Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Credit: Justin Tallis / AFP / Getty
Is Downing Street preparing a ‘war on woke’? If you believe the reports, then just such a strategy is being urged upon Boris Johnson by some of his senior advisors — among them one of the authors of the 2019 manifesto and Head of the Number Ten Policy Unit, Munira Mirza who is routinely portrayed as a polarising, Right-wing culture-warrior.
Such an approach would actually make sense — and not just because it’s all of a piece with the hegemonic war of manoeuvre recommended by Michael Gove’s newest best friend, Antonio Gramsci. According to research published today, it is underlying socio and cultural (as opposed to economic) values that keep the Conservative Party and its electoral coalition together and give it the best chance of connecting with the voters it will need to win again in 2024.
Political scientists often make use of two sets of questions to measure people’s economic and social values. They’re designed to tap into underlying, stable, long-term ideological attitudes rather than ephemeral, short-term policy preferences.
The first set covers economic values: the distribution of wealth and income, big business, fairness, etc. The second covers socio-cultural values and includes question on things like law and order, the purpose of education, respect for traditional values, and censorship.
Essentially, this is a recognition that politics can’t just be understood as a contest between Left and Right – between state and market. We also have to take into account whether people are socially liberal or social conservative.
Most of the time, those questions are only asked of voters – for instance by the gold standard British Election Study. But in this new study they were also asked of MPs and grassroots party members from both the Conservative and the Labour parties.
Their responses give us a sense, not just of how united or divided the parties are, but of how out of touch they are with voters – and not just voters in general but even those voters who supported them at last year’s general election.
Covid-19 is going to do some serious damage to the economy. And one only has to look back to events like Black Wednesday in 1992 and the financial crash of 2008 to see how easily that sort of setback can swiftly shred a party’s hard-won reputation for economic competence. If (some would even say when) that happens to the Tories in the months and years to come, then, the research suggests, they’re going to have to rely heavily on social and cultural conservativism to see them safely through the next election.
That’s because, when it comes to economic values, the Conservatives a) are less likely to see eye-to-eye with one another than their Labour counterparts and b) are further away, if not from the average voter, then from the voters that helped them win so comfortably in 2019. Indeed, those voters’ underlying values on the economy mean they have more in common with the Labour Party at all levels than they do with Conservative members, activists and MPs.
True, on social and cultural values, the Tories are not altogether united either. But they are much closer to voters – especially the ones they really need to keep hold of if they are to repeat their 2019 win in four years’ time.
Let’s look, first, at economic values. Figure 1 shows that on every question used to tap into those values apart from the first one on redistribution, the differences between what the Conservative Party’s MPs, grassroots members and voters are much bigger than they are between Labour’s people.
Figure 1
It also shows, incidentally, that, if Labour can overcome the economic competence deficit that has cost it so dear since 2010, and then get voters to realise just how differently Tory MPs think about the economy than they themselves do, then the Government could find itself in serious trouble.
Figure 2 hammers home that warning. On every economic values question, the average voter who made the journey from Labour in 2017 to Conservative in 2019 (represented by the black dot) is more Left-wing than the average member of the public, as well as noticeably to the Left of the average individual who voted Conservative in 2019.
Figure 2
Moreover, these 2019 Labour-to-Conservative switchers are far, far closer to Labour when it comes to underlying economic values than they are to the Conservatives. For instance, a full 81% of those switchers think that big business takes advantage of ordinary people – very much in line with 83% of Labour MPs and 92% of Labour members, but very much out of line with Tory members and Tory MPs, only 34% and 18% of whom, respectively, think the same way. And on whether “there is one law for the rich and one law for the poor” the 84% of Labour-to-Conservative switchers who agree are far closer to the 92% of Labour members and the 71% of Labour MPs who say the same than they are to the 22% of Tory members and 5% of Tory MPs who think so too.
Keir Starmer might have sacked Rebecca Long Bailey last week but he’s no neoliberal, and nor is his Shadow Chancellor Anneliese Dodds. They will be perfectly comfortable putting forward an economic recovery plan that reflects those switchers’ values. Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak? Not so much. Any conversion to socialism brought on by the current emergency will, one suspects, be short-lived, leaving the party — on the economy at least — stranded way to the right of many of the voters they need to hold onto.
But when it comes to social and cultural values, it’s a whole different story – and a story with what could well be a happier ending for the Conservatives.
