This is a Paper 1 source question on voting behaviour and the media (spec section 1.4). The source-question format demands you pair points from the source with your own knowledge - the source supplies the debate, you bring the evidence and judgement.
The 2024 general election rewrote the class voting story. Labour won 411 seats with 33.8% of the vote - a historic landslide on a historically low share. Working-class voters split between Labour and Reform UK; middle-class commuter towns swung to Labour; older voters moved Conservative or Reform; younger voters stayed Labour or moved Green. The traditional class-vote alignment is now barely visible at the margins.
From 1945 to 1970 class was the single best predictor of voting. Peter Pulzer's classic line - "class is the basis of British party politics; all else is embellishment and detail" - captured the era. Working-class (DE) voters supported Labour at around 60-65 per cent; middle-class (AB) voters supported Conservatives at around 60 per cent.
From the 1979 election onwards class voting has weakened. Thatcher's appeal to skilled working-class (C2) voters - the "Essex man" - broke the alignment. Blair's New Labour 1997-2010 reinforced the move by winning across the class spectrum. The 2019 Red Wall collapse and the 2024 fragmentation of the working-class vote between Labour and Reform completed the dealignment.
Age was always a factor - older voters skewed Conservative, younger voters skewed Labour - but the gap was modest. In 2010 the Conservative-Labour age gap was around 15 percentage points between the youngest and oldest cohorts. Comparable to or smaller than the class gap of the era.
The 2017 election under Corbyn produced a record youth turnout surge and a 47-point age gap between 18-24 and 65+ Labour shares. Polling firm YouGov identified the "tipping age" - the age at which a voter became more likely to vote Conservative than Labour - at 47 in 2017. Pre-2010 it had been around 35.
The 2019 Brexit election entrenched the age divide. Tipping age rose to 39. Older voters delivered Johnson his 80-seat majority; younger voters were overwhelmingly Labour but turnout was lower among them.
In 2024 the age divide remained large but the parties shifted. Labour led among 18-24s (37%), 25-49s (35%) and 50-64s (28%); Conservatives led only among 65+ (32%). Reform UK gained sharply among older working-class voters (over-65s with no degree). The age gradient is now visible across multiple party choices, not just Labour vs Conservative.
2024 Labour share by age band: 18-24 = 37%, 25-49 = 35%, 50-64 = 28%, 65+ = 19%. Conservative share by age band: 18-24 = 5%, 25-49 = 12%, 50-64 = 17%, 65+ = 32%. Age remains the cleanest single demographic predictor.
Three patterns from 2024 specifically:
Voters who came of age under Thatcher (now in their 60s) have stayed Conservative throughout life. Voters who came of age under Blair, Brown and Cameron have moved away from the Conservatives as they age. Voters under 30 in 2024 have never voted Conservative in significant numbers. As older Conservative-voting cohorts die, the party's natural floor falls.
Older voters are more likely to own homes outright (a major Conservative-vote predictor). Younger voters are increasingly priced out of home ownership and rent into their 30s and 40s. The asset divide is more cleanly age-correlated than income-correlated.
Graduate share of the population has risen from around 10% in 1979 to over 50% in 2024 among under-30s. Graduates lean strongly Labour, Lib Dem and Green. Non-graduates split more across parties including Reform. The education divide cuts across class.
Brexit (2016) produced a generational and educational divide that has persisted. Younger and university-educated voters are more liberal-cosmopolitan; older and non-graduate voters are more conservative-communitarian. These value divides correlate more cleanly with age and education than with class.
Working-class (DE) turnout in 2024 was around 53%; middle-class (AB) turnout was 73%. The 20-point turnout gap is the largest in modern history. Class affects WHO votes even when it no longer cleanly predicts FOR WHOM.
Among 65+ voters, working-class voters are much more likely to vote Reform UK; middle-class voters are more likely to vote Conservative or Lib Dem. Within the same age band, class still operates - it has not vanished.
Reform UK in 2024 won 38% of working-class men over 50 and 12% of middle-class voters. This is a class-based realignment, not a class-blind one - it just doesn't map onto traditional Labour-Conservative class voting.
The "graduate vote" is heavily middle-class in origin. The "non-graduate vote" overlaps strongly with traditional working-class measures. The education divide IS partly a class divide in modern dress.
| Stat or example | Year | Use it for |
|---|---|---|
| Pulzer "class is the basis of British party politics" | 1967 | Historical baseline. The position class voting started from. |
| 1964: 40+ point class gap (Lab DE share minus Lab AB share) | 1964 | Maximum class voting era. Comparator for "how far have we come". |
| Thatcher and Essex man - skilled working class moves Conservative | 1979-1992 | Origin of class dealignment. Use as the start of the long trend. |
| 2017: tipping age 47 (YouGov) | 2017 | Inflexion point for age polarisation. Pair with Corbyn's youth-vote surge. |
| 2019: tipping age 39 | 2019 | Brexit election. Older voters deliver Johnson 80-seat majority. |
| 2024 class gap: 3 points | 2024 | Class voting now functionally absent at the headline level. |
| 2024 Labour share by age: 37% / 35% / 28% / 19% (18-24 / 25-49 / 50-64 / 65+) | 2024 | Headline age gradient. Concrete numbers beat generalities. |
| 2024 working-class vote split: Labour 38, Reform 28, Con 17, LD 7 | 2024 | Working class is now four-way split, not Labour-dominated. |
| 2024 middle-class vote split: Labour 35, Con 21, LD 16, Green 13 | 2024 | Middle class is more Labour than working class - reversed from postwar. |
| 2024 turnout gap: DE 53%, AB 73% | 2024 | Class still drives WHO votes. Use as the class-not-dead point. |
| 2024 Greens 7%, four seats - heavily under-35 graduate | 2024 | Generational fragmentation of the youth Labour vote. |
| Reform UK 38% of working-class men over 50 | 2024 | Class-based realignment - just not towards Labour. |
| Brexit 2016 referendum - generational and educational divide | 2016 | Origin of the modern age-and-education cleavage. |
| Graduate share over 50% under 30 | 2024 | Education divide as a structural change. |
This is a 30-mark source question. The mark scheme caps you at Level 2 if you do not engage with the source content. AO1 marks come from naming knowledge from the source AND your own. AO2 from comparing source views. AO3 from sustained evaluation drawing on the source. Your own evidence supplements the source - it does not replace it.
Find pairs of competing claims in the source. The strongest answers structure each paragraph around a source pair plus your own evidence. The 2025 Q1a examiner report explicitly praised this technique.