British Conservative Party membership has decayed to a geriatric remnant

Evidence

The Tories—the first mass party in European history—receive more donations from dead members than from living ones, excluding Russian oligarchs. Visitors to the British Isles will be struck by the fading colors of the “Conservative Club” signs in English provincial towns. Like the old workingmen’s clubs, these hardly function as engines of recruitment anymore and often look more like retirement homes. The median age of Conservative Party members is now estimated at seventy-two. — Arthur Borriello and Anton Jäger, The Populist Moment, 138

Categorization

• CANDY: The Tories receiving more donations from dead members than living ones is a striking, tweetable detail about party decay.
• XREF: connects to: European mass party membership collapsed across the board from the 1970s onward — Anton Jäger, Hyperpolitics: Extreme Politicization…, 128; Mass party membership collapsed across Europe in the 1980s-2000s — Anton Jäger, Hyperpolitics: Extreme Politicization…, 128

Broader Connections

• Mass party membership collapsed across Europe in the 1980s-2000s #corroborates (0.82) — Anton Jäger, Hyperpolitics, 128
• European mass party membership collapsed across the board from the 1970s onward #corroborates (0.80) — Anton Jäger, Hyperpolitics, 128