This is an interesting political trap for the ruling Conservatives that they have made for themselves.
The traditional Conservative voter is a home-owner. So you might be a rabid socialist in your youth, but once you get a job, save up for a deposit, and buy your own home, you eventually transition to become yet another middle-aged Tory voter.
That pipeline is now broken - young people are unable to save up for their own home or get a mortgage, unless they have generational wealth. House rises have risen sharply and wages have remained stagnant, and now we have inflation - for necessities like food and bills - eating into what little people had to begin with.
The solution of course is damn the torpedoes and embark on a massive house-building programme like in the post-war period, but a) the post-Thatcher Conservatives consider that against everything they believe in, and b) current home owners - their ageing voting base - are NIMBYs who don't want the wrong sort of people living near them and any reduction in demand that would reduce their value of their homes (and they're going to need to sell their homes soon, to pay for social and health care in an increasingly threadbare welfare state).
The British press of course likes to blame "woke millenials" or whatever to keep their geriatric readership happy but this is the real reason for the collapse in the Tory vote in the under 50s.
I am one of the millennials that managed to get on to the housing ladder by buying a one bedroom flat in London. Then the government significantly changed the fire safety and building safety laws and now the building requires significant sums of money spending on it until the flat will become sellable again. The person that owns the building is not required to pay for that - only the leaseholders.
There are hundreds of thousands of us trapped in this situation and it's not good for the Conservative Party. Many, like me, are now renting out their flats and have become so called "accidental landlords".
So - even many of the younger people who DID manage to acquire property have been screwed!
> but once you get a job, save up for a deposit, and buy your own home, you eventually transition to become yet another middle-aged Tory voter. [...] That pipeline is now broken
Not unsurprisingly, I've seen the same theory/sentiment in the US as well: The conventional wisdom (whether true or not) was that aging voters would increase their support of the status-quo, but that doesn't seem to be happening, and the theory is that they aren't getting the same wealth/status that would cause them to be protective of it.
That said, we should also ask whether our story of "how it used to be" was actually (statistically, scientifically) true, as opposed to just being a common belief. There's evidence that one's political/party-leaning is actually consistent after being established earlier in life. [0]
> current home owners - their ageing voting base - are NIMBYs who don't want the wrong sort of people living near them and any reduction in demand that would reduce their value of their homes
New housing is directly against the interests of existing homeowners. Any plan that relies on people seriously disadvantaging themselves in order to benefit other people they don’t know is doomed to failure.
New housing means the area is worthy of investment. Homeowners should want that for their communities, it makes their homes more valuable than those in communities that developers pass over. Plus the more people living in an area, the more pressure on housing, the more your single family home would fetch compared to a less dense area. Ask yourself if as an investor you'd rather own a single family home in some New Jersey farm town, or a lot in Manhattan?
Given the shortage of land available for new housing, there are very few areas developers wouldn't choose to build.
As a homeowner, I'd be opposed to most new housing developments in my area. New developments aren't backed by the same level of investment in local services such as transport, schools, and GP surgeries.
> Ask yourself if as an investor you'd rather own a single family home in some New Jersey farm town, or a lot in Manhattan?
I think this is the key flaw in your argument. I chose to live in a village, not a city.
Investment from anything. Developers looking to make apartments. People looking to open stores or restaurants. Community groups. These are all examples of investing time or money into a community, all of which affect property value. Given two homes in a city, one where you see new restaurants opening and new apartments and community events all summer, and one that's the same sleepy retiree community its always been, you can probably guess which one is more valuable.
Only if those people who are going to be disadvantaged have political power. If the majority stand to gain by new housing, and they can elect a majority of MPs under the UK system, then the NIMBY voice is moot (although there will be no doubt resistance at local level where much of the planning will take place).
> and they're going to need to sell their homes soon, to pay for social and health care in an increasingly threadbare welfare state
Is this a bug or a feature? If the young (the workers) cannot afford to buy their own houses, because the old want to hold on to the value, how can we expect them to be able afford to pay for the welfare state and to take care of the old?
> The traditional Conservative voter is a home-owner. So you might be a rabid socialist in your youth, but once you get a job, save up for a deposit, and buy your own home, you eventually transition to become yet another middle-aged Tory voter.
I think we're seeing that trend break now. Even those that can afford to buy (I count myself as one of those lucky folks, although the costs have been astronomical) I dont think the Millenial generation aren likely to switch to being Tory's, at least not to the same degree as previous generations.
Unlike previous generations where once you had your home you were 'done' Millenials have by far and wide had a worse deal, and will spend most of their lives struggling.
It's not lost on me or my peers that we as a group will struggle as we get older, with retirement age likely being in the late 70s by the time we get there, and the pension pot being significantly lower than previous generations.
Not to mention Millenials seem to have been the first group to actually question the whole 'working to die' situation we find ourselves in.
So on this theory, will millennials turn to Tories, just a little later than their parents? Since they will be inheriting the properties their parents own soon enough.
There's a decent amount of evidence this isn't quite true anymore. It does seem like Thatcher's Right-to-buy made for a lot of conservative new homeowners, but the conservatives appear to get less popular with modern homeowners over time(though they seem to split equally toward labour and further right parties like UKIP): https://www.understandingsociety.ac.uk/blog/2022/02/22/does-...
A change of government won't fix any fundamental problems with housing/infrastructure. These are long-term problems and government thinking is inherently short-term.
The problem is the gerontocracy as well as incompetence, lack of accountability if not outright corruption in some cases. The current system doesn't have adequate safeguards to defend against these issues and the problem will persist, Tories or not.
The British Army were fought to a standstill by communist rebels in Malaya. The war only turned when the puppet government was persuaded to give the peasants land and homes.
The thing is, I think a lot of millennials are that pissed off now that even if they got homes, I don't think they'd make the switch. We've literally had our fucking lives stolen from us. Most people I've spoken to don't want anyone to go through the same thing. Contrast with the boomers who got free education, cheap housing, stable employment etc and seem hell bent on denying everything to the next generation.
The traditional Conservative voter is a home-owner. So you might be a rabid socialist in your youth, but once you get a job, save up for a deposit, and buy your own home, you eventually transition to become yet another middle-aged Tory voter.
That pipeline is now broken - young people are unable to save up for their own home or get a mortgage, unless they have generational wealth. House rises have risen sharply and wages have remained stagnant, and now we have inflation - for necessities like food and bills - eating into what little people had to begin with.
The solution of course is damn the torpedoes and embark on a massive house-building programme like in the post-war period, but a) the post-Thatcher Conservatives consider that against everything they believe in, and b) current home owners - their ageing voting base - are NIMBYs who don't want the wrong sort of people living near them and any reduction in demand that would reduce their value of their homes (and they're going to need to sell their homes soon, to pay for social and health care in an increasingly threadbare welfare state).
The British press of course likes to blame "woke millenials" or whatever to keep their geriatric readership happy but this is the real reason for the collapse in the Tory vote in the under 50s.