The older we get, the more conservative we become?

@sharpclawedkitten “I don't think male bodied people should be in female sport/single sex spaces and apparently that makes me far right”

This is an important point. Those labels don’t mean what they used to. A lot of them have just been used by the unscrupulous as insults. And because there’s a lag effect while cognition catches up, the name-calling actually works – there’s always a period where people who aren’t paying absolute attention modify their beliefs so as not to be ‘far right’.

That’s part of what produced the illusory consensus in favour of trans issues for a few years, and it was immensely harmful.

That says an awful lot more about you and your understanding of ‘reality’ than about the left wing.

Making simplistic assumptions about other people's motives is the opposite of wisdom.

OP, with age, to most, comes wisdom.
When you start thinking for yourself, and examine the realities of life, it’s hard to keep thinking left-wing, because you realise how jealousy-driven it all is…

Me too, even more if possible. I grew up in the U.S. where I was considered very left wing but I'm just left of centre here.

Dh and I become more left wing with age, we are in our early 30s. Employment feels precarious. We try to save (always saved at least 26% to 70% of nett income) but a lot of our savings went to paying off dh student loan and mortgage overpayments so we only have 54k in savings which would be pennies if we didn't have the nhs (currently pregnant) or childcare subsidies. We bought a small 2 bed flat (400k) in London in our 20s and have a relatively low mortgage of 1282 but I doubt 54k would last very long if both lost our jobs. I mean I think it would probably hold out for a while but if we didn't have nhs and the welfare state it would all fall to pot.

I am happy to pay more tax if it means that I am safer during the bad times and don't lost the free healthcare. Almost had to use ivf and was grateful I qualified for 3 free cycles on the nhs. If I didn't have that you can bet I would have used 10k of my savings to do 1 cycle of ivf despite the low success rate and would have wound up considerably poorer.

Dh and I expect nothing from our parents so if the state isn't helping us, we just end up really poor with our measly savings wasted. I expect this will be the situation even when we are on much higher incomes as we have always felt poor despite not qualifying for child benefit and dh being a higher rate taxpayer. . We aren't a match for the inheritors

I think this is the case for my DH as well.

I have never been very right wing, so haven't really changed my views.

My mum has been a Labour voter all her life and hasn't changed her views either.

However, I don't think male bodied people should be in female sport/single sex spaces and apparently that makes me far right.

France and other EU countries are struggling with debt and deficits

In fact very high debt is becoming increasingly problematic for France atm

Labour increasing our debt is risky too

How can it be responsible fiscal necessity when debt’s risen steadily in every single year of austerity? There’s no logic to it. You’ve drunk the ideological Koolaid.

France is interesting atm. Three major parties can be problematic with two taking out the third

I have thought politics would get shaky for a couple of years, we're starting to see it

@EasternStandard

"A while to go to next GE. It probably depends on whether the growth can deliver"

I fully agree it will depend on whether growth can be delivered but let's pessimistically assume it doesn't.

Then at the next election I can see a further polarisation with a shift to a harder left (Labour wasn't left enough) and a shift to a harder right (left wing politics doesn't work).

@BIossomtoes

"Seriously? Why then, just to name one example, did public satisfaction with the NHS fall from 70% to 20% in 14 years?"

Because if it was truly "cut to the bone" then public satisfaction would have fallen further or alternatively the NHS replaced with a personal insurance model (rather than state insurance model) as in say Germany and potentially public satisfaction improved.

But no matter how much money is thrown at the NHS when a service is free at point of use then demand will always outstrip supply leading to demand being managed by queuing instead .

@username299

"You should be in the Olympics with that level of gymnastics.

Tell me how good Brexit is for the economy. I could do with cheering up."

Thank you for your detailed economic counter argument.

Brexit has meant cutting the UK off from its main trading counterparty and it also weakened the UK's international trade negotiation bargaining position with other countries. From an economic perspective it most definitely shooting yourself in the foot.

Although I recognise that there maybe other perceived "emotional " issues such as having blue passports (albeit now made in Belgium).

Haven't rtft but there's another thread talking about parties to the right and younger voters here and in other countries eg Germany

I wouldn't be surprised if we were to follow other EU countries looking at early shifts already

It may be an outlier but a poll put Labour third after conservatives and Reform

A while to go to next GE. It probably depends on whether the growth can deliver

@BIossomtoes

"And it failed spectacularly. Debt continued to rise and public services are broken. Austerity was ideological and its effects will continue to blight the country long after I’m dead"

Borrowing yet more money is not a solution and as Liz Truss and Rachel Reeves have shown is probably not even possible any more.

Calling austerity ideological is the same as describing paying off Christmas incurred credit card debts in January as ideological. It's not ideology it's a responsible fiscal necessity.

If you disagree with austerity then what would be your solution to reducing government debt and at the same time improving public services?

Because everything wasn't cut to the bone

Seriously? Why then, just to name one example, did public satisfaction with the NHS fall from 70% to 20% in 14 years?

The only reason people historically became more conservative as they aged was because they had wealth. They had property, money in the bank etc and didn't want to pay extra taxes so they voted conservative. Millennials are the first generation where wealth has not grown and surprising no one - it's the first generation not to have become more conservative.
That's why the conservatives are going so far right, because they're afraid of disappearing.

You should be in the Olympics with that level of gymnastics.

Tell me how good Brexit is for the economy. I could do with cheering up.

@SharpOpalNewt

"The problem with the right is that they haven't really progressed beyond the toddler "I'm All Right, Jack" developmental stage."

Thank you for your detailed economic counter argument.

Another quote for you:

The right believe in ambition and personal responsibility which the left criticises as the politics of greed and selfishness.

The left believes in equality and fairness which the right criticises as the politics of envy and economically unworkable.

@username299

"How come everything was cut to the bone under the Tories and the economy is a complete shambles with record levels of debt?"

Because everything wasn't cut to the bone and to do so was becoming politically untenable. Equally the economy interest payments on the existing debt started to cut into the Government's ability to spend on other useful things like education.

As for the record levels of debt spaffing £500 billion on Covid support measures really was the final straw.

I'm astonished no one's mentioned student politics yet. That's often wheeled out for a bray. In fact Badenoch, made sure to bring it up at PMQ. The original thinker that she is.

The problem with the economics of the left is that haven't really progressed beyond the Keynesian economics that they studied at A Level.

The problem with the right is that they haven't really progressed beyond the toddler "I'm All Right, Jack" developmental stage.

Me too.

Austerity in itself is an action to fix problems from other policies (principally high debt.

And it failed spectacularly. Debt continued to rise and public services are broken. Austerity was ideological and its effects will continue to blight the country long after I’m dead.

How come everything was cut to the bone under the Tories and the economy is a complete shambles with record levels of debt?