To what extent are long-term factors still important in voting?

Age-The older people tend to vote conservative whilst young and middle age people vote liberal or labour. The posible explanation is that younger people tend to be more idealistic, want to change the country and the world. They favour policies involving more public spendings.As they become older, people have a more realistic and perhaps more cynical point of view. They pay the taxes and so become anti-social. because the burden of taxation falls upon them.In 1997 labour`s landslide win, it did better than the Conservatives among all age groups other than the over-65s.In 2005, the progresive parties, Labour and the Liberal Democrats, again fared better among young people. Labour scored well among 34-44 age group and Liberal fared well among those under 34. Moreover Labour`s policy on tuition fees was widely believed to have troubled many voter in contituencies that had a univeristy=more sttudent in the constituency the greater the fall in the labour vote and the rise in the Liberal vote.
Gender- in the past women were found to be strongly pro Conservative(stayed at home and were protected from bad working cond., when the work they usually worked in cleaner conditions and offices, had a greater commitment to traditional values of family and religion and women are more cautious in their attitude to social change) but in the 80s this trend was partially reversed and women become more inclined to vote Labour Party. in 1997 the swing to Labour was greater among women than man and in 2001 and 2005 elections women were more likely to vote Labour than man.
Ethnicity- members of ethnic minorities have traditionally been more likely to vote Labour than Conservative although the turnout among them in generally low. Saggars Findings(2000) based on data derived from the 1997 election,  suggested that of those who voted, 89% of black and 81% of Asian opted for Labour(unsurprising because many of them are simple workers+ Conservative more restrictive policy towards immigration) BUT Labour lost a lot of ground in constituencies with big muslim minority in favor of Liberal democrats. reason? most probably the Iraq War