The Tories need to take a gamble. All bets on the younger generation, less on the older.

It was Disraeli who said, “there’s no gambling like politics” and he knew a thing or two about redefining the Tory party.

Whilst  Labour have taken a gamble on the economy, and Reform have gambled on going all the way alone – and they might – the Tories have a gamble in front of them that I really don’t know if they’ll make – but they should take it.

Obviously, with any gamble you can win, or you can lose. The Prime Minister would have been well advised to note the same is true of selling “change”. Works both ways, and loose change, small change or ‘run-out-of-change’ is neither popular nor impressive.

The gamble for the Tories is certainly loaded with risk. I think there’s ‘nothing to lose’ but that’s not quite true I just think it’s a gamble they can’t afford to dodge.

What’s the big gamble?

Stop looking at the older vote, and all that binds that in, and go all out for a pitch to the younger generation. That means shifting some of the incentives towards them, and less support for pensioners.

And the risk ? losing one, and not sufficiently winning the other.

Being in my mid-fifties  I’m arguing against my near future self. It’s not about me. The Conservatives’ future is not made by an increasingly older cohort of voters.

Our Columnist Peter Franklin, a sprightly young man, laid out the maths:

“In last year’s general election we won a 24% vote share among all voters — but, according to Lord Ashcroft Polls, it was just 14% among 18-to-24-year-old voters, 10% among the 25-34s and 13% with 35-44s. Precise age categories vary between different pollsters but they all paint a dismal picture. For instance, YouGov put our support at 8% among the 18-29s and 12% among the 30-39s. Then there’s Ipsos, which gave us just 5% among the youngest group of voters (18-24s), 10% with the 25-34s, and 17% with the 35-44s. In short, among the under-40s we’re already a minor party. Just to be clear, that wasn’t always the case. As recently as 2015, YouGov had us on 32% among the under-30s.”

Add to that, the average age of a Tory voter at the last election was 65. So when I suggest this ‘gamble’ I’m doing so in the face of some ugly maths.

Henry Hill, added another dose of reality just last week when he noted:

“The grinding reality of an ageing population. By 2028/9, ~16 per cent of British GDP (or ~35 per cent of all state spending) will be spent solely on pensioners and the NHS, up from ~13 per cent and ~30 per cent respectively in 2023/4. And those numbers are only going one way”

Columnist David Willets said just yesterday, that 43 per cent of NHS spending is now on those aged 65 and older. That’s logical of course but it’s not sustainable. Not when as David put it back in October, the Conservatives: ‘face the eternal dilemma of British politics: voters want a big welfare state, but aren’t willing to vote for the taxes to fund it.’

That big welfare state – remember Labour’s welfare cuts are to reduce the rate of growth, the bill is still rising – is a product of something I talked about ahead of the Spending Review – that the public expectation of what Government can and should do for them, long ago completely outstripped Government’s actual ability to fulfil that expectation.

We hear endlessly that Government, and politics, is about hard choices, and sometimes at best it is about having to choose the ‘least-worst option’ but the truth is we protect a relatively wealthier older generation, and have almost exhausted cuts to support anyone younger than me.

It is, in relative economic terms, not true that by making pensioners ‘poorer’ you make them poor. Younger working people, families, children, they are far less supported and less economically safe. Moreover they’ve lost a belief that the Tories are on their side. They might just be realising that neither is Labour, since the Government has demonstrated ‘in the service of working people’ isn’t being in the service of all people who work. In the hunt for Labour votes Reform are suddenly in favour of flood gate spending, and are facing, the same dilemma: everyone wants good public services but doesn’t vote for taxes to match that. But their ‘none of the above’ vibe has attracted some younger voters.

The Conservatives we are told are taking time to re-think their approach. If bold, and radical is what they are after, then breaking the idea of finding a little bit here and there to try and give everyone what they want should be ditched even as a starting point.

Do I like pensioners being made cold? No. Would I accept the reality that some pensioners get a Winter Fuel Payment they quite like, but don’t actually need? Yes.

Does the pensions triple lock, which is unsustainable, really trump ideas like measures to help first time buyers secure a home.

In anticipation of the howl of disapproval I will get from some of our readers (all my age or older would be my guess) I’m not so sure everyone over 65 thinks piling debt on their kids and grandchildren is sensible – or even ethical. If the Tories really did come up with something that was a serious offer to the younger generation, and less so the older, would every pensioner vote for someone else?

It’s about explaining the reality of the inequality. There is an inherent unfairness. One group is offered far fewer incentives and support but is expected to pay ever more for the needs of an older generation relatively better off and yet the larger draw on public services. Is it really all about them? or me? I worry that my kids will be lumbered with huge debt so I can afford to moan about ‘the youth of today’ on a nice weekday trip out.

Next to tackle is ‘well you’ve lost young voters now’. Even if true you don’t go ‘oh that’s a shame, what next?’

One of the rising stars in the party, told me:

“The thing is the younger generation are our voters. Naturally I mean. They are the most entrepreneurial and aspirational demographic – and they care, we just need to show them so do we”

I’m still reminded of Richard Fuller’s story, told to this site, of hosting a set of events to help young people keen to start up their own business. He wasn’t sure that under the Conservative banner many would come. They did, however. Far more than he’d imagined. Why? Because their values actually matched his own, they just hadn’t connected that to the party.

We should front load a policy package that not just taps into that but supercharges it.

Easy to buy a home, afford a family, start a business, help expand a business. To live life rather than ‘just about manage’ and have pride in a country that makes that happen. And one that instinctively understands, that whilst every one of us ideally wants the moon-on-a-stick, expecting it to be provided year on year by Government is simply unrealistic.

Offering to create the circumstances where you can, by hard work and belief, more easily make yourselves more prosperous, and realise the ambitions you have is powerful. De-regulation, economic freedom, lower tax are all excellent, but how much more powerful when involving people who not only buy into that, but are hungry for it. It’s been done before.

The key is to make them see that, and believe you are the people who can help make it real.

It’s a brutal gamble, I won’t pretend otherwise.

It sounds an extreme version of out with the old and in with the new.

I’m not advocating abandoning a whole generation of once, some still, hardworking people. However, without a fundamental focus of ‘what Conservatives are for’ for the future, I don’t see sticking with the old, and letting the young ‘get by as best they can – because votes’ is a great strategy.

It might be safer in the very short term; it’s doomed in the long term.