Can the Conservative party survive defeat? | FT Film

After its calamitous defeat in July's general election, FT deputy opinion editor Miranda Green asks three of the UK's leading political experts to weigh up the Conservative party's chance of winning again, as volatility and demographics transform the political landscape
#ukpolitics #ukelections2024 #ukelectorate #conservativeparty #demographics #redwall #voters
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[@richardbourn5896]

A dry, statistician's analysis which misses the point that the Conservatives were the authors of 14 years of worsening living standards, drops in life expectancy, failures across public services, flatlining growth and productivity, and serious deficiencies in probity and conduct among Conservative ministers. Arguing which pieces of the electorate the Tories can help themselves to is premature when the party has to have some idea of how to actually deliver more than locking in inherited wealth and privilege. This is why graduates are a problem. The Tories have done everything they can to squeeze the young to benefit the old. Until they stop doing this they can't assume anyone will care to vote for them.

[@ra8784]

Sound take.

[@elingrome5853]

aah... how sweet...imagine thinking its left v right and not a globalist cabal v the people

[@newsgeekus1216]

Yea, lot of focus on left/right. Instead, feels like the voters were more focused on competence. Which party, regardless of ideology, could fix broken Britain NHS, literally crumbling schools and infrastructure, poo in the rivers, EU travel queues, EU exporting/importing friction, incoherent farming subsidy schemes, etc.

[@steveholmes11]

Graduates are realising that further education no longer lifts them out of the day race. Back in the days of cheap housing and jobs for life, the degree was followed by marriage, 2.3 children, promotions and comfortable retirement. Now graduated face insecure employment, relatively poor pay, home ownership out of reach and paying 40% of salary to a landlord. Graduates are facing similar issues to young non-graduates.

[@tonivaripati5951]

The days of easy money are over! you gotta earn it the hard way! work for it!

[@rozza4671]

Damn that was on money. It is tough out there

[@sfactory8253]

@@tonivaripati5951 Its dog eat dog !!

[@JoshuaHancock-zk2tx]

​@@tonivaripati5951 No, they're not over. Don't you see how everyone who's young is being enticed into becoming an entrepreneur? Since that's the only way we can make it now, that's what we do. Don't have to play by the oldies rules.

[@howardtsang8316]

Having a degree won't change much, except bearing a student loan. This attracts Graduate votes strategy is crap.

[@Gooders8355]

I’m not Labour, but they have my vote for next ten years. I went to uni 2012 first year of tripled fees. My debt interest outpaces payments and will cost me £77k to pay off. Wages were stagnant when I left uni for 10 years, home ownership was the dominant conversation among my peer group and its entrench unfairness and tories priorities the baby boomers who had all the house wealth and ring fenced thier pensions to year on year beat inflation and wages. Childcare costs are unaffordable I’m paying 2k per month + a morgage which rised by £600 a month because of the tories They worked against my generation their entire time in office. I won’t vote for them

[@Tom_murray89]

They’ve always hated the young generation and see older people as their core voters. However now reform are looking to have those voters too. On the subject of labour I feel that they want to govern for all not just the older generation

[@keithd26]

​​​@@Tom_murray89they don't hate tge younger generation... its worse than that. They love power, see the boomers as a way to achieve it and believe the best way to achieve that is divide and rule. They showed a lack of any sort of emotion to the younger generation, a contempt for the older generation and a lust for power. They are dangerous, always have been and they put themselves here.😊

[@quintuscrinis8032]

You realise that Labour were the ones who created tuition fees right? Prior to Blair there were only grants. Also, as someone who went on the old system designed by Blair and Labour, I have been paying thousands a year, whereas if I had waited a year and gone for the new system I wouldn't have paid anything yet because of the repayment threshold increase. That debt only exists for 30 years before being written off, so it's possible you won't pay anything like £77k. Certainly I wouldn't have paid anything if I had gone on the new system. Agree with everything else though, since the end of the coalition the country has been ripped apart.

[@sharonwashington8150]

IF it TEN years then make sure your will is up to date!

[@blazzz13]

@@quintuscrinis8032 £3k is not the same as £9k? Speaking of grants, the Tories turned those to "loans". Nice try

[@Kill3rballoon]

They tied their entire fortunes to the older generations who, by the inevitable march of time will dwindle in number, meanwhile people who are entering their middle-age now, traditionally the age when people in the UK become more conservative, have been treated with nothing but distain by the Tories over the past 15 years are not going to suddenly change their minds support them. Unless they are willing to change and actually start supporting the under-60s, they will cease to be and their passing will be celebrated.

[@markwelch3564]

Labour and LibDems are fighting to be the party that older voters switch to when they're seeking stability The Tories are barely in that contest at all now

[@KieranGarland]

why on earth should they survive?

[@ra8784]

Boomers

[@sfactory8253]

Because they have a divine right to rule ( so they think )

[@bonghunezhou5051]

🤔🤔 The Tory party, or the broader rightist politucal force? (Inclusive of Conservative & Unionist Party - the "natural governing party" - and more stridently right-wing UKIP/Brexit/Reform Party?

