At the “How can the Conservatives win back the under-45s?” Fringe. Average age of audience: 55. Number of bow ties: 2. #cpc18
Neil O’Brien says the Tories are now some 40 points behind Labour among young people. Says young voters were attracted by Corbyn’s offer of a “moon on a stick”. #cpc18
O’Brien says the Tories’ support among young voters is like a branch that has been rotting for years and has now finally broken. #CPC18
O’Brien: If we called tuition fees a graduate tax then the Tories would obviously be campaigning to slash it. #CPC18
Rachel Sylvester from The Times: “There’s a danger of the party looking like a party for old white men.” #CPC18
Rachel Sylvester says Brexit has convinced a whole generation that the Conservatives are not the party for them. #CPC18
Sylvester says the only way for the party to recover the support of young people is to hold a second Brexit referendum. Conservative delegates here very unhappy with this suggestion #cpc18
George Freeman asks for a show of hands for how many women there are in the room under the age of 47. There are around 8. #cpc18
George Freeman says the housing crisis is the biggest barrier to a Tory majority: “Why would you ever be a capitalist if you’ve got no chance of ever getting any capital?” #cpc18
George Freeman says the Conservative party look like “armed wing of UKIP” and “Besuited bank managers of austerity with no vision” #Cpc18
Justine Greening says if the Conservative party doesn’t start appealing to young people: “We’re just not going to be winning elections any more. It’s as simple as that.” #Cpc18
The panelists all diagnosing short term causes of collapse in Tory support among young people - housing shortages, tuition fees, Brexit - but not identifying the basic long-term cause, which is decades of seeking votes of the old and rich at expense of the young and poor. #Cpc18
A Conservative teacher in the audience says her class is like “a socialist convention” and adds “the things you hear in the classroom are scary.” #Cpc18
Audience member says party shouldn’t change from its “traditional values” in order to win over young people in London. Outside London in “the provinces” people still want families, he says. Murmur of approval from delegates. #cpc18
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Forgive me if I don't take Boris Johnson's sudden conversion to feminism, on the pages of today's Telegraph, entirely seriously. Here's his long record of making sexist comments in both print and in person. uk.businessinsider.com/boris-johnson-…
Here is Boris Johnson reporting on the "top totty" at Labour conference who "with the fickleness of their sex are following the polls." uk.businessinsider.com/boris-johnson-…
Boris Johnson described women as "emotional" "blubbing blondes" who are often "collapsing with emotion" and mocked them by pinning a Pirelli calendar to his desk
At the ‘Can the Conservatives win over the under 40s?’ fringe where pollster Joe Twymam explains the policies that might actually switch young voters to the Tories:
1. 50% reduction in house prices. 2. Scrap tuition fees 3. Stop Brexit.
Conservative MP Ben Bradley says the party is “improving on social media.” In fairness he did post the most retweeted tweet of any Conservative MP ever. #cpc2018buzzfeed.com/jimwaterson/st…
Conservative MP Lee Rowley says the party must “make the moral case for capitalism.”
“Labour have made the rules. We’ve got to change the rules of the game or we’ll lose and deserve to lose.”
At the Economists for Free Trade launch where they have supplied this handy guide to dealing with a no-deal Brexit. Glad that’s sorted.
They’re all here. Mogg, Davis, IDS, Boris Johnson, Baker, Jackson, Bridgen, Bone, Minford...
Jacob Rees-Mogg praises the two “towering” figures of Boris Johnson and David Davis for attending the event and then adds “and of course we also have Steve Baker.”
Boris Johnson has mocked minority groups his entire career.
He called black people “picaninnies,” gay people “bumboys” and now Muslim women “letter boxes”.
Either he holds these prejudices, which is bad, or he pretends to for his own gain, which is even worse.
Meanwhile Boris Johnson has described women as “emotional...blubbing blondes,” who only go to university “to find men to marry” and who should be “pat on the bottom” and sent on their way. uk.businessinsider.com/boris-johnson-…
All of this was documented by his own hand at the time and has been repeatedly dismissed ever since by the same people who are now dismissing his Islamophobic comments about Muslim women, all because “Boris will be Boris” and he’s just one of the boys.