To be sick of this "all old people vote Tory" narrative

[WatchoRulo]

There really is no nuance to any debate when people make ill informed claims of this type.

Anecdotally from my friends and family - the only Tory voters are the younger people.

Factually - it's very obviously the case that not everyone over, say, 60 suddenly starts voting Tory.

Also - like the "old people without degrees all voted for Brexit", these claims are based on a statistical extrapolation, often from a very small sample size and are also based entirely on what people who were asked told the researchers. This "data" is from the very same polling organisations that failed to predict the outcome of the referendum, yet somehow some people have accepted their guesses as immutable truths and "facts".

We have a crap FPTP electoral system which means most people don't get what they vote for.

It's a secret ballot - the only way to know for certain the detailed demographics of who votes for what would be to check who actually voted for whom.

I am really fed up of the narrative that as a boomer (aged 60, still working and paying tax and NI by the way) I have deliberately shat on younger people all my life (why would I - I have a teenage DD).

I have personally never voted Tory and consider it vanishingly unlikely I ever would, and I recognise that I've had some lucky breaks from when I was born, but I haven't deliberately stolen from young people.

Another lifelong Labour and/or Green voter here. Ex trade unionist, Remain voter.
However I now live in a small town where there are a huge number of 80 year olds who mostly read the Telegraph or the tabloids and vote Conservative. Most of the ones I know a little have lived here all their lives and raised their families here and seem to have a limited view of politics and the world.
Conversely, I have been a bit shocked by what seems to be many generation X and thereabouts Mumsnetters who hold very Conservative views contributing on here. Of course they are entitled to their POV but I wonder why they are politically conservative.

I'm in Scotland too and my eldest is the same age - he just, by a couple of weeks, missed the local elections this year.

But they still need to be 18 to vote in a uk parliamentary election.

It is simple ageism.

Very true, but I would wager the highest proportion of people who do vote Tory in the next election (there has to be some left!) will still be more likely to be over 60.

Last general election many people voted not necessarily for the Tory Party but for Boris. Many voted Tory because the opposition was unelectable.
I wouldn't call myself Tory or Labour, I would call myself a fence sitter, all I will say is having voted in every election since 1979 (I didn't vote for Maggie 😉) I would say that they are all actually as bad as each other in one way or another, so don't think for even a nanosecond that if Labour win the next election we will be living in a Golden Utopia
We won't......

@AnybodyAnywhere Saying - at a whole population level, this is what the statistics show are the trends that define the majority boomer generation - is not ageism. Nor is it an attack on you or the many people in your generation whose personal story does not fit with the broad trend for your generation.

Yes it’s irritating to be told that in general your generation does xx when that doesn’t fit you or parts of you, but that doesn’t mean the general trend isn’t true or that that trend is a personal attack. I find it hugely irritating when people say millennials in general don’t vote, or do spend more time watching feckless reality TV shows or still buy fast fashion despite knowing it’s destroying the environment and is made by people who virtually live in slavery. I don’t do these things, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t trends that my generation at a broad level are following.

Statistics and trends aren’t personal

Has anyone on here or in real life actually said to you on here or in real life “ALL old people vote Tory?”

Because if they have they are clearly idiots, and you should have no trouble explaining to them that this isn’t the case, and that statistical trends don’t mean EVERYONE in a certain demographic behaves in a way that follows that trend.

The majority of people just seem to be saying, that the statistics show that more older people vote Tory, and more older people vote. Ergo older people make a bigger contribution to the Tories being elected. Which is true, isn’t it?

Not disagreeing - but FPTP is another significant villain here.
UKIP polled millions but didn't get any representation.
If they had been elected to anything we may well never have had the referendum.
Cameron and the rest were effectively held to ransom by people who really should have been in UKIP - and probably would have been if we'd had PR.

Has anyone on here or in real life actually said to you on here or in real life “ALL old people vote Tory?”
There are often threads and posts here about how all of our problems are due to the old people - various crimes are cited including voting Tory, owning (stealing) all the houses and pensions etc etc.

