Mick Temple’s Blog

FROM BLUE TO GREY

05-07-2008

It’s time for the Tories to court one of the least fashionable but most important sectors of the electorate argues Mick Temple.

I’ve not been alone in asking ‘where’s the beef?’ when discussing David Cameron’s Conservatives. The party has struggled to articulate a clear and consistent vision.

In large part, this is because the Conservatives have neglected the very things about the party that appeal to an older generation – even one raised in the swinging sixties.

These include ‘traditional values’ (essentially a sort of middle-class Reithian morality that somehow managed to transcend class barriers), conservatism in most aspects of life, a commitment to law and order and a belief in the minimum state necessary to ensure a ‘decent’ level of social justice.

These are fundamental values – and central to the brand – that the party cannot afford to discard. Unlike Labour’s baggage which Blairism left behind, Conservatism’s traditional values are deeply embedded in the British psyche. And crucially, the electorate seems to be searching for something built on rock, rather than the shifting sands on which New Labour constructed its now-crumbling castle.

These values also particularly appeal to what is now undeniably the most important section of the voting population. There are twice as many over-65s as there are under 25s and they are roughly twice as likely to turn out and vote. Traditionally, older voters have been less likely to change their vote. But the group now picking up their pensions were the very ones who first abandoned Old Labour and later deserted Thatcherism for its spiritual successor, New Labour.

Appalled by sleaze, frightened by economic downturns and unimpressed by Brown, this group is ready to change once again.

Instead of attempting to appeal to the aspiring classes – that is, today’s versions of Mondeo Man and Worcester Woman - Cameron should focus on a group which the main parties effectively ignore in any but a token way.

No doubt there would be plenty of jokes about ‘Zimmer Man’ and ‘Wheelchair Woman’.

Parties appear terrified of pushing policies for the over 55s, for fear of association with the old in an age where youth (in itself) is celebrated and where party leaders must not be their 60s.

'Grey' is not an attractive colour or exciting concept for those pushing a product. But the times they are a changing and neither youth nor newness are the shiny, spanking, desirable commodities they once were. More than any soap powder campaign, Blair's Labour party has devalued the word 'New'.

Today’s pensioners, and those soon-to-be pensioners, have a memory of the Tories as the natural party of government in a time when we’d never had it so good. How true that was is irrelevant, but the much-vilified 1950s were actually a time of optimism.

Cameron must recognise his party’s historical strengths - and that means embracing the core values of the largest section of the electorate rather than the fleeting fads of focus groups.

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