According to Polly Toynbee (It’s Sunak’s doom loop: the more desperate and cruel the Tories become, the more voters reject them, 30 April), “younger generations are refusing to turn Tory as they age, the way previous cohorts reliably did”. The problem with this statement is that cohorts don’t vote, people do. And the people who have voted Labour tend to be from lower socioeconomic groups whose members die younger.
For instance, my father, a socialist who spent much of his working life down the pit, died in 1980. He was born on the same day (30 April 1920) as Captain Tom Moore, famed for raising money during Covid and who died in 2021. The former voted in 11 general elections; the latter had the opportunity to vote in 21 general elections plus a referendum. Demographics are a neglected but important feature of elective democracy. Dying is not a defection to the Tories.
Peter Taylor
Tynemouth, Tyne and Wear
