An election looms and political parties are already talking ‘voter demographics’. Every few years, the wonks of Westminster pick a social stereotype and decide it represents a crucial group of swing voters. We’ve had Mondeo Man, Waitrose Woman and Pebbledash Person. Who will it be in 2024?
It could be Deano, a snooty term used to describe aspirational lower-middle class blokes. Deano is proud to own a new-build house, a car bought on finance and a perfect set of pearly whites. He has had a bit of a tricky time recently, watching interest rates shoot up. Deano might have once voted Tory from his Red Wall seat, although after that Liz Truss business, he’s not so sure.
If you’re thinking there can’t be too many Millies out there, spend ten minutes on Instagram
Can I be presumptuous and try to paint a slightly patronising portrait of a member of another group which both main parties seem already to be targeting, even if they haven’t yet given her a name?
She is Millennial Millie. She’s aged between 26 to 35, and is a millennial, yes, but also a Blair Baby, a Spice Girl, a Groovy Chick. She was brought up to believe that the world would offer her so much if she worked hard. She graduated either just before, during or after the financial crash of 2008. Since then, she’s found the world a much more alarming place than anyone promised her it would be. She is entitled, cultured and more than a little naive. Her Veja trainers are vegan; her Ganni dresses sustainable. If you’re thinking there can’t be too many Millies out there, spend ten minutes on Instagram.
Her parents own a home; she doesn’t. Neither do many of her pals. Those who do have done so in large part because their family helped with the mortgage. She tries not to feel too bitter about this. At least her landlord let her repaint the kitchen.
With good friends and a good degree, Millie feels #blessed. It’s becoming clear, however, that this only gets her so far, particularly when she’s up against falling wages, an asset bubble and the cost of a flat white. She would like to be open-minded, metropolitan Waitrose Woman, and yet life doesn’t seem to be going that way.
Her social life largely exists on the apps. Her guru is Dolly Alderton, the Sunday Times’s agony aunt, who each week offers wise, kind-hearted counsel about Millie’s predicament. This week, she read in the Times (she loves the Times) that for a middle-class family, affluence isn’t what it once was. To have a comfortable lifestyle, as her parents did, Millie and her partner – wherever he or she may be – need to both earn at least £100,000 a year. She is nowhere near that.
Millie is a Home Counties girl in search of a sense of home. Deano would tell her to cheer up, love, even if he wouldn’t be so gauche as to wolf-whistle. He has learnt the lessons of MeToo. At least Deano owns a house, Millie thinks, even if it is a new-build. It goes without saying she is a bit of a snob. At least nobody can ever take that away from her. You probably don’t feel too sorry for her, but what matters, politically, is that she feels sorry for herself.
Perhaps you know a Millie. I suspect many women in their late twenties to mid-thirties can recognise elements of her. Not every millennial woman wants to get married, buy a house and have children – but many do want some stability and might vote for whoever promises to offer it.
Who might? If the Tories had any sense, they would try to, because younger women become older women, who traditionally tend to be quite conservative. Just ask Mumsnet.
Millennial women, though, are starting to buck that trend. Fertility rates are falling, as is home ownership. If mild-mannered middle-class women can’t be relied on to vote Tory further down the line, who on earth can? Millie’s Blue Wall parents talk about voting Lib Dem in solidarity, but she knows they’ll most likely end up voting Conservative.
Could she do the same? All that she wants is what they had. She doesn’t feel better off after more than a decade of the Tories even if people keep telling her she is. Brexit came as a bit of a shock. She didn’t like Boris; quite likes Rishi. In particular, she liked the recent Spring Budget announcement that working parents of children aged nine months to three years would soon be eligible for 30 hours of free childcare. As it turns out, over a quarter of the population in the 100 most marginal Tory seats are parents with a child under the age of 11: Mummy Millies. They aren’t happy either.
No wonder the Tories and Labour see childcare as an important political battleground. Labour is yet to announce its childcare policies, although Millie feels optimistic that there might be even more promised. Is she being targeted? She rather likes it, if so.
She can see herself voting for Labour – and Keir, with his faintly Bridget Jones energy. She tells herself, and her friends, that he is the centrist choice. And if she chooses not to vote Tory, she won’t be alone: only 13 per cent of 25- to 49-year-olds would, and only 11 per cent of 18- to 24-year-olds (the TikTok, Gen Z lot). Compare that to 1987, when Margaret Thatcher won her third term: 39 per cent of 25- to 34-year-olds voted Tory. More astonishingly, 37 per cent of 18- to 24-year-olds did too.
Millie pictures herself one day taking her child to the playground, her house keys jingling in her pocket, feeling rather grown-up. She’s suddenly a swing voter – and delighted to feel a little important. And that’s why it wouldn’t be silly to try to win over Millennial Millie.
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