Champagne socialists and ageing lefties

Great article form the beeb. Must admit, my politics swung from left to right, as I went from broke truck driver to well paid techie

"A study is being used to support the theory many educated, middle-aged left-wingers are in fact conservatives who can't admit it. Is this true?

It is the cynic's perennial view of youthful idealism: that each student radical will turn sharply to the right once the pay cheques start coming in and the mortgage needs to be paid.

By virtue of this stereotype, we might imagine rabble-rousing undergraduate Rik from 1980s sitcom The Young Ones by now having transmogrified into Tory MP Alan B'stard - an easy enough exercise, given that both men were played by the same actor.

But an academic study has been seized on by centre-right commentators as evidence that this is more than just a cliche..."

BBC News - Are ageing lefties in denial?

Now this has to get a reply from Mary

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Hope so! lol

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I don't count as I do not have the potential to ever get a mortgage!

Barring miracle cures, I will always need practical assistance from social services.

Social Services are means-tested on an assessment as a household. They don't count our earned income, but as soon as you have assets or savings above £12k you have to start paying for care.

They also don't count a house you own while you are living in it. However, we don't own a house. And if we wanted to own a house, we would need more than £12k deposit! But we can't save up more than £12k for a deposit without having it taken away again to pay for my care. So we will never get a mortgage or own a house.

I will always de facto be (very nearly) at the bottom of the economy's food chain and therefore always be a lefty, demanding social justice while knitting my own yoghurt.

I do feel bad that I'm dragging my boyfriend down with me, but hey, he knows what he's getting into.

Of course there is the minor issue that I'm still in my twenties and thus still a certain distance off "middle age"...

*runs away cackling*

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well you're no longer a "youff" so you must be middle aged, which these days runs from 21 to 65.

Anyone got a spare Saga?

So howabout a win fall, inheritance from long distant relative dug up in Lapland, or a Euro Lottery win with no ticket purchase, maybe a suitcase full of cash found on the bus.

Would that be enough to move you to the right

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Prince's Trust defined Yoof as "under 30" (and I can't tell you how pleased that made me).

As for windfalls, that's where the attitudinal shift comes in. *serious face*

Right-wingers with jobs, solid incomes, homes, two point four kids, etc, tend to be very focused on personal responsibility, hard work, "deserving" or "earning" everything they have. True righties get very upset if you suggest that luck or contacts or a windfall had anything to do with where they are in life. Even if they can be persuaded to admit that there was something other than their own hard work which helped - an inheritance, some parental contacts, a cancelled train that saw them sharing a cab with someone influential - the focus remains on "I made this happen, I am master of my own destiny." They believe they're in control of their lives, and so is everyone else, and so those who aren't so successful, simply aren't trying.

If there's one thing that adulthood-acquired disability makes you realise, it's that you're not in control. You can work or fight for position within the range of your current circumstances, but the big shifts - positive, negative, or neutral - are out of your hands. Hard work is an essential factor, but not the major factor and certainly not a guarantee of success.

Example: you have an entry-level PAYE job for an employer. Hard work will prevent you getting sacked for not working hard enough, true. And it might increase your chances of being promoted. But no amount of hard work will guarantee a promotion, and no amount of hard work will keep you safely employed if the business goes bust and all employees are made redundant. That's down to luck.

So if I did get an inheritance or a lottery win or a suitcase full of cash on the bus... there would still be no part of me capable of asserting that I deserved or was responsible for it, any more than I believe I deserved or was responsible for my illness - or for my current relationship or for the support I got setting up my business.

As long as I believe that luck trumps everything else, I can't possibly become right-wing. As long as I am aware how easy it is for me to plummet to the bottom again, I'll want to do what I can to make sure that those at the bottom are protected.

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