[@sfactory8253]

@@bonghunezhou5051 right wing voters will always be there but the Tory party doesn't seem to know whether it wants to be the CDU or the AfD. It's too broad a church due to fptp and the coalition boris built was always unsustainable.

[@shanefrancis651]

No mention of nimbyism and the highest housing cost to earnings ratio since Queen Victoria. I'm 33 and nothing short of a free house will make me vote for them.

[@stewartlancaster6155]

home ownership is not a right laddie.

[@OwenDavies83]

​@stewartlancaster6155 No, but it should at least be a possibility.

[@KingAgniKai]

​@@stewartlancaster6155It would unironically make young people vote for the Tories

[@AloeYouu]

Yet this began under the previous Labour government.

[@ThePlatinumMatt]

​@@AloeYouu It began under Thatcher

[@radman8321]

Nice analysis, but missing one crucial element. Tactical voting. The left did it to perfection, the right hardly at all. If the 2019 election was the "Get Brexit Done" election then this one was the "Get the Tories Out" election. Brexit has dealt a near fatal blow to the Tories. Cameron was a fool.

[@nigelbenton880]

The ultimate in tactical voting was the Brexit Party/Reform not standing against Tories in the 2019 General election. The Tories then squandered that - a good thing for those (like me) who believe the right are a disaster.

[@sfactory8253]

But Reform had a massive impact on the Tory vote, as did many staying at home . Be interesting to see analysis of how many seats Reform cost the Tories . Not that all Reform voters would switch to Tory .

[@vdotme]

It was a consortium of fools. Cameron, Boris, Gove, Rees-Mogg, Sunak, Truss, Hancock, Mordaunt is said to not be bad but she led the foolish politicians' policies from the front. May was actually decent if uncharismatic at a time charismatic BoJo was gagging for his turn at the top and she had to juggle his Brexit mess as he made it as difficult as possible. Javid was alright but too brown too soon after Brexit, Raab was good at holding Boris' mess together & made May's attempt at a decent Brexit flounder, Priti Patel & the mean girls act that inspired Kemi & Suella 🤢🤢🤢🤮, Schapps, Cleverly & Leadsome who may or may not have played a better ministerial character outside of the Brexit then COVID disruptions, Amber Rudd weighed down covering for May as the Windrush scandal dragged on........Kwarteng - looked out of his depth, sufficiently lost that Truss didn't fear a knife in the back - as it was she screwed both of their careers.

[@arynrowland862]

Give it a few years. I’m old enough to remember these *exact* conversations happening after their loss in ‘97. They then took power 13 years later and kept it for a further 14 years. That was after years of Thatcherism, which still has a negative legacy in the UK. Don’t discount anything.

[@radman8321]

@@arynrowland862 I'm old enough too. The difference this time is the Tories are hated the length and breadth of the country in a way that they weren't in 1997. They also didn't have an insurgent party to their right back then. Back then they hadn't ushered in an era of stagnation, cut us off from our biggest trading partners, raised taxes to their highest level since the war, and completely trashed all the public services. Oh and back then they at least had the pretence of being honourable and resigning when they were caught out. Not saying they can't come back as there will always be a party to the right of centre, they will move to the right as that is what their members want, but that will make them even more unelectable. Eventually they'll either move back towards the centre or another party will steal the centre right ground and the Conservative party will become a footnote in political history.

[@TheTeamDavey]

Why is nobody talking about the wildcard … competent government! All this talk about how to get voters back makes me tired, no talk about what they will actually do for these voters to make their lives better. Tories and RefUK are ONLY interested in their own interests and power. I think this is the main distinction between them and every other party.

[@lonyo5377]

People left the Tories because they didn't deliver. Not because of what their policies or ideas were, but because of 14 years of failure. The Tories lost because they failed to achieve anything in 14 years except destruction. Voters on the right/upset about immigration failures went Reform. Voters who have up on the Tories didn't vote. Some people voted Tory. The Tory vote dropped 50%. The overall vote dropped. Vote share is one picture, raw votes is more relevant.

[@blazzz13]

who could have thought that 14 years of blaming Labour, the EU, disabled, poor, single mums, civil servants, judges, woke, trans people and corruption while delivering SFA could lead to a devastating loss?

[@dodgechance4564]

spot on

[@redmustangredmustang]

the thing that will always stay with the Tories is Brexit. How the f'd the younger generation for years to come. How they will never experience the same benefits their Boomer parents or grandparents experienced.

[@simonfive713]

There's no way I would vote for the Tories. The lies and incompetence have been astounding. I won't forget the lockdown parties which told us everything we need to know about who they are.

[@Billhook3391]

In the late 90s and 00s I remember Black Wednesday was still a topic of conversation and reason people weren't voting Conservative. That was a 1 day event in 1992, the Conservatives now have to explain away the last 14 years. Good luck.

[@blazzz13]

I was too young when Black Wednesday happened. But I have read and watched documentaries on it. Given Black Wednesday and the Mini Budget, this narrative that the "Tories are the party of economic competence" seems to be for the birds.

