Grey Power

For much of the time, far more attention is paid to attracting the support of young voters, especially first-time voters, than is paid to attracting the votes of those who have retired. There is a superficial attraction to this: after all, young voters are generally less strongly attached to their party allegiances - if, indeed, they have any at all - and ought to be easier to swing. If their loyalties can be captured at a young age, perhaps they will subsequently offer their party a lifetime of voting service.

And yet such calculations ignore the reality of what MORI's chairman, Sir Robert Worcester, has characterised as "grey power". There are twice as many adults of pensionable age as there are 18-24 year olds, and the older group are twice as likely to vote, meaning that at any given election the grey vote is four times as big as the youth vote, quite an imbalance. This four-to-one ratio of power, which is analysed in Professor Worcester's monograph "Grey Power: the Changing Face", presented at a Help the Aged seminar in September 1999, should indicate to the parties the importance of giving due consideration to the particular needs and concerns of the older age group. Indeed, when we add in all those aged 55-64, who share many of the same attitudes, values and interests as those aged 65+, we are talking about a third of the electorate.

Traditionally, the "grey vote" is predominantly Tory, and at the last election older voters swung less to Labour than other parts of the electorate; nevertheless, the scale of Labour's landslide was such that even this reduced swing left Labour the largest party among those aged 55 and over, probably for the first time since 1966.

Voting by age: 1997 election

Source: MORI election aggregate Base: 13,544 British adults 18+

The grey vote, then, is not only electorally important by reason of its size, but also one of the more interesting stories in the outcome of the next election. Assuming that there is at least some swing back to the Tories, will it be a uniform swing, with the older voters swinging as much as everybody else? Or since they swung less in the other direction last time, will they also swing back less, so as to fall into line again?

Neither, if MORI's latest quarterly figures are any guide to the next election - they are swinging back to the Tories more than anybody else. Indeed, at the moment they are the only group swinging back at all. According to our second quarter aggregate, the country as a whole has swung 3.5% to Labour since the last election. But that swing has been almost entirely among those aged less than 55; the 55-64 age group have swung only by 0.5% to Labour, and the 65+s have swung 3.5% to the Tories. This "grey gap", if we can call it that, has widened substantially in the last quarter, and while it is always dangerous to attach too much significance to a single set of figures which may be only a passing freak, the close coincidence between the movement in the fortnightly Omnibus figures and the period when the Conservatives were making capital out of the announcement of the tiny increase in pensions suggests that, at the very least, if not necessarily permanent the change may well be a real one based upon solid policy reasons.

Voting/Voting Intention by age - 2000 Q2

Source: MORI aggregate Apr-Jun 2000 Base: 11,664 British adults 18+

Changes 1997-2000

Because older voters are more likely to turn out, the effect of the "grey gap" is that the Tories are stronger than they look. Last August in a survey for Help the Aged, MORI attempted to measure the greater propensity of the older voters to vote, the results being reported as part of the analysis in Sir Robert Worcester's "Grey Power: the Changing Face", already mentioned. These figures were updated in a survey for The Times in March this year, and will be again in a further forthcoming survey for Help the Aged, the results from which will be unveiled around the time of the party conferences.

Using the March figures, we can see just how significant any deviant behaviour by older voters would be, by looking at the key constituencies. In theory, the Tories need a uniform of swing of 7.5% to dislodge Labour's majority, and of 11.4% to form their own majority government. In the constituencies which would fall to the Tories on an 11.4% swing, 21% of the voting age population are aged 65 or over, and a further 13% are aged 55-64.

But turnout differences magnify this. In March, only 49% of adults said they were certain to vote at the next election and 66% certain or very likely to do so; but 79% of those aged 55-64 and 80% of those aged 65+ were certain or very likely. Of those at least "very likely" to vote in the marginal constituencies, 25% are aged 65+ and a further 16% aged 55-64; more, of those who say they are certain to vote, 27% are aged 65+ and 19% aged 55-64. In other words, not much short of half the votes in the key constituencies at the next election will probably be cast by voters who are at least 55. Indeed, there are 29 marginal seats where the probable voters aged 55+ will outnumber all others, almost all of them in coastal resorts.

All in all, rather too important a group in the voting population to be ignored by the policy makers. We await further developments - and the results of this summer's MORI/Help the Aged survey - with considerable interest.

Note: The results of the MORI/Help the Aged survey was published in September 2000