This story is about two men, Tim and Tom. In 1979, they both work in factories. Neither one is happy with the way Britain is going under the then Labour government, and so they both vote Conservative in the general election.
Mrs Thatcher enters Downing Street, and Tim and Tom both look forward to better things ahead. Both men see themselves as strivers, and hope that the Conservative government will be on their side.
In 1983, Mrs Thatcher wins her second term in office. Soon afterwards, Tom is made redundant from his factory job, while Tim is promoted to a supervisory position in the factory where he works.
In 1987, Mrs Thatcher wins her third term in power, but unemployment remains high. Tom has now been out of work for nearly four years, and is now living in social housing. Meanwhile, Tim has taken out a mortgage and bought a house.
In 1992, the Conservative Party - now led by John Major - manages to win a fourth term in power, despite the economy having been plunged into recession. Tom has long since started to wonder if he will ever find another job. Although unemployment is falling, Tom is utterly disillusioned with the Conservatives, and has long since switched his vote to Labour.
Meanwhile, Tim has been promoted to management, and is thinking of taking out a larger mortgage and buying a larger house.
The Labour Party comes to power in the general election of 1997, and initially neither Tim nor Tom has any problem with them. In 2003, Tom lands another job. It is less well paid than his previous job, but after twenty years out of work he considers himself lucky to have landed anything at all.
Eventually the economy begins to weaken, and in 2007 Tom is once more made redundant. He still has the striver mentality, however, and is determined that this second period of unemployment will not last anything like as long as twenty years. Nevertheless he is still out of work at the time of the 2010 general election, and so gives up on voting. Neither the Labour Party nor the Conservative Party want to help him find lasting employment, and he cannot see the point in voting for any other party. By contrast, Tim has wavered in his support for the Conservatives in recent years, but is now firmly back in the habit of voting Tory.
With David Cameron now in Downing Street, Tom tries to remain optimistic about his chances of finding another job, despite being now in his fifties. Tim has by this time paid off his mortgage, and is hoping to be offered early retirement by his employers.
Tim and Tom do not know one another, although they live in the same town. The money that Tim pays in taxes is used by the government to fund the benefits which provide Tom with his only source of income. In fact the money Tom receives may well be more than the sum of the taxes paid by Tim.
Tim sees himself as a striver, and he regards the long-term unemployed as parasites who just want to live in indolence at the expense of the strivers. While this stereotype may have some basis in reality, it is nevertheless the case that Tom, like many other unemployed people, is a victim of circumstance rather than a willing parasite. Tom has the striver mentality, but he lacks opportunities.
In a sense, Tom is in part at least the architect of his own downfall. He has previously voted in elections for both the Conservative and Labour Parties, despite their persistent refusal to implement sensible economic policies. However he is also the victim of the complacency of people like Tim who continue to vote Conservative despite the fact that the Conservative Party, like the Labour Party, is entirely unsuited to govern the United Kingdom.
For all his faults, Tom is more realistic than Tim, and can at least see that people like himself are victims. Tim, by contrast, cannot bring himself to realise that the fact that he has been in full employment all his life and now owns his own home has more to do with him being lucky than it has to do with him having made sensible choices.
Tim and Tom are fictitious characters, but I would be surprised if most readers of this blog do not know at least one person like Tim and at least one person like Tom.
My point in this rather long post is that the Conservative Party tends to flourish by appealing to the striver mentality in working people while at the same time tending to disregard the striver mentality in many unemployed people.
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