[@wildfire9280]

@@blazzz13 Automatically associating conservative economic policy with competence is the result of conflating “cruel and uncaring” with responsible.

[@domm1341]

I don’t believe the Tories have ever been on the side of young adults. The current version of the Tory party (ie the Culture War Party) is doomed and I don’t see them recovering for a very long time, if ever.

[@WhichDoctor1]

The Tories have always been on the side of those with lots of money and power who want more of both. But they have traditionally been good at telling the nonrich, nonpowerful the lies we want to hear, like trickle down economics, austerity will lead to growth, Brexit will make us richer etc. never underestimate the ability of the tories to come up with convincing lies to attract the votes of those they intend to screw over

[@kevinengland7444]

Jesus Christ, if you can't see that Labour wallow in identity politics and began the so-called 'culture war' you don't even have enough integrity to bother with.

[@Tedsterbr1t]

In the 1980s the tories still attracted younger voters despite their socially conservative stances.

[@Tedsterbr1t]

Leave the culture war stuff to the manifesto backpages rather than party conference podiums.

[@NatalieLawrence]

FT needs to learn that there is no such thing as the “ethnic” vote. Stop lumping all non-white people into the same bag. More people of Indian and Nigerian descent will support the Conservatives than those of Caribbean descent or followers of Islam. And those of non-white ethnicity who are more upper- or upper-middle class are more likely to vote Tory than working class. It would be good to see an episode where your researchers look properly into the diversity of politics amongst different non-ethnic groups.

[@fasteddyuk]

The Lib Dems were positioned to the left of Labour this election, not the centre.

[@jeffsterling2809]

Wierd isn't it

[@SlowhandGreg]

Are they? They have a few centre left policies but so does labour

[@PSYCHIC_PSYCHO]

@@SlowhandGregTory-Starmer's Pseudo-Labour Government is about as Left-Wing as Thatcher was.

[@jeffsterling2809]

@@SlowhandGreg Technically more pro EU and more liberal drug policies pushes them left. Possibly higher public spending too.

[@EnglishAbundance]

@@jeffsterling2809 It's so much more than the EU, drugs, etc. Lib Dems committed to building far more houses, for example, than Labour. In pretty much every regard, LibDems are more progressive than Labour.

[@HMSPrinceofWales]

Usually I like the FT Films, because they are pretty good at explaining the situation they are covering. But this one just feels like a 25-minute ad read for the Tories. I am aware that the title "Can the Conservative party survive defeat?" is about the future of the Party, but it completely avoids the main reason why people voted anything but the Tories: 14 years in power with a huge drop in living standards in the end.

[@sfactory8253]

Yes I was slightly disappointed , especially with Miranda fronting it. I'd like to see a sketchy politics version of this instead .

[@Blackgriffonphoenixg]

That's because the FT has *always* been an ad rag for Tories and conservative political establishment. This is them trying to polish a turd in 25 minutes and three seconds.

[@MCArt25]

Wow, imagine the Financial Times carrying water for wealthy conservatives. What a shocker, so unexpected.

[@cinnamon4183]

i think one crucial missed is the people who have grew up to become graduates are also people who grew up under tory shenanigans, especially during brexit and covid. all people who have grew up to directly see the effects of david camerons & the tories austerity policies. i don't want a continuation of huge public service cuts and privatisation of industries. quite frankly i dont believe labour is to deliver that second part as it is, dissapointingly, they are extremely reluctant to commit to anything like that.

[@blank2707]

As someone who came into voting age just after the brexit referendum... the tories have lost my vote for life and I'm never gonna vote for them. Especially after the debacles that followed. They've shown themselves to flagrantly flout the rules their meant to uphold and clearly to priorities their own self interests over the people they represent. Short of every tory member quitting and new reliable representivies being put in place, they're never getting my vote again. At that point they may as well rebrand to a new non-toxic party.

[@keithd26]

As a graduate with a high income, I can assure you that I'd rather have working services than low tax and any time the Tories try and push the narrative that low tax is the way to grow the economy I'm going to remind them of what the markets thought of that when Liz Truss tried it.

[@darthkek1953]

But you have the worst of both words - the highest tax burden in history, failing and collapsed public services.

[@petsRawesome1]

In a FPP two party system, no party ever dies. And that's the whole problem.

[@redoctober1]

The UK is governed by the party of Blair on both sides of the isle, with the exception of Reform.

[@derekmcfadyen127]

We also need a media that can be trusted to research and report news ..... not just government mouthpieces

[@MCArt25]

Yea, people should stop subscribing to the FT.

[@Tom_murray89]

The difference is after 14 years now they have reform to contend with. Also after 20 plus years of Southend on sea having Tory MP’s we now have 2 Labour MP’s

[@andreasarnoalthofsobottka2928]

The general idea of conservative parties is to make the rich even richer, keep the poor the way they are, (away from the ballots) and convince the taxpayers to vote for them nonetheless. In the UK the taxpayers turned away this time.

[@simonbamford8441]

The reason for Johnson’s victory can be attributed partially to Corbyn. Starmer’s recent victory can be attributed partially to Johnson!

