainly agree that they do change, over time. But equally, the common assumption, that people always move to the right, as they grow older, is to my mind, equally glib, and questionable.
It's certainly true for many, but by no means all, or even most of us.
If anything, I for one am more left wing than in my teens
Only those with assets or a pension to protect. The likely pool of oldie Tory voters will shrink thanks to their policies.
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