Young conservatives “like cows voting for McDonald’s”

Prime Minister David Cameron Photo by: DFID – UK Department for International Development

More young people voted Tory than ever before. This new phenomenon is being portrayed as nihilistic and dripping with self-loathing as someone binging on Jeremy Kyle in their jammies while eating a packet of biscuits (So just my average Tuesday). The Telegraph, for instance, described such voters as “young, secret Tories” who “hate themselves”.

I’d hate myself too if I’d voted for five more years of this nonsense.

Oh, I’m sorry, am I too harsh for shaming those of this generation who support the Conservative party? It must be really hard being a ‘secret Tory’; I wonder, do you go to secret, midnight meetings and whisper about the plight of being privileged? I imagine it’s a bit like being in the Illuminati. The struggle.

You know what else is a struggle? Being one of the almost a million people relying on food banks for emergency food in the last two years. Being one of the disabled people who are arguably being discriminated against by the Bedroom Tax. Being Muslim, an immigrant, refugee or a woman. Or, in the likely scenario that the hunting ban will be lifted, being a fox. Basically, if you’re not rich, white and male you’re screwed.

So I do apologise if those who voted for more Conservative austerity are hurt by being called out on their political decisions, but…actually I’m not sorry; get some perspective. It’s not about you.

Of course everyone is different, everyone has the right to vote for whoever they wish – that goes without saying. But in the same way everyone also has the right to disagree with you for this. Students have always traditionally been ‘left wing’. It is in our nature to be rebellious and anti-establishment. Which is why it seems such a surprise that, in this generation, with the greatest austerity since war-time (I’m not exaggerating) there should be a swing to the right for this demographic.

So how many #workingclasstories made it into the cabinet?

— Lance Concannon (@concannon) May 28, 2023

Someone said on Twitter that working class people voting Conservative is like turkeys voting for Christmas (Check out the hashtag #WorkingClassTories). In the same strand of thought, I’d argue that young people (and students particularly) voting Conservative is like cows voting for McDonald’s. I feel like Mufasa right now, in the stars, booming at Simba to “Remember who you are…” Remember 9k a year? It’s only been the bitching topic of all students ever for the last half a decade. I guess the Lib Dems absorbed the shock from that.

Interestingly, I have a friend who, when I asked her how she would feel if the same government raised tuition fees again for future generations, said that she wouldn’t be affected anyway, as she had got her degree now. To me, this epitomises the insularity of the Conservative ideology: look after yourself. What did those in power care if students were paying more than ever for increasingly less funded education? They’d already got their degrees for free.

For most students I’ve talked to, the reasons behind voting blue has generally been because Labour is completely and singlehandedly responsible for the global banking crisis. Like toddlers running the country, they just don’t understand money! They wouldn’t recognise a fifty pound note if it poked them in the eye! They think inflation is what you do to a balloon! Their chancellor isn’t even qualified in Economics. Oh no, wait, that’s George Osborne.

So if you are one of those bashful tories, I’m afraid you’re gonna have to look elsewhere for sympathy. Because you most definitely are not going to find it here.