[@FranzBieberkopf]

True, BloJo was a corrupt dishonest liar, but it was The Lettuce who truly buried the Tories. After her, Labour were never lower than 20% in the polls. Corbyn is now at his natural level-a good constituency MP. He should never have been leader.

[@crimfan]

Not just Johnson but his two successors, Truss and Sunak. Truss was a wingnut believer; whatever else he was, Sunak was an incompetent and tone deaf campaigner.

[@ScruffyTubbles]

Nonsense. The same vote share was obtained Corbyn / Starmer. Had TLPLP actually sided with Crobyn (and the MSM) then there would not have been Johnson, also you would n to have such poor public services as investment on low interest rates would now be in place.

[@neverdiminished]

And the fact that Reform switched from just co testing labour seats to contesting conservative ones. (Don’t take this as an endorsement of reform)

[@lonyo5377]

@@simonbamford8441 it can be attributed fully to idiots falling for personality based rhetoric. Now those people have looked to reform.

[@richardfraser1562]

The whole political ethos of the Tories has been to favour the rich elderly at the expense of the young. It’s not surprising that when the older Tory voters age out that young people aren’t pro Tory.

[@OenopionOenopion]

Very optimistic presentation for the Conservative party, which is showing no signs of changing course to a moderate path that rejects culture wars in favor of policies aimed at center right voters. There is very little reason to believe that Conservatives can return to power in four years, and eight years may also be too optimistic. The UK and the electorate will look very different in 2036, and so will the Conservative party, assuming they are still around.

[@Tedsterbr1t]

As a social conservative. I think that the culture wars are not an election winner. Many people in this country at best view the culture war as something they see on Piers Morgan’s show rather than something politicians deal with. The majority or plurality largely see it as “the world has gone mad”. Sorry for the waffle.

[@specialized500]

Five years and ten years .

[@Blackgriffonphoenixg]

​@Tedsterbr1t Of course they're not election winners. When social conservatives say the quiet part out loud, reasonable people see them for what they *really* are and run fast in the opposite direction.

[@fenderek666]

Somebody is clutching at straws…

[@michaeltschuertz]

What do the tories have to offer? Everyone has seen the last 14 years. Labour just have to delivery what they promised, likely less.

[@askeladd60]

I can almost guarantee you Labor's approval ratings will be where the Tories are now, in less than 5 years

[@ileanamuntean7338]

@@askeladd60 2

[@tonychinnery]

There is an error in your presentation. You say the Tories lost votes to the left : the labour party. But is the Labour party left? Starmer won power after having purged the progrssive wing of his party and reneging on all the progressive policies he had promised in his camgaign to become leader. In the effort to hoover up ex-Tory votes he in effect did a hostile takeover of the Tory party. Arguably the LiDems are more progressive than Labour now.

[@joelharris4399]

Oxford University, bruh, you finally outdid yourself, churning out mug after mug of malted political incompetence. That's on you🍺

[@mishalshah2535]

I really struggle to align with any one party so i usually vote for Greens to make sure which ever government takes i to account environmental policies. The tories have made some pretty detrimental polices and decisions which have caused way to much pain. And their leaders seem too entitled. Labour on the other hand cant be forgiven for invading Iraq which completely destabilised the region and is a big reason for alot of the illegal immigration we see today. They refuse to take responsibility for Iraq, and this election they just seem to be the tories in red ties. Reform is just too right wing for me especially when we have some real challenges like climate change that need an intervention on a government level. Lib dems seem ok but they lost my respect when they joined the tories back in 2010.

[@random-username5]

As Labour demonstrated against the Conservatives, yes, centrism is quite a good tool

[@AB-zl4nh]

The Liberal Democrats have their biggest number of seats in 100 years and 1 general election away from becoming the party of opposition. I think that's the big question of the day. Can the Lib Dems convince Liberal/One Nation Conservatives to finally let the Conservative Party go.

[@sfactory8253]

Meanwhile Reform are the main challenger to Labour in the North and Red Wall and to Tories in the East .

[@cricketerfrench7501]

So the Tories can come back if they stop being Tory?

[@darren2514fv]

The problem is the Americanisation of British politics led by Farage with the Trump MAGA style campaigning

[@rambler123]

Lol. Conservative Ideology is fundamentally incompatible with concept of “Public Service”, “Economic Growth” and “Individual Prosperity”. Its summary is “Trickle down economics”, of some form or degree. The guy in this video is absolutely right. I am a black ethnic minority voter and I make high 5-7 figures (good/bad) annually. I am also culturally conservative (not really buying the gay and trans) because that’s how I was raised. But I have never considered voting for the Tories and never will. I’d rather pay 50% tax to a Labour government and make sure they invest it in public services than pay no tax to conservatives, therefore letting them sell those public services to a few rich Conservatives so that they can fleece me on bills through the back door. The outcome is the same. Your money will leave your account (regardless of the lies conservatives tell). The question is, where does it go.. With a Labour (or really any non-conservative) government it goes to public services, with conservatives it goes to faux capitalists (capitalists with no capital), and a few rich friends.