Figure 3
For one thing, as Figure 3 shows, generally speaking (the exception being the death penalty), the Conservative Party’s MPs, members and voters are more united than their Labour counterparts and, as a whole, tend to be a little closer to the average British voter.
For another, when we look at different groups of voters, as we do in Figure 4, we can see that — in what is essentially a mirror image of the picture on economic values — 2019 Labour-to-Conservative switchers (again represented by the black dot) are much, much closer to the Conservatives when it comes to underlying social/cultural values than they are to Labour. In fact, those switchers even sit to the right of Conservative members and Conservative MPs.
Figure 4
Ultimately, though, it is the yawning gap between the 2019 switchers and the Labour Party they abandoned that is most striking. Just 17% of Labour members and 9% of Labour MPs think that “young people don’t have enough respect for traditional British values” — a view held by 88% of Labour-to-Conservative switchers. The idea that schools should teach children to obey authority is supported by 81% of those swing voters, against just 29% of members and 41% of Labour MPs. Stiffer sentences are supported by 85% of switchers — again way more than is the case for Labour members (25%) and Labour MPs (24%).
It is also striking, again from Figure 4, but this time looking solely at parliamentarians (who are, after all, the most visible representatives of their respective parties as far as voters are concerned), that Tory MPs are far closer not just to their voters but to all voters, than are Labour MPs. That’s because, much as it pains liberals to admit it and even if things may gradually be shifting their way through generational change, Brits remain a pretty authoritarian bunch.
Given all this, some kind of culture war, however damaging and polarising some fear it would be, is arguably a perfectly rational strategic choice for the Conservatives in the years to come. It would build on — but, just as crucially now that Brexit is nearly done, allow them to build out of — the Leave-Remain identities established, to their obvious recent advantage, since 2016.
Pushing back against supposed attempts by the liberal elite to make Brits ashamed of their history and downplaying structural and institutional racism are only the more obvious aspects of such a strategy. Clamping down on illegal immigration — especially now that Nigel Farage is back punching that particular bruise — will also loom large. Even apparently trivial interventions, such as Gavin Williamson’s call for schools to insist pupils face the front and pay attention to the teacher rather than each other play a part.
There are, however, just a couple of crucial caveats.
First, it takes two to tango: while there may be plenty of socially liberal Labour MPs who might easily be tempted to fall into a Tory trap on this score, for example by allowing it to look like they were lecturing Home Secretary, Priti Patel, on racism. Keir Starmer and most of his Shadow Cabinet, whatever their true feelings, seem far less likely to take the bait.
Second, but no less important, the figures above suggest that Conservative MPs are not only more socially liberal than Conservative grassroots members and Conservative voters but more liberal than most voters – and on some issues are even more liberal than Labour voters. To win a culture war, like any other war, a general not only needs all his troops behind him but they all have to be up for the fight.
So if Boris Johnson is genuinely serious about ‘levelling up’ — and indeed about ‘fucking business’ — then this new research strongly suggests that he risks a good deal of unhappiness on the benches behind him from those overwhelmingly Thatcherite backbenchers who joined the Conservative Party to promote, not mitigate the free market.
It also suggests that, on social and cultural values, those MPs have rather more in common with the old Boris, the live-and-let-live liberal mayor of London, than with the ersatz Trump some of his advisors seem to want him to become. The electoral logic, however, points strongly to him listening to those advisors rather than worrying too much about the misgivings of his parliamentary colleagues.
Tim Bale is Professor of Politics at Queen Mary University of London and Director of the Mile End Institute.
ProfTimBale 
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SubscribeAny chance we could stick to rational scientific debate? I thought that the whole point of Unherd was that it doesn’t follow the herd, but perhaps I was wrong? Give me information, not proselytization.
Not following the herd wherever it goes doesn’t mean disagreeing with it no matter what. On climate change, there are clearly some parts of the accepted narrative that are correct and backed up by good data and theory. It doesn’t mean we have to get all Greta Thunberg, but a stopped clock is right twice a day.
Science keeps saying this Pacific NW heat event is a 1 in 1000 year ‘Heat Dome’, a very rare climatic event
“The core of the heatdome, as measured by the thickness of the air column over British Columbia and the Pacific NW, is – statistically speaking – equivalent to a 1 in 1000 year event”
But a Gretta spin on everything is pretty much required these days. Remember, these events likely used to be 1 in 2000 year events, and are now 1 in 1000 year events, so likely means:
“In decades to come swathes of the world will resemble British Columbia today”
I always liked Poutine, so can handle it.