This must be a regional thing. I’m Scottish and in my 40 plus years of life have NEVER heard this said about any older person here. it gets said about the English of all ages though

The only people I know who voted Conservative are DH's elderly grandmother, and some well-off corporate directors who are aged 55+. I think this has more to do with the people I surround myself with, as I don't have anything really in common with Tory supporters.

@PlumPudd I’m a millennial that hates avocados. I do own a small house though (with a massive mortgage) so maybe the whole millennials could afford a house if they stopped eating avocado on toast is true 😂

Didn’t say it was but do you read some of the threads on here? They are pretty personal tbh. If people were writing such hate filled comments about any other group then they’d be deleted and banned. This won’t change but it doesn’t mean that I don’t have a right to say that it pisses me off.

Any ‘ism’ shouldn’t be acceptable.

I don’t dispute that the majority of over 65s vote Tory and voted for Brexit. It has always been the same. Older people tend to have acquired assets during their working lives and have always been convinced that voting Tory will help them to hang on to them. Many of us don’t agree and would rather see a fairer world.

The older people I know who vote Tory have pretty much always done so, not through age, but because then are a certain section of society who , not unnaturally, vote in their own interests and don't much care about people less well off.
This is also true of the other younger generations, not just Boomers.

A large bunch of my older friends range from left of centre to anarchist, are or have been activists and protestors in order to gain rights and protect people and the environment - and voted to remain in the EEC in1975.

I know this isn't statistically significant, but surely you can see how irritating it is to hear constantly Boomers all vote Tory, all do this or that, are sitting pretty and don't care.

Ageism appears to be the only ism that is acceptable around here.

Millennials are often told by older generations they are lazy, wasteful, bad with money, expect too much, are snowflakes, are raising their children poorly. The list goes on.

Gen Z are clueless, disrespectful, think they are special, have to have a label etc etc.

It’s not right to generalise but let’s not pretend Baby Boomers are so hard done by and no criticism is ever levelled at any other generation shall we?

We also need to be aware that as a whole some generations have had it better than others. Studies have shown that Baby Boomers were the last generation to be better off than the one before AS A WHOLE. Does that mean all Baby Boomers are greedy and self entitled? Of course not. Does that mean that younger generations are frustrated at their lot, understandably yes.

Answering the title of the thread; you’re buying into the narrative by perpetuating it. There’s no need to defend yourself as an individual against the ‘Tory boomer’ stereotype anymore than there’s a need for a millennial to defend their consumption of avocado toast. There divisions have been politically born in the media and weaponised, protests against them fuels them as much as agreement.

As far as stereotypes go, it’s not one that will actively harm you or your day to day life. Don’t buy into it.

•Studies have shown that Baby Boomers were the last generation to be better off than the one before AS A WHOLE*

I don’t think the later Boomers are though. The ones born in the early 60’s are very different from the ones who were hippies in mid 60’s.

My niece wants to be s Tory MP, she’s 23. She believes in free market economics..

I agree! I saw a political journalist (really!) tweet earlier saying that "only OAPs voted for the tories" with the undertone of "so they'll be dead now so let's have another general election". It's just not true in my experience

I'm old and have never voted Tory and think Brexit is a disaster.

In the case of my family members (we’re all very open about our politics and discuss it at length!) our parents and grandparents all voted Labour when young and Conservative as they got older. They have explained it as the fact they grew more financially stable as they aged meant that the party they chose was the one that protected their interests. I’m sure that’s true of many people.

Wow I've never voted to protect MY interests, I've always voted for the policies which support everyone and especially those at the bottom of the heap. Everyone benefits from a happy, healthy, equal society.

My mum is 90, absolutely hates Brexit and the Tories, particularly Johnson who she loathes with a vengeance.

It really doesn’t matter if your granny always votes Labour and your grandchild votes Conservative when you are talking about population trends. The angst on this thread is ridiculous.

I thought it was "just words" or you were "only 7", now you need a history degree?

Brexit has been discussed endlessly for best part of a decade now, yet you still thought we had a referendum to join?

If you want to sneer at people for being thick, do some research first.