[@nietzscheankant6984]

"not really buying the gay and trans" What on earth does this mean? You don't think gay and trans people actually exist, or wtf? Good on you for understanding the value of investing in a country/society/economy, but that line just makes no sense to me, other than as antiscientific denialism.

[@George-yf5gc]

the tories did manage to make breakthroughs among British Indian Hindu voters in the past 14 years…another potential bloc like that could be predominantly Christian immigrants like Nigerians

[@George-yf5gc]

furthermore depending on how farage does in the next few years in parliament some of those right wing voters may return to the tories without need for a massive battle with reform

[@ra8784]

@@George-yf5gc I'm not a massive fan of Nigel, but I don't think anyone who voted Reform is going back, we've made the jump. And look at the split for the under 40s, 9:19 that's basically 50/50. That will only be getting worse now Reform has some MPs. I bet your right however, I think the Tory's will pander to potential blocs. Because I think the Tory's know Reform is here to stay.

[@KJ-js7pi]

The interesting thing is that the Tories are becoming more popular with Indian and Chinese voters, whilst other ethnic minorities are turning from Labour to Green/other independents. The Gaza effect has had profound implications on how Muslim voters in particular vote. I wonder if African voters will be more likely to vote Tories than those from the Caribbean.

[@rky64]

Because Indian and Chinese voters believe in making their own way and while other ethnic minorities look for handouts

[@andrewharrison1194]

Did Sunak explain what he was "sorry" for? Being Sunak? Trashing the Country? What?

[@onetwokaafour]

For being brown

[@swanvictor887]

He was sorry he lost. thats all.

[@airingcupboard]

There’s an ideological hole in the middle of all this. 2008 was such a huge shock and since then the UK economy hasn’t grown. Then Brexit and Covid. The ‘low tax’ offer doesn’t work when nothing works like it should or poverty is now very visible. Then there is climate change. It just looks like the same old song and more and more like irresponsibility.

[@tonydecastro6340]

can they survive defeat? of course, but not with those people who sat in front in the conference. Cruella??? with people like her hugging the Tory limelight, then defeat will spawn more defeat... the young Brits are more cosmopolitan than the older generations, less parochial, less insular, more European, more world-conscious. the Tories are the party of regression and nostalgia for things past that no longer mean anything to the younger generation...

[@robinstevenson6690]

At this point, the most pertinent question may be whether or not the Lib Dems will become the UK's #2 party (they won 2nd most seats in the 2024 local elections).

[@tomthumb2361]

The enemy of both the graduates and non-graduates is corporatism and the power of oligarchs and the asset rich. It's these the main parties work for. And they are mainly in the rich parts of London and its equally mixed hinterland, where there are chunks of grievous neglect and servitude in low-paying insecure employment. My kids are earning a lot and having to pay a huge proportion of the top end of their HARD-EARNED incomes in tax because the country is allowing the powerful and influential to suck in all the wealth. Earners are taxed more than the parasites. The parasites hoard wealth in property etc. or invest it elsewhere than the UK. You don't mention that Labour was out of power for ten years before Starmer took over. The change actually took 15 years.

[@partlyawesome]

Best comment

[@swanvictor887]

in the 1970s, high-earners like your children, paid up to 90% in tax. Top rate today is what, 40%? Maybe if multi-billion dollar Corporations actually paid SOME tax, as opposed to paying NOTHING, which is currently the case, then maybe...just maybe, your top-end tax rates could come down a bit. Pardon me if I don't weep for your high-earning children: the majority of the British people are in POVERTY. Go out for a drive around the Midlands or the North.

[@keeshond8]

⁠@@swanvictor887 Income tax was levied at 83% on high earners for a short period in the 1970s under Denis Healey.

[@stevensibbet5869]

Right at the moment about a week or two after the election, it looks to me like the Conservative Party will never ever get back to having opinion polls where they are in the 40%+ plus range again. it will be interesting to come back in five years time to see if this prediction was correct.

[@ra8784]

See you then! :D

[@spodula]

The first thing the Tories need to do is to get the current bunch of children out of the top jobs. There are some decent Tory MP's at the lower levels, but it seems they don't have the connections to get cabinet positions. Every Senior Tory since Cameron has been a total self-serving waste of space. (Cameron himself wasnt exactly a model of competency, but its all relative i suppose). Even the worse of Mrs Thatcher's detractors couldn't accuse her of being incompetent, but i struggle to think of a recent senior Tory who cant be accused of either being self-serving, or just utterly useless. They messed up brexit, they have messed up the economy, they have messed up the NHS, they betrayed the north, they messed up HS2 and they have messed up they have messed up the Military. and ever since Johnson made being obvious that its one rule for the top of the tory party, and one rule for the rest, they don't even have the decency to be embarrassed about it.