“Science keeps saying this Pacific NW heat event is a 1 in 1000 year ‘Heat Dome’, a very rare climatic event.”
Yes. It’s easy to google the heatwave in the pacific northwest and learn about the rare conjunction of factors that caused the heat dome. As the author of this article rightly notes at the beginning, there’s no evidence to link climate change to this anomalous event (although I think it should be conceded there might be a link to some extent). I’m not sure why the author chose to concede the current heatwave can’t definitely be linked to climate change and then use it as an example of what will happen to all of us if we don’t change our CO2-producing ways.
The more interesting question for me is what if the changes we now see in the climate are, for the most part, not caused by human activity? What if they’re part of a natural cycle of climate change? We can’t control that; all we can do is adapt and learn to live with it.
“What if they’re part of a natural cycle of climate change?”
There is too much money and prestige riding on that not being the case.
It’s funny because whenever it gets really cold we’re told it’s not climate, it’s weather. But when it gets really hot, apparently that’s climate, not weather.
Once upon a time climate scientists told us to expect a global freezing, that a new ice age was imminent, then there was the hole in the ozone layer melting the ice caps, then it was global warming. Now its climate change, I guess they gave up on predicting if its getting warmer or colder. How does this climate science have any credibility.
Boss: are we making or losing money?
George: All I can tell you is that the money we have will be different from yesterday.
Boss: you’re fired.
More details on the ‘once upon a time’ bit about climate scientists predicting global freezing would be helpful – or is this just impressionistic? And there’s really quite a bit of stuff available about the credibility of current climate science,
Google is you friend there Andrew, global freezing was climate science through out the 70’s
I confirm what George Glashan said. When I was a lad, global freezing was quite the fashionable thing. Peddling the new ice age scenario was the route to success in the academic rat race of the time, just as peddling anthropomorphic climate change is today. Science is as corruptible as any other human activity, and when there is money involved don’t stand in front of the stampede. Of course, the real skill lies in being able to swap horses part way through without falling off.
True, but note the possibility that a warming planet could involve a threshold phase shift to regional glaciation – rapidly shifting magnetic poles aside. It’s like trying fix a part-diagnosed car engine fault whilst swerving down a part known track towards a cliff (over it or into it who cares). See link: https://www.whoi.edu/know-your-ocean/ocean-topics/climate-ocean/abrupt-climate-change/are-we-on-the-brink-of-a-new-little-ice-age/
14 times as many people die of cold each year and whilst global warming does drive maximum temperatures higher, most of the average temperature increase is accounted for by increases in the lowest temperatures, ie milder winters, more than cancelling out the total rise in heat deaths.
Also, whilst heatwaves are deadly, we are already perfectly able to adapt to them. Roll outs of air conditioning have reduced heat related deaths by 50-60% over the last few decades and are a cost effective fix.
I recommend you read some of Bjorn Lomborg’s writings on the subject.
‘Several of Bjørn Lomborg’s articles in newspapers such as The Wall Street Journal and The Daily Telegraph have been checked by Climate Feedback, a worldwide network of scientists who collectively assess the credibility of influential climate change media coverage. The Climate Feedback reviewers assessed that the scientific credibility ranged between “low” and “very low”.’ Just Wikipedia, but worth wondering about.
Thanks. Always good to have a broad range of sources and see what the counter arguments are. It will be interesting to see which of his claims they disagree with.
Especially since Lomberg takes the bulk of his data from the IPCC!
We should always remember that the so-called “fact-checkers” have skin in the game.
“the most extreme humid heat is highly localized in both space and time” (from the Science Advances paper linked to)
In other words, areas with extreme wet bulb temperatures, like deserts with dry heat, or arctic and antarctic locations with extremes of cold, will be relatively easy to avoid, or to use technology to mitigate the effects.
Science-scare articles often use linguistic sleights of hand. For example, a doubling of prevalence can accurately be labelled as ‘more widespread’. But if it’s a doubling from 0.0001% to 0.0002%, then ‘widespread’ (alone) which is often picked up in lay papers is entirely false. Here there is huge write up of potential ‘severity’ without really noting how easy it is to avoid.
Media reporting has been poor and may too have contributed to overemphases of data demanding far clearer qualification.
