Here are a few ideas for appealing to the under-45s
End austerity and wage repression: We've had a decade of this ruinous hard-right Tory economic nonsense now, which means that all workers up to the age of 28 have spent their entire careers in the Tory deadzone of real terms wage cuts, wrecked wage progression, outrageously exploitative employment practices, and scrapped workers rights. Any graduate under the age of 41 has now spent half of their working life in this Tory deadzone too. If the Tories really want to appeal to the under-45s, scrapping austerity dogma and wage repression would be an immediate first step.
Scrap "no deal" Brexit: If it was up to the under-45s there would never have been a Brexit in the first place, but they're being forced to bear the consequences because millions of retired people voted to trash the prospects and revoke the rights of the younger generations just because they believed Boris Johnson, Michael Gove, Nigel Farage and the rubbish they read in the hard-right propaganda rags. The absolute least the Tories could do is follow Labour's lead and retract their threat of launching an economically ruinous "no deal" Brexit flounce because it's the under-45s who would have to deal with the extreme economic fallout of such a catastrophic move for decades.
Free education: One of the Tories' first moves when the Lib-Dems enabled them back into power in 2010 was to triple university fees to make England the most expensive place in the world to study at public university. As a result students are now leaving university with £50,000+ debts which grow at inflation plus 3%. This means that over 70% of graduates will never pay off their student debts despite paying a permanent 9% education tax on their disposable income for their entire working lives. Lumbering young people with such enormous and unpayable debts is clearly both unsustainable and a clear turnoff for anyone who has been lumbered with such debts.
Stop siding with the extreme-right: Not only is the Tory government propped up by the most bigoted and regressive extremist party in parliament (the extreme-right sectarian DUP mob), they also recently aligned themselves with every neo-Nazi party in the European parliament in order to side with Viktor Orbán's anti-Semitic, xenophobic, judiciary-rigging, free press attacking, ultra-nationalist government in Hungary. Denouncing the extreme-right, anti-Semitism and ultranationalism rather than actively siding with it would surely be a good way of winning favour with the under-45s.
Tackle the housing crisis: Between 2010 and 2017 the Tories oversaw the lowest rates of house building since the 1920s. This lack of house building resulted in house prices soaring to their most unaffordable level ever, and an unprecedented collapse in home ownership rates, especially amongst the under-45s. Not only did the Tories exacerbate the housing crisis, they also voted down a Labour Party effort to ensure that people who have been left trapped in the private rental sector have a right to live in homes that are "fit for human habitation". Any party intent on appealing to the under-45s would make tackling the housing crisis a major priority.
Tackle the housing crisis: Between 2010 and 2017 the Tories oversaw the lowest rates of house building since the 1920s. This lack of house building resulted in house prices soaring to their most unaffordable level ever, and an unprecedented collapse in home ownership rates, especially amongst the under-45s. Not only did the Tories exacerbate the housing crisis, they also voted down a Labour Party effort to ensure that people who have been left trapped in the private rental sector have a right to live in homes that are "fit for human habitation". Any party intent on appealing to the under-45s would make tackling the housing crisis a major priority.
Save the NHS and social care system: One of the strangest things about the state of modern British politics is that the older people are, and more likely they are to rely on NHS and social care services, the more likely they are to vote for the Tory party that is starving these services of investment and vandalising them with closures, ideologically driven reorganisations, and privatisation scams. Investment in the NHS and social care and the reversal of their privatisation agenda would certainly appeal to under-45s who see the NHS and social care system as vital components of living in a civilised society.
Scottish independence: As with Brexit, the outcome of the 2014 Scottish independence referendum would have been completely different had it been up to the under-45s. In fact if the vote had been restricted to people of working age the result would have been independence, but Gordon Brown's fear-mongering about pensioners losing their pensions in an independent Scotland was enough to ensure a huge turnout of elderly people to trample down the hopes and aspirations of their children and grandchildren. Support for another Scottish independence referendum would definitely appeal to the younger generations in Scotland.
Scottish independence: As with Brexit, the outcome of the 2014 Scottish independence referendum would have been completely different had it been up to the under-45s. In fact if the vote had been restricted to people of working age the result would have been independence, but Gordon Brown's fear-mongering about pensioners losing their pensions in an independent Scotland was enough to ensure a huge turnout of elderly people to trample down the hopes and aspirations of their children and grandchildren. Support for another Scottish independence referendum would definitely appeal to the younger generations in Scotland.
Of course none of these are even remotely realistic propositions for the Tory party because they all conflict with the central Tory ideology of protecting the wealth and power of vested establishment interests, and erecting as many social mobility barriers as possible to prevent people from ordinary backgrounds from challenging the children of establishment elitists for the top jobs.
In fact the Tory party is such a weird echo chamber of extremism that when the Guardian journalist Dawn Foster asked some young Tories what policies would attract under-30s back to the Tory fold they replied "bring back public hanging" and proposed the recolonisation of Africa!
Then you just need to look at the disgusting antics of the young Tories at Plymouth University to see what calibre of young people the Tory party is attracting. "Fuck the NHS", pro-Trump, "Enoch [Powell] was right", drawn on Hitler moustaches, anti-Semitic slogans, white power hand gestures ...
Since Theresa may took over as Tory leader, the Tory party has gone through an intense period of Ukipification, pushing hard-right ultranationalism and welcoming UKIP-voters, politicians, and activists into the the Tory fold in droves.
Then you just need to look at the disgusting antics of the young Tories at Plymouth University to see what calibre of young people the Tory party is attracting. "Fuck the NHS", pro-Trump, "Enoch [Powell] was right", drawn on Hitler moustaches, anti-Semitic slogans, white power hand gestures ...
Since Theresa may took over as Tory leader, the Tory party has gone through an intense period of Ukipification, pushing hard-right ultranationalism and welcoming UKIP-voters, politicians, and activists into the the Tory fold in droves.
The big problem (from a Tory perspective) with this Ukipification of the thier party is that socially regressive hard-right ultranationalism is utterly abhorrent political cyanide to the vast majority of under-45s, meaning that the few young people who are left supporting the Tories are either the politically clueless who just mindlessly vote the same way their parents do, or the absolutely rabid extreme-right fanatics who would surely be voting for actual neo-Nazi parties (like the ones the Tories aligned themselves with to support Viktor Orbán) if Britain had a modern proportional voting system like the rest of Europe.
So for now the Tory party strategy for attracting the youth vote appears to be appealing to the most rabid extreme-right, anti-Semitic, "fuck the NHS", socially regressive, "bring back public hanging", Enoch Powell-adoring, "recolonise Africa", white supremacist freaks, and screw the rest of them into the ground in order to feed the insatiable greed of the mega-rich!
So for now the Tory party strategy for attracting the youth vote appears to be appealing to the most rabid extreme-right, anti-Semitic, "fuck the NHS", socially regressive, "bring back public hanging", Enoch Powell-adoring, "recolonise Africa", white supremacist freaks, and screw the rest of them into the ground in order to feed the insatiable greed of the mega-rich!
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