[@adrianwhyatt594]

It was actually not so much an ABC (Anyone but the Conservatives), but rather an ABI (Anyone but the Incumbents) election with: 6 pro-Gaza independents being elected; 5 ReformUK (and one Traditional Unionist Voice (TUV), who takes their whip); the DUP losing 3 seats; the SNP falling from 48 to 9 seats, after 17 years in power in Scotland, though they took 1 seat from the Conservatives; 4 Greens, up from 1; Labour's vote falling in Wales, where it's long been in power; Labour losing a seat to the Conservatives when their vote fell further than Labour's when two former Labour MPs stood as independents; and the Lib Dems increasing their vote share by 0.6% , but their seats from 11 to 72, on the lowest turnout for decades.

[@johndinsdale1707]

So the former Tory voter had a few options to express thier frustration with the Johnson exit. 1. Not vote 2. Vote Reform 3. Vote Lib Dem . They did so based on tactical voting for most impact!

[@howardtsang8316]

Reform had 4M votes Vs LibDem 3M, despite Reform didn't have candidates in all constituencies. In many constituencies, the Reform+ Conservative Party had more votes than Labour. Ignoring the traditional supporting base who shifted their support to Reform and seeking to gain votes from LibDem & Labour simply doesn't add up.

[@christopherpinnock7900]

This disaster is on Sunak he betrayed the conservative he got rid of the only conservative that could have beaten Starmer, the Conservative MP were complicit in the defeat they did not listen to the ground routes. Instead they went with a candidate that could not win against Liz Truss so could not win against Starmer.

[@sfactory8253]

Every time he came into contact with the electorate , he lost .

[@Sat-Man-Alpha]

Respect from a political scientist from the EU 👌👏

[@user-on8gw4dr7p]

Please ensure rules around illegal working are robustly enforced and impose penalties on companies and directors that breach the rule.

[@plagiarisedwords]

Every way that consrvatives can come back is also a way for liberal democrats to take over as main opposition. Its far easier for them to become socially liberal, financially conservative party free from history of racism.

[@pokerformuppets]

One phrase I hate is "for a generation". It's only ever accurate if rabbits are involved.

[@fizh5241]

I think Sunak saved his party (not sure what will happen). If he hadn't called the election so early, I think Reform would have taken over completely.

[@Jabskin]

'kin ell how about they just make a manifesto based on what would be best for the country rather than their vote share

[@tonivaripati5951]

The Economy is going down and down, and nothing is going to change that,

[@user-on8gw4dr7p]

STOP THE BOATS AND LEAVE THE UNDEMOCRATIC ECHR NOW PLEASE.

[@hreader]

Nobody seems to have mentioned one big 'elephant in the room' which is climate change. What will happen to political stability here when 1: large areas near the Equator become uninhabitable because of heat. That'll result not in small boats but in big ones, full of refugees who may hold the industrial world responsible for the mess, and are perhaps even armed. 2: ferocious heatwaves and droughts strike both mainland Europe and the UK. Remember that in 2022 the temperature in the UK topped 40 degrees C - unheard of in all post-Ice Age history. 3: coastal area (like where I live) become more and more unviable, eventually becoming part of the sea for good. Where will those who have to abandon the coastal areas be re-settled? Refugee camps? And even before that happens, salt water will contaminate the water table and previously fertile soil will turn poisonous. Go and talk to people in Iceland, the Inuit in Greenland and the scientists having sleepless nights as they watch Antarctica start to crumble. I took two sets of photographs rather over a year apart of the glacier Solheimajokull in southern Iceland, and over only a year or 18 months at most it had noticeably shrunk down. (I walked on it, too, with guides who expressed a lot of concern about melting). Iceland's ice-caps function as vast natural reservoirs of fresh water. The concern now is that in the next 40-50 yearst they will all have melted away leading to a serious water supply crisis. At the very least we'll see political instability which dwarfs even the most rabid extremist shouting-matches we've had recently. Perhaps it'll lead to a permanent State of Emergency, enforced by the Army and paramilitary police. Or just some rabble-rousing populist nutcase in charge. We're already threatened with that from November in the USA. No wonder the birth-rate's dropping. I'm thankful I'm 70, not 20. The climate issue needs to be #1 priority across all political parties contending for government (rather than just jumping up and down and making loud noises from the sidelines, like Reform UK, who deny climate change).

[@attheprecipice1090]

Anthropogenic climate change is not an elephant in the room but a globalist chimera.

[@maruf8273]

I personally voted for Reform too. I am a recent graduate who works as a DevOps Engineer. I like what Nigel says for the most part.

[@swanvictor887]

You like Gibberish..? Nigel spouts nothing but crap. Worrying that you're a recent graduate...I think you might be entitled to a refund of your course....sheesh....Farage is a fog-horn of ignorance.

[@ra8784]

@@swanvictor887 If you're still voting Tory, you have the memory of a goldfish. They lied to you for 14 years. I don't care about Farage much personally, but Nigel will only get better now he has 5 MPs, he will be a bigger threat to the Tory's at the next election. I'm an established Grad btw, Grads rise up.

[@user-qr7rr2em8r]

The British people will tolerate anything but not corruption.

[@stewartlancaster6155]

lets hope not !

