A comparison of the general election results in October 1974 and 2017 is instructive; one can be explained by class and the other by generation. In 1974 the Tories beat Labour by 56 per cent to 19 per cent amongst voters in the sociological groups ABC1 (white collar professionals) whilst losing by 16 per cent to 49 per cent among C2 (skilled manual workers) and by 22 per cent to 57 per cent among DE (unskilled workers and the unemployed). That was a vote decisively on class grounds even at a time when the left’s intellectuals were fretting about a decline of class-based politics. By contrast the class breakdown of the vote in 2017 was broadly flat. The Tories won ABC1 by just 44 per cent to 40 per cent, tied with Labour at 40 per cent each for C2 and lost DE by just 41 per cent to 44 per cent.
The pattern of age-based voting was the direct inverse. In 1974 the relative likelihood of a 30- to 70-year-old voting Labour or voting Conservative was roughly similar, with a tilt to the Conservatives as the voter aged. In 2017 age was the decisive factor, with a 30-year-old twice as likely to vote Labour as a 70-year-old.
