The woman who so managed to goad Gordon Brown was from an older generation, a pensioner, a group, especially those in social classes C1 & C2 who have perhaps been dangerously overlooked in this election with all the emphasis on younger voters. When they are addressed it is generally on the subject of how they will be looked after when they can no longer look after themselves, but most of them are a long way still from that (& perhaps prefer not to think about it). What they are, however, is mothers & grandmothers.
They have sons who may have lost their jobs recently. And grandchildren, many of whom, despite all the promises, all the testing, all the certificates, cannot find work, or are laden down with debt but do not even have a home to call their own.
Women of that generation have seen plenty of changes, seen politicians come & governments go. They can remember rationing & the birth of the NHS, houses with outside loos & no bathrooms, the coming of television. When they vote it is the future of their children & their grandchildren they are thinking about, more than their own.
In fact Clegg & Cameron are just boys to people of that age. Nice young men, decent & hard working it seems. But Cameron has been at it longer, & has a proper party behind him.
In one of those fundamental shifts which has affected our politics recently, such women may well feel that it is time to change the habit of a lifetime & vote Conservative. Since Labour hasn’t been able to do much to stop the rot, it’s time to try the other lot – you will never know what young Cameron can do unless you give him a chance.
That at least was the view of one lady from the North East, interviewed on the radio last night. The recent closure of Corus seems to have been the final nail in Labour’s coffin up there – they could have saved steel for a fraction of what they spent on the banks is an oft heard complaint.
Much the same thing happened in 1979 when many, perhaps these same women in their middle years, voted for Margaret Thatcher & her promise of home owning democracy. Only to erupt in fury soon afterwards when VAT was abruptly increased to help fill the hole in the government finances
It started by being called the Mumsnet election. They should have called it the bus pass election
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