There was also a very nasty cold spell in Texas this year. Please don’t say this was just a freak weather incident. I recently read that the current Heat Dome in British Columbia is comparable to heatwaves during La Niña, which, according to the climate scientists, had nothing to do with Global Warming.
I really would like UnHerd to publish one of many scientists, who have other scientific explanations of natural occurring Warming, than the usual suspects who are just part of the Herd of Main Stream thinking.
Don’t forget ocean dynamics. See: https://www.whoi.edu/know-your-ocean/ocean-topics/climate-ocean/abrupt-climate-change/are-we-on-the-brink-of-a-new-little-ice-age/
The BBC, which is an environmental campaigner, has been foregrounding this heatwave for days. The real issue is not whether it is getting hotter but what to do about it. And that in turn requires an adaptive response to what will be a hotter world, not endlessly going on about cutting emissions and “net zero”. There is some sign that the BBC is beginning to see this. But not much.
Mitigation is no longer enough alone, so adaptation is more critical. Both are needed,
Climate change today is what Satan used to be. A name for blame of anything seen as frightening or evil. So extreme weather is not extreme weather it is climate change.
What world do you come from that you think Satan was used to mean frightening? Satan was used to refer to the master of Evil, a very particular issue of ultimate, intentional, malevolence. Your post and upvotes show the young today have 100% disassociated from the entire human culture of the even recent past.
I will echo what a number of people have said and ask for articles discussing both sides of the climate change debate: man made vs natural occurrence.
“In decades to come swathes of the world will resemble British Columbia today”
As I have been hanging out in Vancouver BC a lot in my life I assume you mean the swaths will become second Provinces of China. Richmond BC was my old hangout, even in the 1980s it was called Hong-Couver.
Sad to see the old British ways so disregarded even though USA readership and neighbors remain in F, the European C is the only measurement here, and the Queens head is still the symbol of state in Canada.
I remember the horrible 1971 change over from the proud Roman system, and two thousand years of British usage, of proper money: farthing, haypenny, tuppence, thruppence, sixpence, shilling, florin, half crown, crown, ten bob, pound, and guinea when one British Pound = 240 pence. Then meters, and C and the EU taking over, a sad time.
The end result of all this is young people who have absolutely no ability at basic arithmetic – in the old days we could add up 3-8-4p and 3-5p and 13-9p in our heads, and then subtract it from a five pound note mentally…Now youth cannot add 47 and 19 without using their phones.
Also – WHY did you not give the ‘Wet Bulb Temp’ when it was 49.6 C? (this takes into account humidity of the air) since you went on about it.
The 12 based system was excellent! You modern folk have no idea. I do the trades in USA where 12 inches = 1 foot and 4 ft is the standard measure base.
10 is divisible by 2 and 5, or 1/5 and 1/2, hardly useful for building.
12 is divisible by 2, 3, 4, 6. 1/6, 1/3, 1/4, 1/2. Carpentry in USA is based on 16 inch center, 16, 32, 48 mostly, or 12 inch center, 12, 24, 36, 48 or 24 center, 24, 48.
One inch is divided by 1/32, 1/16/ 1/8/ 1/4, 1/2. Every 4 foot length, 8, 12, 16, 20, can be broken into easy whole numbers or simple, compatible, fractions without any .33333 or 0.125, or .0625 that are so hard to add up and make to ‘Break’.
The 13 knot string was histories greatest builder tool – 12 increments, and can be used to find square (right triangle at knot 3, 7, and closed at 12 makes 90 degrees, the 13 knot string (12 lengths between knots, base 12) was to find any useful angle, and length – an AMAZING tool.
Base 10 is for calculating, not making, it is not natural, 360, 180, 90 is how we still do circles, (12 based) and time, because it is NATURAL math, as it reflects the real world, not some paper calculation.
Carpenter’s squares are still what the world is built with, 360/90 degrees, not 100/10 – Napoleon, the guy who forced decimalization, wanted decriminalize clocks, calendars, circles, it is not usefull as it is not natural maths except for calculations on paper.
Any chance of getting some of that heat dome over to the UK?
Because it’s been bloody pissing down all over the b*****d place for a month now and I’m sick of it.
I remember back in the 70s my eldest brother scaring me about the imminent return of the ice age….
All a bit of a mystery, but perhaps Unherd’s scientist readers can publish here what they see as the unheard science base?