The working class our "
blue collar Tories" and their Blue Labour analogues get into a lather about is the working class
of the past. The contemporary working class, the
socialised worker is disproportionately young, more likely to be disengaged from official politics, but also largely spontaneously anti-Tory thanks to how the Tories are
barriers to getting on and have vested interests in keeping this state of affairs so their
voter coalition can hold together.
Why the old and the retired then. Why are they prepared to return governments who actively make life tougher for their children and grand children. Well, obviously, they don't see it like that. At its most conscious it's going to be articulated as tough love but ultimately, as a group of voters and a segment within the wider class structure there are certain structural characteristics conditioning their choices. The first is property. After a life time of work under a more benign economic and political settlement than now, they are more likely to own a home and have a decent pension. A decent number hold small quantities of shares. As modest as this property ownership is, you want to keep hold of it. And so suggestions Labour are going to tax the rich is code for 'they want to nationalise my bungalow'. Property, therefore, is something to be jealously guarded.
On top of this has to be considered the atomising effects of retirement. From the discipline of the working day to a modest but real enough freedom, retirement opens up the vistas of free time (conditioned by income, naturally) not available to those in work. As such it is a relative estrangement from the social and, therefore, the interests articulating and clashing within it. Further, whether a pensioner has property or not - about a third don't - the bulk of retirees are on fixed and modest incomes without the means, and in some cases the capacity, to make good shortfalls if, for whatever reason, something goes wrong. This means pensioners are prey to the sorts of ontological anxieties. In this case, a suspicion of change, a bewilderment tinged with fear about the state of the world, and a propensity to soak up stories that feed these anxieties. See
The Mail, for example. Within this imaginary Corbyn was a danger because he cavorted with Britain's enemies, and condensed all their fears around tolerance, multiculturalism, softness, and big spending. He epitomised all that was wrong, now and in the immediate future. And so their votes for "change", be it Brexit or Boris, is a vote against a world that scares them, do not understand, and do not want to understand. This is pensioner as petit bourgeois.
Social being conditions consciousness, and the Tory gains demonstrate this better than anything else. In Bed Bradley's Mansfield, over the last three decades (according to
Centre for Towns research), the number of over 65s are up 30%. Bolsover 35%. Scunthorpe
40%. Younger people, the socialised workers, have tended to mover where the jobs are - hence the massive Labour majorities in the big cities - and those left are more likely to be stuck in the more precarious, low paid end of the labour market
and not be as likely to vote as their pensionable neighbours. Therefore Labour's collapse in these seats has been a long time coming - but
could have been headed off. The Tory victory then was brought by
attracting older voters by patriotism, their attachment to the eternal solidity of Britain/England in an uncertain world and their outrage at London elites disregarding their leave votes. After all, Brexit for them is not about Singapore-on-Thames but asserting independence, putting the Great back into GB and sparking off national renewal.
