The older we get, the more conservative we become?

How are vulnerable communities being punished by stealth?

None of that makes sense. It’s clearly not ‘all bollocks’. (The Tories are actually worse on the issue you don’t like because they pretend to agree with you while doing the opposite anyway). The social care crisis isn’t being ignored. Our food supply is not being fucked up. They have lots of policies for vulnerable communities and nobody is being punished.

I was a loyal Labour voter for years, then it only takes one thing to disagree on, for me it’s been their lack of support for women’s rights and spaces, and suddenly it’s like it cracked like an facade, I can see it’s all bollocks. I don’t want to vote Conservative either, neither seem to have a long term plan, the Tories fucked up housing, now labour are going to fuck up our food supply in the future. Meanwhile the social care crisis is being ignored. It’s far easier and cheaper for Labour to put up a pride flag and talk about diversity than actually implement any policies to help vulnerable communities. They’d rather punish them by stealth.

What do you mean by ‘go back to the 1970s’? In what way?

I agree it’s the right that’s pulled the Overton Window right.

However, for me one of the biggest issues with Corbyn was not that he was ‘far left’ (I agree, he wasn’t) but that he seemed to want us to go back to the 1970s. And people don’t see the 1970s as an aspirational decade!

That quote is utter nonsense though, on both counts, so maybe don’t use it as a basis for your own ideas.
But actually, using logic, austerity and right wing politics clearly don’t work. As a logical thinker you should be abandoning them. Assuming you are one.

Nonsense. It’s the right that has shifted the Overton window miles over to the right. What is considered centrist now was Conservative policy not long ago. Corbyn was painted as far left when his policies would have been unremarkable in any European social democratic state.

I think the best way to protect my (now adult) kid is to have a functioning society as laid out by left wing ideas. I don’t want endless material goods. The emotional stuff isn’t the job of the government.
I’m in no way unusual in holding the above opinions. You haven’t made a case for people going right as they get older at all.

The voting demographic in July doesn’t support that.

The quote I remember is

"If you vote right wing then you have no heart and if you vote left wing you have no brain "

As you get older you tend to think more logically rather than emotionally. Or hopefully should do!

I think that the left have certainly changed.

I don't think this is a left or right thing anymore. Fiscal policy aside I mean.

The left in the UK have tried to shift the Overton window, which has left many of us traditionalist left women in the same position (class analysis) whilst the LP and Lib Dems have moved towards identity politics.

So have we become more conservative? Or have the left moved the goalposts?

@Oriunda are you concerned about the rise of the right in France?

Nope. I’ve moved further left and am totally anti-monarchy. It’s helped that I now live in France and they’re doing just fine as a republic.

I'm the opposite. Definitely more left as I've got older!

Those elements certainly don't seem to be particularly linked.

But it's interesting to me the number of people saying that older people become economically right in order to protect their own assets. When we see a lot of older middle class people with money are remaining on the left while wc people tend to stay on the right.

I think age makes people more socially conservative but becoming more economically right wing is often a matter of socioeconomic status.

The left and right have changed a lot of their policy directions and also demographic of their voters though.

The Tories used to be considered the part of the elite, with Labour being the workers.

The center of balance is now quite different for Labour, they are the party of the professional middle classes and what at one time might have been called the bourgeoisie. So maybe it is not surprising that the middle classes with assets would tend to remain attached to Labour.

I am not so sure of this, younger people now are polling more conservative than older ones in a lot of places.

I think one of the things that has become confusing is that the right and left have both to some extent been taken over by liberals. This has been the case for decades.

On the right, it's mainly these free market people, which was nothing to do with transitional conservatism. People forget how Thatcher was hated by traditionalists. There's more tendency for the right to remain socially conservative, but it's pretty uneven.

The left has retained some elements of state socialism, but has abandoned a lot of traditional left wing economic thinking and policy ideas (the embrace of free trade is a good example, and more recently being very pro big pharma etc.) But they are also chasing liberalism on social policy now, not leftism.

The right liberals IMO are not skeptical enough of the "market" while the left liberals are not skeptical enough of the state. With the state and the market increasingly becoming entertwined.

in addition, I think that in most western countries, governments have barely any room to budge on economic policy It's all been stitched up by global forces, big banks, international business. None of them are really free to do anything seriously differernt, whatever their ideology, they can't opt out of the global marketplace.

I don't think it's mainly that people become cynical, although that is true of some.

It's that they see that while you can tweak people's behaviours, you can't change the basic drives and physical elements that drive human nature, both good and bad. People as a whole will always want to protect their kids, they want material goods, they want affection or sexual attention. There will always be some people who have poor impulse control, or are selfish, too.

And related to that, when you decide as a society to change the way you manage behaviour, there are almost always trade offs.

What this means is that for almost any policy direction you have to weigh a sometimes complex set of pros and cons in terms of long term effects on how people think and act, as well as effects that can reach far into other areas of social behaviour.

It isn’t. I’m 71 and far too old to change.

57% of over 65s voted for right wing parties. 34% of 50-64s, and 25% of 24-49s. No government in my lifetime has ever had a 57% majority.

Being difficult because I said it happens to all of us when I clearly meant most.

and 57% is a huge majority for any government in recent memory.

it’s coming to you…..

Why is it being difficult to disagree with you? And on what do you deduce “most”? Just 40% of over 65s voted Tory in July and 17% Reform - 57% isn’t most.

Don’t be difficult. It comes to most people or did you think center right voters grew under toadstools?

most. Not all. But absolutely most.