Labour and the Conservatives are overconfident about their election chances
The Conservatives still can’t fathom a Corbyn victory and Labour are willfully ignoring the fact that they’ll have to win over hundreds of thousands of Tory voters to get to Downing Street.
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Given the positions they’re both in it is amazing how overconfident the Conservatives and Labour are. Among Conservative politicians there’s a feeling that — despite his better than expected result — Corbyn is still unelectable. While, Labour are convinced that Brexit and, opposition to austerity will inevitably make their leader PM. Which Ignores his poor approval ratings and the inevitable increase in scrutiny that he will receive should he contest the next election.
All of this seems even stranger against the backdrop of the self destructive behaviour of the two parties. Labour feel like they can indulge the dogmatic ideals of the hard left at the expense of party unity, ignoring the fact that they must win over thousands of moderate voters to clench victory. While the Conservatives are pinning their hopes on a non — existent electorate who feel strongly about Venezuela and remember vividly the 1970’s and, base their voting intentions on it.
The Conservatives are pinning their hopes on a non — existent electorate who feel strongly about Venezuela and remember vividly the 1970’s and, base their voting intentions on it.
Moreover, the Conservatives new policies are too mild and fail to win over votes and inadvertently do the opposite. Take the promise to keep tuition fees at £9250 a year. The move is too modest to change hearts and minds, yet keeps attention on an issue — education — that is favourable to Labour, and also harms the country economically, taking away money that could have been spent on policies that would have actually won them votes.
The first thing that Labour and the Tories must do is work out who their ‘lost voters’ are, and to find this out they could start by looking at YouGov’s new panel study — which explored the voting of 50,000 people from 2015 to 2017.
The data will have confirmed the fears of many Conservative backbenchers; their party has seen a significant drop in support among demographics for whom they’d spends years trying to appeal to. Graduates, remainers, young people and, professionals are among the groups that shifted significantly away from the Conservatives in the last election.
For young people, hardline policies on Brexit, immigration and culture alienated them from a party many of them were happy to vote for just two years ago. If the party could just avoid any more gaffes like ‘citizens of nowhere’ and, the ‘go home’ van they could revive the modernisation process ushered in under the leadership of David Cameron.
The Conservatives also need a better housing strategy and a plan to give more young people stable unemployment. The Conservatives plan to build 5,000 more houses in a year does little to address problems of home ownership (about 250,000 houses need to be built yearly), moreover the £10bn boost for Help to Buy will increase demand — outstripping any meager, positive effects the new house building plan could’ve had.
But, it is important for the Conservatives — who are currently polling around 15% with 18–25 year olds — to get these people into housing and secure employment. For a long time, having a mortgage and, a job on which you have to pay tax have been the life events which tip people from Labour to Conservative. After all, fiscal responsibility is one of the few issues where the Conservatives have a significant trust surplus over Labour.
No — one ultimately knows what it will take for more voters to make the switch to the Tories but, they might be happy to know that the evidence suggests they won’t have to abandon their capitalist values. Contrary to popular belief young people are no more anti — capitalist than their elders. That’s according to the Legatum Institute whose study showed young people were no more likely to back renationalisation of public services than older generations. They simply want capitalism that works for them and it’s clear the current system doesn’t.
But, maybe Labour should be more focused on broadening their outreach — after all, it was their party who failed to win the last election. The YouGov survey shows that Labour lost of scores of voters; in working class communities and without any qualifications above GCSE. To win over these voters they could embrace a ‘hard — Brexit’, but this would risk defections to the Lib Dems elsewhere as well as the loss of the pro-European vote that helped them win 262 seats in the last election. Moreover, doing so could make them unable to advance on anti — Brexit sentiment, that will likely grow between now and 2022.
Instead, Labour should address the causes of last year’s Brexit vote; anti — establishment sentiment, austerity and, job losses. People will not support a Brexit that makes them poorer, but they will support a plan that would create more jobs and, strengthen public services. The task for Labour now is to effectively communicate that economic vision.
