The Conservative Party faces the problem of a changing country, not a change in ethnic diversity or gender identity, but a change in age brackets. In fact, the electorate is aging out of their preferred conservatism, and they are not getting any younger.
In this changed country, appeals to tax cuts and smaller government simply do not have the attraction they once did. Dependence on the state has grown. Part of that dependence stems from the outsized expansion of the public service since 2015, but that is not the main culprit. The real culprit is the growing share of the population made up of retirees and pensioners.