[@1sostatic]

They even had my tribal Tory mother ...vote Lib Dem

[@laurentduval5094]

Wishful thinking at the end there. No chance the Tories can pull themselves out of this tail spin in the next 5 years. The division with the right is going to get deep and wider before it gets better.

[@crimfan]

2019 was also an illusion for them given that Jeremy Corbyn was Labour leader.

[@ioeuropaganymedkallisto7204]

You mean Labour under the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn who got more votes in total compared to Keir Starmer's Labour without much profile? It's not that Labour won, they just loss less than the Tories and got pushed by an electoral system that gifts an overwhelming absolute majority to whoever wins a relative majority within the constituencies. Let's see whether Starmer will change anything for the better after 14 years of Tory devastation.

[@SlowhandGreg]

​@@ioeuropaganymedkallisto7204Corbyn was unelectable and drove turnout in 2019, in 2017 he wasn't widely known by the base voter and his vote total was irrelevant he lost by 62 seats round a quite dismal Tory offering.

[@ioeuropaganymedkallisto7204]

@@SlowhandGreg Corbyn lost because some parts of Labour rather preferred a Tory victory than him being prime minister.

[@SlowhandGreg]

@@ioeuropaganymedkallisto7204 untrue there was zero path to a majority, he stacked up large numbers of votes in already strong labour seats.during 2017, also the bleed in the Red wall had already started. Also the bulk of older voters had zero wish to go back to the Foote era and militant tendancy

[@crimfan]

@@SlowhandGreg In the USA relatively lower education post-Industrial states (aka Rust Belt) which are analogous to the "Red Wall" trended away from the Democratic Party quite some time ago. It started in the late '60s and was pretty well hardened by the 2000s. Obama won some of them in 2008 (after severe disenchantment with Republicans) and fewer in 2012. In 2016 the white working class (and increasingly some of the non-white working class) are best thought of as Republican voters. Suburbanites who used to be pretty solidly Republican have been competitive to somewhat Democratic for quite a while now. I think this has been happening in other countries, too. It's pretty clear that we're in the midst of a substantial realignment of what's been called the neoliberal order that's existed since the '70s, but the process is, unsurprisingly, pretty messy.

[@ileanamuntean7338]

What went wrong? Uk had a Conservative government who delivered woke instead of meritocracy and individual responsibility.

[@Ivytheherbert]

Apart from anything else, Truss was never elected by the public, and Sunak wasn't elected at all, just appointed by default. The Tories showed complete disdain for democracy over the past 3 years, and when that's paired with the standard of living noticeably dropping across the country it will come back around in an election.

[@dddjjjj80]

Can the Conservative party survive defeat? IDGAF

[@Jim90117]

Their focus on the older generation has really hampered this country, especially during a population implosion. They have no choice but to import people which is totally against their core voters (the older people in society) ideology. Then there's the NIMBY issue, also driven by their core demographic, which they've actively worked to preserve and block new infrastructure we're desperate for. This was a party that put their own interests before doing the right thing, it'll be hard for entire generations of teens/20/30 even 40 year olds to ever trust this party again. This is why I dont believe this party has a future, their core voters are dying off.

[@robinhazell6019]

Sunak's wife showed that you can be the Richest person in Britain but still have terrible taste in clothes. What on earth was that Dress? Made from used beach deck-chair material LOL.

[@merseydave1]

I am a Socialist however, I recognize that politics is predominantly established in the middle ground. The Conservative Party should fear the coming years under Labour in Government, as they will have tacit support from the Lib Dems and Greens, Labour will enfranchise 16 and 17 year old's with the right to vote. Labour could bring in proportional representation, that would keep out the Conservative's for Ever !!!.

[@dertery8724]

I understand the reason for breaking voters into chunks and from looking at the distribution of graduates in the future, concluding that social liberalism is the way to go. But I would look at it another way. Nationalisation is popular, council house provision is popular, wealth taxes are popular, well resourced public services are popular, strict controls on immigration are popular, patriotism is popular. All of these statements are backed up by opinion polls such as the ones stating 75% of the population support utility nationalisation whilst 70% want to see immigration reduced. The truth is the British public are far to the economic left and social right of the political mainstream. At present only the SDP really represents this wing, but if a major party were to place itself firmly within the conservative left, it would win landslides.

[@MCArt25]

The question is not so much "can they survive" but "should they survive".

[@AmazingDuckmeister]

Much more social liberal... show a picture of Karl Marx. Hmm

[@locorum9103]

FT is good but it's a very boomer publication lol. They use 'liberal' in the trashy American sense of 'anything other than conservative'.

[@ra8784]

@@locorum9103 I'm a hardcore Tory conservative. I support the LGBTQ community, without the plus!!!

[@nietzscheankant6984]

@@ra8784 That feels like a curious specification, which feels rather confusing to me. Why do you have an issue with eg. intersex people (especially if you're accepting of transgender people)? Beyond that it's "queers" (people who can't be bothered to pick a more restricted term, or enjoy the ambiguity for one reason or another), and like asexual and aromantic people for example... and why would you take issue with someone not feeling sexual attraction toward other people, if that's their genuine experience?

