Why are right-wing politicians agitating to end the lockdown when they rely on elderly voters?

The Conservative Party’s electoral success has been built on the backs (and votes) of pensioners.

The most recent General Election was a case in point. An Ipsos Mori analysis found that nearly two thirds (64 per cent) of those aged 65 and above voted for the party. And it’s been that way for decades. The only thing that changes is the age at which the Tories start beating Labour (it was 39 last time round).

During David Cameron’s premiership, the party took care to reward the faith of its elderly supporters, shielding pensioners from the worst of the austerity they inflicted on the rest of the country. But times have changed.

It is this same group that the disease described by Boris Johnson as an “invisible mugger” is targeting for its most heinous crimes. Just under 88 per cent of the fatalities recorded by the Office for National Statistics as being coronavirus-related come from among the over 65s.

Yet you might not know it from the remarks by some notable Tory MPs. It is from among the ranks of those draping themselves in the colours of populism that the loudest protests against the lockdown, and the calls to quickly tear it down, have come.

Take Sir Graham Brady, who chairs the 1922 Committee of Tory backbenchers. He said in the House of Commons debate that the government should focus on “removing restrictions and removing the arbitrary rules and limitations on freedom as quickly as possible”.

“In some instances, it may be that the public have been a little bit too willing to stay at home,” he declared.

No, Sir Graham, the public saw that Boris Johnson was, for once, telling the truth with this “stay at home, protect the NHS, save lives” slogan and acted according.

Younger generations have largely proven that while many might not like their grandparents’ party they still quite like their grandparents. They haven’t wanted to put them at risk of catching a killer disease.

Would that it was only Sir Graham doing what I see as his best impression of the Emperor Palpatine. Unfortunately, he has plenty of stormtroopers around him. Iain Duncan-Smith is one, taking to the Daily Telegraph to urge an end to the lockdown.

Duncan-Smith - who faced the anger and ire of many disabled people during his last stint as a minister – seems to have decided it’s time for the elderly to take one for the team. Pensioners, would you please form an orderly queue at the post office to do your patriotic viral duty? To thank your for your service, I'm sure there will be an IDS badge in it for you. Make sure you show it off even if you end up breathing through damaged lungs.

Steve Baker is another to have got himself into a tizzy. He described the rules as: “Absurd, dystopian and tyrannical”. Personally I find living in a country that has made Baker an elected representative absurd and dystopian, but maybe that’s just me.

None of that lot have yet gone as far as their those in the US Republican Party, which is supported by a similar demographic, the safety of which it is similarly contemptuous of.

“There are more important things than living,” said Dan Patrick, the ageing lieutenant governor of Texas, who cynically framed his desire to reopen his state in terms of protecting the jobs of his children and grandchildren.

If he was really so careless of his own life, perhaps he should have volunteered to work as a hospital cleaner or a grocery clerk in his state. To show solidarity. But perhaps he was just being a bit more honest than his peers with his apparent contempt.

He made the comment in an interview with Fox News, which has an unusually elderly audience profile.

A number of its stars initially characterised the pandemic as a plot to do down their beloved Donald Trump, before back pedalling.

They too are calling for a rapid lockdown teardown. It’s hurting the stockmarket! Of course it is. And perhaps their portfolios with it. Just sayin’.

What makes Johnson different is, of course, that he has experienced the virus. Having required a stay in hospital and oxygen, he’s been a little more cautious than some of his fellow party members.

Facing Covid-19 will do that to you, all the more so if you are, like me, among those it screws up for weeks on end.

As such, the lifting of the lockdown looks set to be handled with a degree of caution, as it should be given the risks of fresh outbreaks and a resumption of a rising death rate.

For once, Johnson appears to be out of step with his follow travellers on the populist right. Although, on both sides of the Atlantic, a spanner may yet be thrown into works that require careful planning.

The fact that so many appear willing to let the crisis hit their own voters does raise the question of how low the movement is prepared to go. The answers to that question are starting to get ever so slightly scary.