to tell people that the Conservative party are only really popular amongst older voters

[chomalungma]

The headline figure is 40% support for the Conservatives. But that hides a real truth - support is low amongst younger people and higher amongst older people.

And older people are more likely to vote.

This is from You Gov - it's based on 11,500 people - so a much bigger survey - and more reliable.

yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2019/10/31/2019-general-election-demographics-dividing-britai

So basically, if you want to get rid of the Conservatives, get younger people out to vote.

I've know lots of young people sensible enough to vote Conservative

if you want to get rid of the Conservatives, get younger people out to vote

Good luck with that ... but even if it worked, the hoped-for result isn't necessarily guaranteed: www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/general-election-labour-students-lib-dems-corbyn-brexit-opinion-poll-survey-a9177986.html

Corbin's support for indyref2 means I could never trust his party with my vote.

Yet a country like ours where there is a a lot of support for the Green party only has 1 Green MP
Because one one area in the country believes in the green party enough to elect them. Seems about right to me.

A different system such as a PR based system would be better compared to the current FPTP system
How do you determine what 'better' is?

I’m definitely middle aged but have teenagers. One of them heard an interview on radio 5 today with a labour MP talking about their plans to tax high earners because they shouldn’t have more money than anyone else and said it sounded like they were planning a communist society. It definitely doesn’t appeal to my teens and their friends who aspire to have good jobs and lifestyles and don’t see any point in working that hard if there’s no personal gain.

I’ll go out and vote, I’ll make sure all my young (liberal ie Tory friends and family also vote). TA

Re the greens it’s a red herring. The UK greens are off their rocker. When I lived abroad I usually voted/campaigned for the greens (they were a minority but both labour and conservative equivalent were reasonably liberal economically so I voted greens so there would be a socially liberal voice in parliament).

My first ever vote once I was old enough was conservative, I wouldn’t believe that young people don’t vote for them.

How do you determine what 'better' is

If there are 650 MPs, then you'd hope that the mix of MPs reflects the national proportion of people who support those parties. Otherwise you end up with a party that gets under 50% of the national vote getting over 50% of MPs and forming a Government.

I think we'd have way more Lib Dem MPs and Green MPs - and lots more coalitions and cross party talks and deals.

I'd have thought people like Boris Johnson, Mark Francois and Andrew Bridgen would appeal to quite a few white middle aged gits men too tbh. Why women would vote for any of them is a mystery to me.

Also OP, I think younger people will vote LibDem, especially over Brexit

Re the Greens, I agree with Velveteen. I used to vote Green frequently when I was younger: I even joined the party at one point. That was when they were an environmentalist party with economic policies that tried to make environmentalism work. I know councillors who still give me some hope, but as a national political party all they are are a bunch of sell-outs who take on anything the youf say as gospel to try and bumph up their voting figures.

I'm not voting for anyone to run a government if they can't even identify an adult human female when they see one.

I'll be voting labour as I love Hamas and Trans Women

Also OP, I think younger people will vote LibDem, especially over Brexit

I think it will be a very interesting election....and that tactical voting will play an important role.

My son's school did a mock GE last time and the students voted a majority for Tory, so no, it's not a certainty that the young will vote Labour, especially with Corbyn as their leader.

If that is true, JC will walk into Downing Street 👍👍

Maybe it’s a case that young people (and I’m talking very young, as in late teens) are a bit gullible and swallowed the BS fed to them by Corbyn at the last GA when he was telling them their student loans were going to be wiped out if he got in. The older people laughed their arses off at that one because it was an impossible promise to deliver on, but the young fell for it; hence the way they voted in their droves to vote him in.
Or maybe they are just fucking sick of the current shower of shit pandering to the gammon vote and fucking over the young.

I’m definitely middle aged but have teenagers. One of them heard an interview on radio 5 today with a labour MP talking about their plans to tax high earners because they shouldn’t have more money than anyone else and said it sounded like they were planning a communist society. It definitely doesn’t appeal to my teens and their friends who aspire to have good jobs and lifestyles and don’t see any point in working that hard if there’s no personal gain

I’d be ashamed of myself if I’d brought my kids up to think only of themselves like this.

If there are 650 MPs, then you'd hope that the mix of MPs reflects the national proportion of people who support those parties
But where is the evidence this would be 'better'. You would simply be handing MPs a position without them winning an election in ANY area.

It’s especially baffling that such an overwhelming majority of old people, well, I suppose in a world where 52% = "the will of the people", 58% does seem like an "overwhelming" majority.

But where is the evidence this would be 'better'. You would simply be handing MPs a position without them winning an election in ANY area

Variations of PR and alternatives to FPTP are common systems in many democracies.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_electoral_systems_by_country

I reckon people secretly vote conservative as well and lie to save face.

You would simply be handing MPs a position without them winning an election in ANY area. Why would it be any worse? The "representing a constituency" is a bit nonsensical when for most people the way their Mp votes and acts is to support the party they belong to, rather than what the majority of constituents want on any one issue.

If you had larger constituencies with say 3 MPs each, you could have 3 MPs of the same party or of different parties depending on each party's share of the vote in the bigger constituency. As it is, you can have 3 adjoining constituencies returning between them 3 MPs of party A, even though party A got around 40% of the vote in each constituency, party B got about 38%, and various other parties totalled around 22%.

It's interesting that (according to Wiki), voter participation is lower in countries with FPTP systems - as too many people live in perceived safe seats so don't bother voting.

Variations of PR and alternatives to FPTP are common systems in many democracies
But where is the evidence they are 'better'?

If you create a system where no party will normally win a majority then you create a system that usually has a coalition. We have seen how that worked out for the LibDems.

Seems like you are suggesting a system where only the most uncontroversial policies could ever be implemented. I dont think that is better.