[@locorum9103]

@@nietzscheankant6984 I think the comment was meant as a joke

[@loud-and-proud-patriot]

Whoever voted Labour in the election has no right to moan at the failures Starmer's government will bring

[@DoFeedThePigeons]

So only 35-45% of the country is being allowed to be middle class and have a life

[@abhi739]

question is will labor survive once trump gets in office

[@sharonwashington8150]

They are IRRELEVANT!! simple really

[@ra8784]

Party of the pensioners

[@DavidJohnson-dc8lu]

Thanks to Labour, they are still alive and kicking. Labour are the Tory party!

[@obiwanjabroniX]

You said they were centre right at the start so i just stopped watching. Centre right 😂

[@brexistentialism7628]

This documentary seems to have a flaw: in 2020 the tories had a fairly confident victory. The number of graduates in a constituency hasn't changed much in 4 years. At least not to such an extent that the current wipeout can be explained by it.

[@Alexroberts666]

First Past the Post is the only thing that keeps the Tories where they are. Scrap that and you scrap the Tories.

[@funbarsolaris2822]

I love the "Labours rapid recovery from brutal defeat under Corbyn" not mentioning that Labour actually had less votes this election than Corbyn got in 2019... Not that monumental a recovery, more a sign of a broken democracy where one of the two viable parties just self descructed

[@jonathancardy9941]

Its ironic that Labour is so focussed on winning seats as the metric of success. It has left them with support that is very wide but incredibly shallow. And its mandate? One fifth of adults, one third of those who voted. You have to wonder how Labour would have done in 2017 or 2019 if they'd fought to win a majority of seats rather fought to maximise the Labour vote everywhere. Conversely, just how big could the Tory defeat have been this May if Labour had been neutral or pro peace on Gaza. or whatever arrangement stopped Labour and the Lib Dems targetting the same seats had been extended to the Greens as well.

[@airisakura1119]

Answer: YES

[@ra8784]

Zero seats!

[@Nemothewonderfish]

Unfortunately, too many will vote Tory even if their leader ate a live baby on TV. They do it as they think it makes them middle class, it's a social status thing. As such about a quarter of votes will always go to them. So it allows, with Reform, Labour win on a small vote %. Labour has about 25% of the vote that will always vite Labour as well, but younger and they are sticking with Labour so main threat to Tories is old people dieing off. But unless UK has PR, we will have large majorities from now on with 35-38% of the vote (Maggie had 397 seats with 42% with middle ground the main battle ground.

[@martinhumble]

Very rich folks must also have a party to vote for.

[@davidcritchley3509]

It doesn't add up. Immigration and "Woke" issues are in fact higher on the political agenda than 10 years ago. These guys say that they should be of less importance. Brexit is of the same importance as before as the meteoric rise of Reform UK says.

[@patternnoticing]

there's nothing conservative about conservative party

[@kevoreilly6557]

So far … no

[@danielbliss1988]

The observations on graduates are interesting. Universities are highly trusted in the UK and this is a point of divergence with the US, where trust in higher ed on the Republican side has collapsed. The Tories have every incentive to win back graduates; the Republicans seem to have almost none outside the venture capital/investment banker/hedge fund crowd. Furthermore, the proportion of graduates in the UK is now roughly equal to the US, and headed towards outstripping the US, and if you throw in two-year/associates degrees or equivalent the UK is decisively ahead of the US on tertiary education -- a situation that would have been unthinkable 30 years ago when the US had probably three or four times as many graduates. And the UK electorate getting less tribal while the US one is getting more so -- another bombshell. Is the UK the country to watch in the English speaking world? I have to say I'm somewhat bullish on it.

[@sloglas]

Only 2 election to go. Then is over for Britain.

[@johnhopkins4012]

The voters went all different ways even some went to Labour honestly thinking Labour would do a better job. Now they have woken up that Labour are worse than the Cons.

[@ali10001]

Reform is missing from the graphic legend…

[@wwbuirkle]

They just need to actually be conservative

[@Mrskateboardboy]

The conservative voters need a new home to park their votes. The traditional Tories failed to listen to their voters and the public felt betrayed and unrepresented. Reform is the new name for conservatism in the UK. The right needs to unite, but when it does so it needs to embrace the ideals of Reform and NOT vice versa.

[@jamesbowden4871]

The Conservatives survived 1997. They will survive 2024.

[@Mounhas]

I know demographically the older generation vote tory & voted brexit, I was one of those born in the 1948’s and have never voted tory and am an “remainer”.. Well at least I know that!

[@Turkiye-sq2pq]

Britain should be ruled by British.

[@SeahamV2]

Nothing has changed, same people doing the same stuff for the past 30 years.

[@youxkio]

UK reversing Brexit back to EU integration?

[@advocate1563]

Not in this household. We back Reform. And we're both graduates, so the idea that these wets represent the graduate class is nonsense.

[@cybergornstartrooper2157]

You have to ask yourself the question “why are uneducated voters voting for the Tories while educated voters aren’t”. 😂 Could it be because educated voters know something the uneducated voters don’t 😆