0.3% of the population will now vote for the next PM. Are they as nasty as we think?
Writing in the New Statesman Anoosh Chakelian has summarised the latest research on who Tory Party members are. The research is carried out under the direction of Tim Bale at QMC. Bale in my view tends towards the generous when assessing Tories and indeed LibDems. Chakelian concludes that Tory members are no worse than Tory MPs. I don’t find that reassuring
Some of the demographic stereotypes about this group of voters are indeed based in reality. They tend to be old, posh, white, male, southern and very Eurosceptic, according to 2020 research from the Queen Mary University of London and Sussex University Party Members Project.
“This is not a very representative sample of the British electorate,” says Tim Bale, professor of politics at Queen Mary, who has been studying UK party members since 2013.
Tory members skew older than the general population: 39 per cent are 65 and over, and 58 per cent are aged 50 and over. They are overwhelmingly middle or upper class, with 80 per cent in the top ABC1 demographic grade compared with 20 per cent C2DE; 42 per cent live in the non-London south. They tend to be concentrated in safe Conservative seats rather than marginal constituencies; there are not many Tory members in the Red Wall seats, for example.
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