We don’t have a youth problem on the Right. We have a language problem. No one understands what we’re talking about anymore.
If you’re 47 or under, you’re more likely to vote Labour than Conservative. I hate to break it to you Telegraph readers, but the generation born in the 70s and 80s are now comfortably middle-aged. We aren’t young anymore. It’s time to stop waiting for us abandon the folly of youth and come to our senses; we’re not going to.
It dawned on me recently, when I was preparing a speech making the case for free markets and conservatism to young people, that those of us on the Right don’t even understand each other anymore.
I asked two of my staff members what they thought of the increased enthusiasm for Corbyn. Separated by 30 years, I listened to these two Conservatives, argue about the problem with young people. It was illuminating.
My head of office vividly remembered going hungry every time there was a strike and her father lost his wages. The 3-day week, waiting months for a telephone line and how terrible British Rail was. The carnage after a Left-wing government was obvious. She had seen socialism fail, again and again. “Look at what’s happening in Venezuela!”. I watched my 23 year old researcher’s eyes deaden as she said that.
“Yeah, what about Venezuela?” he asked. “I don’t care about Venezuela. I care about what’s happening here. Yes, you waited 6 months for a telephone line, but my family’s been waiting years for a mobile phone signal in my house, the trains are still late but more expensive and I still live at home because a cheap flat is ten times my salary”.
The generational and political divides have never been wider, and some of this can be explained by how the Right uses language.
Pointing to Venezuela and thinking we’ve successfully won the argument defending capitalism against socialism doesn’t work. It was easier when people had lived through both.
My researcher was 3 years old when Tony Blair became prime minister. That’s the only left-wing government he’s ever known and it really wasn’t that scary. Arguing about the wonders of capitalism and the dangers of socialism seems a bit overblown in that context.
The benefits of free-market capitalism are not self-evident. In fact, it would be nice if we emphasised that free markets and capitalism are not the same thing.
I’m a free marketer, but I cringe every time I hear the word “deregulation”.
When I ask anyone under 50 what they think “regulation” means, I get the same answers: “protection”, “safety nets”, and “rules”. I’ve heard business talk positively about deregulation, as if the meaning is obvious – getting rid of red tape, removing barriers to entry, that sort of thing. Unfortunately, what the average person on the street hears is “getting rid of protections for me, so that crony capitalists can make as much profit as possible”.
“All taxation is theft!”. I remember the first time I heard this at an event for libertarians. As a healthy 25 year old with no obligations to anyone, I was inclined to be sympathetic. Less so now, as a 37 year old mother of two and one near-death experience in a maternity ward under my belt.
As an MP, I have to be even more careful when talking about a small state and low taxes. Some of my constituents, think I’m talking about taking away their benefits, their safety nets, funding for their children’s schools and all the things that make their lives pleasant, bearable even.
How can I explain the benefits of low taxes to people who believe that the only reason some people are wealthy is because they’re not paying their fair share?
In a world where people genuinely believe the fixed pie fallacy – that a penny more for you means a penny less for someone else, that wealth is not created but distributed – policies to reward wealth creators make no sense. In fact, it’s not tax that’s theft, but wealth.
When people believe that more government is the solution to every problem, a small state isn’t an efficient one. It’s a lazy one.
Please don’t think this is yet another article about what the Conservative Party needs to do to win voters. The problem is much deeper than that, and the centre-Right is a movement much bigger than any political party.
I wish the private sector worked as hard at explaining its importance as much as the public sector.
Every party conference season, I’m struck by how much is spent on lobbying by the public affairs industry. All of it spent talking to politicians rather than to the public. If only, some of those big corporates spent a fraction of this talking to their millions of customers about the social good they do, instead of trying to get meetings with MPs to do that job for them.
Imagine if multi-nationals spent more time explaining that the majority of their shareholders are pension funds, and that many of the people criticising them have invested their futures in and are indirectly owners of the very companies they want closed down? Reducing taxes makes a lot more sense if you know it means more money going into your pension.
I believe the Right has the answers, but we are not properly explaining why the other lot have got it wrong.
The key to future electoral success lies in change. Not just change in my party and its approach to campaigning, but change in the country and how the story is told.
We know that there are now more doctors, more houses and more outstanding schools than ever before but if that isn’t communicated effectively, especially to younger people, the dangers of facing a generation in the political wilderness are real.
When talking about Venezuela, Jeremy Corbyn’s questionable track record, free markets and so on we assume that people know what we mean without any explanation or comment on how we could do it better. These assumptions switch people off and dilute the message. Ditch them, I say.
We need to be seen to be offering something, not just attacking the idea of change. Simple language, simple ideas and a positive vision for the future – this holy trinity holds the key to unlocking the next generation.
This article was first published in the Telegraph, 16 October 2017
