That trend is changing. People are not becoming more Conservative as they age; the trend has been discernible for over a decade now.
Over the next few decades, the Conservatives will become increasingly irrelevant, especially as their core supporters die off.
Agree. MLK said the act of the moral universe is long but it bends towards justice. I think the extreme right will peak with the current Tories, Trump etc and the pendulum will swing back to a more equal and tolerant society. I work with young people and, despite the shit that gets flung at them, they give me hope 
Thank you for the positivity. Itās refreshing to be honest.
So much doom and gloom around.
What about the rise of fascists in Europe? Even tolerant or progressive societies in Finland, Sweden, Spain, and Portugal are making spaces for the fascists.
Iāve seen this in people my own age. Those who were supporting the Conservatives in their 20s are now firmly Liberal or even Labour supporters. I have a suspicion that this isnāt because they have changed.
I think Iāve been reading about a trend towards younger generations supporting far-right parties because of TikTok and other social media influence peddling them as a solution to the general ennui and hopelessness of the future.
EDIT: Why are younger voters flocking to the far right in parts of Europe? | The far right | The Guardian
Iām in the peak period, and the older I get the more outraged I become.
Donāt worry, dismay and despair will follow soon enough.
Unless you have your daily dose of Marmite of course. A chocy digestives a bit later as a double boost works a treat too.
Would it be fair to say conservatism is at least loosely linked to a religious belief such as Christianity? It feels as though from the people I know at least that all those that vote on the conservative side (Liberal or National Party) are somewhat engrossed in Christianity.
It seems the drop off in conservative voters coincides at least somewhat to the drop off in religious belief based on the below (from ONS 2021 data) and @Mascots graph above:
I know we say conservative type voters are usually the religious type but Iām more trying to understand whether believing in a higher power and structuring your life around those beliefs makes you much more likely to vote centre right. This has really come about from me thinking about Rishi stirring up hate about the new Scottish laws.
That makes sense on social issues to an extent, but the economic policy of the Conservative party is based on greed and profiteering. Christianity (in the UK at least) is concerned with community spirit and support of the underdog.
Increasing conservativism with age is, in my opinion, more related to home ownership and parenthood. Once people own their own homes, they have something to lose in any societal shake up and are thus more likely to support the status quo. Parents are genetically feral in their drive to protect their children, and thus less likely to envisage change.
There are rational arguments against these feelings, but they are based on fear and anxiety and thus are strongly rooted.
Think this is traditionally the case. Also feel that what counts as āconservativeā these days is really far right authoritarianism sprinkled with libertarianism and so makes less sense for most (sensible) adults as they reach the home owning/parenthood stages. If anything the more āconservativeā option are the status quo centre right/left parties that make up the modern day āleftā
Yes, itās interesting that the right are more radical than most of the left nowadays. Itās the Trumpists who want to upset the apple cart, tear up agreements and overhaul systems.
For a forty something couple with kids and a mortgage, they are more disturbing than social democrats who want to improve healthcare and education.
For anyone on the outside of the far right echo chamber, itās transparently obvious how much of this is a blatant grift. On both sides of the Atlantic. I donāt there is a genuine desire to disrupt - itās just a money making scheme.
Anyone falling for this shit can tell themselves they are defending us from the scourge of wokery, or immigration, or eco-warriors or whatever - shit, tinpot contrarians they are - but for the perpetrators itās all about the money. Itās just an extractive process of taking as much money out of the country as possible. The more they take the more they will point their fingers elsewhere.
They need to be very careful with this cosplay fascism, cos at some point people are going to end up so desperate they elect a real one.
I think itās a frustration thing. Youāve got money being stripped from the UK population and it hurts and angers people.
Then for some bizarre reason people then go and believe the people that are stripping them of their wealth that the problem lies elsewhere.
Thereās a very deep ingrained caution of anything vaguely to the left of centre and we can all guess where that comes from.
What we have seen in recent years, post 2010, is the significant ramping up of stripping cash from the UK population.
Not surprisingly, the parent of Thames Water has defaulted on debt - sent a notice to bondholders instead of making an interest payment Tuesday.
The proverbial stuff hitting the fan, though it has apparently been hitting the river for a while now
The only way I can imagine that privatised water companies lasted so long in the UK is that they were used for money laundering.
It really was so fucked up from the start!
I donāt think it was money laundering. The situation seems simpler than that. The water companies had a pile of assets/infrastructure that produced cash flow, but a significant amount of that cash flow had to be reinvested into refreshing that infrastructure. It wasnāt, over the course of at least 25 years. The companies have been sold several times over that period, and my suspicion is that in each transaction, the seller was delighted to have shed the looming liability having developed some inkling of that fundamental problem.
it is going to be a massive fix, because the problem is not really Kemble Water. UK consumers have been underpaying for water in parallel with investors extracting excessive dividends. A lot of the voices seem to think the problem will go away if the latter stops, but those numbers just donāt seem to add up. You can be sure that Kembleās shareholders looked fairly carefully at exactly that question before this step, which basically writes off the entire value of their investment.
Similarly, a good deal of the commentary I have seen seems to assume everything was fine before they were privatized, but I suspect the reality was that the failure to reinvest cash flow goes back further than privatization.
Yes!
just look at Yorkshire where before privatisation the under investment had been criminal.
The difference is that any profits generated before privatisation went into the national economy- if there was underinvestment, it was due to other public services requiring funding.
Now, all profit is privatisedā¦ and once the shareholders have made their money, they donāt give a flying fuck.
