Strivers (or Battlers)

Strivers are people who have to battle through layers of red tape, tax and congestion to improve their own and their families' lives.

Strivers (a term coined by Fraser Nelson in The Business) are people battling to get on in life. Strivers are not wealthy voters. They are working for something better for themselves and their families:

Despite endless red tape strivers will move heaven and earth to get their kids into a better school...

A supermarket job may not pay much more than the dole but a striver will take it in the hope that it might lead to something else....

Despite jammed roads a striver will endure long commutes to get to that job that gives her family the income it needs. ..

When public policy goes wrong hard-working families suffer most. They are hit hardest by stealth taxes, the marriage penalty, interest rate rises and long hospital waiting lists. Gordon Brown’s means-testing maze is making a mockery of their efforts to save for their retirement.

Strivers and the conservative coalition

John Howard based his Australian election victories on promising to fight for ‘the battlers’. He promised to clear away the officialdom, taxes and congestion that got in the way of aspirant Australians. Margaret Thatcher appealed to strivers throughout the 1980s when she helped council tenants to buy their own homes and when she cut the tax burden on entrepreneurs. With many wealthier people becoming left-of-centre values voters the Conservative Party needs to attract lower income strivers if it is to build a winning coalition.

Comments

[Andrew Morrison]

David Davis and Liam Fox are the party's prized 'strivers', and we really should be making more of an effort to parade these men among others around inner city schools so can find out politics and big business can be for them so long as they have the merit.

We really do need to chase the working-classes who have higher aspirations than striking for a 5% pay rise rather than a 4% pay rise...