But the anger is even deeper than that. These voters seem to think not just that the Tories have bad policies – but that they’re bad people.



On Sunday, the Conservatives will gather in Manchester for their annual party conference. It won’t be the optimistic seaside festivity Labour has just hosted in Brighton. The first order of business at the Tory conference will be an inquest into how the party blew a double-digit poll lead, squandered its Commons majority, and put itself on the brink of losing power to a 68-year-old socialist who scarcely had the backing of his own MPs a year ago. Some of the conclusions already trailed in the run-up to the conference suggest that blame will be pinned on a campaign that was too unimaginative and centralised, and a manifesto that was launched without consultation.

When the soul-searching is done, Theresa May will give a keynote speech in which she's expected to try to reboot her faltering premiership and demonstrate that she has a vision for the country beyond Brexit. In last year’s speech, in Birmingham, May pitched herself as a leader for struggling workers. This time she will have to try to reach out to the young as well.

In interviews today with Sunday newspapers, May pledged to do more for young voters including freezing university tuition fees at £9,250 a year. She will increase the income threshold at which graduates start repaying their loans to £25,000. A front page story in the Sunday Telegraph described the measures as a "revolution" in student fees, but they're a long way from Corbyn's promise to scrap the fees altogether.

Election data shows starkly the scale of the challenge May has in reaching under-35s. Corbyn’s lead over the Tories was 62% to 27% among 18- to 24-year-olds, and 56% to 27% among 25- to 34-year-olds. Those numbers terrify some Tories, who worry that the party is failing to reach the young professionals they hope would gravitate to the right as they get older, start families, and accumulate assets. The party won’t win another general election for a generation, they worry, unless it urgently does something to widen its appeal.



In the run-up to the conference, MPs and ministers have been urging 10 Downing Street to rethink its policies to address this generational gulf. In September the chancellor, Philip Hammond, told a private meeting of backbenchers that he was looking for ideas to connect with young voters for the autumn Budget. Reports have hinted at new policies on tuition fees and housing. And the government has indicated that the freeze on the pay of public sector workers imposed by George Osborne in 2010 will be eased.



But the torrent of anti-Conservative articles spreading across social media – where many people, particularly those under 35, now get their news – suggests that the party's unpopularity with the young is much deeper than even the Tory reformers realise.

“This is about identity,” says James Kirkup, a former political editor of the Daily Telegraph who now runs the Social Market Foundation, a nonpartisan think tank. “Many younger Britons just think the Conservatives are nothing like them, that Tories are rich and old and just don’t care about the lives and concerns of people who aren’t rich and old.”



David Cameron tried to “modernise” the party brand to reach beyond its traditional base. But years of austerity, the rising cost of housing, Brexit, and perceived attacks on liberal values have “retoxified” the Tories in the eyes of many young voters, Kirkup says.

And many Conservatives don’t even realise how deep this schism is, he adds.

The generational divide doesn’t just affect the Tories, Kirkup points out. Labour struggles to attract voters over 65. But right now, it seems to be Corbyn who has all the political momentum and the Tories who are fretting about losing the next election. Some are so pessimistic that they think the party will die if it doesn’t address its unpopularity among the young.

“There has been a growing electoral time-bomb ticking under them for years,” says the pollster Andrew Cooper, who was an adviser to William Hague and David Cameron. For years, the Conservatives relied on the fact that many young voters tended not to obscure their poor performance with that demographic. But that changed at this year's election. “The sudden jump in turnout among younger voters brought it suddenly into focus.”