New Labour's Last Challenge?

Older voters are the group least supportive of New Labour, and winning them over is perhaps Tony Blair's biggest remaining political challenge. 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.

But, as we saw in the election just past, most young adults don't vote, whereas most senior citizens do. As mentioned here before, and as analysed in Sir Robert Worcester's monograph "Grey Power: the Changing Face" [pdf format 158K], 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 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.

The higher propensity of older electors to turn out and vote becomes of increasing significance as turnouts fall; and more of them have the habit of voting, so they may be easier to tempt back to the polling booths at the next election than the youngsters who have never voted.

Labour won only 38% of the vote among the 55+ age group, 39% among the 65-and-overs. To put that in perspective, despite being in a landslide victory it is lower share of this age group's vote than Harold Wilson won in October 1974 when he barely avoided a hung Parliament.

In almost every other demographic aspect, New Labour has narrowed the differentials between the parties, encroaching onto the Tories' traditional territory while giving up a little of its own core groups. Labour is doing in relative terms better with the middle classes, better with women, better with rural and suburban voters than ever before. But older voters have found New Labour less attractive, and the size of the "grey gap" - the difference in voting behaviour between the 55+ voters and the overall trend - has doubled since Tony Blair became leader.

Grey Power: voting by electors aged 55+