To wonder why if the tories are so unpopular, they always get in?

[maggiethemagpie]

Are there a lot of secret Tory voters who won't admit it? They have won most elections since the second world war, so they must be doing something right (in terms of appealing to the electorate to continuously vote for them) yet I see a lot of Tory bashing threads on here and I don't know anyone in my own life who'd admit to voting Tory.

I'm not particularly a leftie, I'm a centrist if anything and believe a balance of left and right leaning politics is optimal, but it seems like it is very 'right on' to admit to a socialist view and wanting to do more for society's vulnerable or poor, but to admit to admiring conservative views is not acceptable. You hear of 'Tory Scum' but never 'Labour Scum'.

So who are all these people voting for the conservatives? Because they always seem to get in, and the Blair years when they did not, people say Blair was a red Tory anyway!

Or are people just afraid to admit what their political views are if it does not sound socially acceptable?

[CointreauVersial]

I'm a Tory voter, no secret here.

[ConfuciousSayWhat]

As a tory voter with mainly labour voting friends, we tend to keep quiet because the left can be very nasty because they think Tories have no hearts. The left are extremely vocal and quite frankly they can become quite nasty and personal with their attacks.

Thankfully common sense sees through in elections

[YourPerception]

Fools like my Dad who also thought UKIP were worth voting. He thinks it makes him superior and more responsible to be rightwing.

He was in his youth self employed and we were wealthy. His businesses eventually collapsed and we ended up for a year in council housing. My parents split his house got reprocessed and he is once again in local authority housing.

[AlecTrevelyan006]

FPTP

[meditrina]

There were some interesting threads after the General Election about why people don't admit to supporting the Tories.

Even in those, which were intended I think to genuinely look at it, there were posts which just slagged off Tory voters. And even when the (counterproductive, in terms of the thread) impact of that was pointed out, the slagging off continued.

It was pretty damned clear from that that dominating a particular bit of cyberspace means nothing in terms of Real Life outcomes, and MN isn't terribly representative anyhow as it's fairly endogamous. And that shouting loudest isnMt a synonym for winning the argument.

So if you surround yourself with likeminded people (and the number of times you read here 'I don't know anyone in real life who thinks/does that' is strongly suggestive that a lot of posters here do precisely that) it can come as a bit of a shock to realise that other real people in real life think/do exactly that. And there might be more of them than PLU.

[louisagradgrind]

I think, beyond the confines of social media, they are popular enough. Sometimes, I think reading social media sites give the Labour team a false impression about how popular they are.

I don't think anyone should be ashamed of their vote and it is a real shame that Tories feel they can't say anything on cetain sites, without being shouted down. It stifles debate and the Tories win anyway.

[rollonthesummer]

I think a lot of my parents' generation are Tory voters and they are generally the folk who aren't on social media/mumsnet.

[louisagradgrind]

Your perception: no-one who uses their vote-no matter who they vote for- is a fool.

Fools are those, especially women, who don't use what past generations fought hard for.

Fools are those who seek to sneer at how others use that vote.

[milpool]

I think the difficult thing is that if you're not a Tory voter, it can be tricky to know who to vote for.

Labour have drifted ever more to the right over the years and there isn't a strong left wing party to take its place. So I'd imagine you have a fair few Tory voters, and some Labour loyalists, and then everyone else either becomes disillusioned and doesn't vote or goes for one of the smaller left parties.

[milpool]

louisa what's with the "especially women"? You do know that it wasn't just women who were denied the right to vote in the past? Young and poor men were too. Everyone has a responsibility to use their vote.

[Ragwort]

Loads of people vote Conservative, I am the opposite to Confucious - I am a Labour voter with mostly Tory family and friends .

I like Mumsnet because of it's liberal and left minded views, but I don't think it's a true reflection of society - certainly not where I live.

[YourPerception]

He is a fool as they don't help him they made his life harder and he thinks the way he voted makes him superior to others.

[Coffeethrowtrampbitch]

There is a 'shy Tory' effect according to pollsters. They up the % of Tory voters by 3-4% now to try to get a more accurate picture.

It is not clear why this is. Perhaps people who are small C conservatives resent being asked how they will vote, as they are more likely to view it as private matter.

The others reasons include age. The average age of a Tory party member is 68. The vast majority of voters are pensioners, so if there is a higher proportion of Conservative voters among the elderly, they are more likely to get out and vote than other demographics.

But as someone else said, FPTP is the main problem for representation. About 24% of the electorate voted Tory, that means 76% did not want them to govern, and FPTP doesn't represent what people are actually voting for.

This is illustrated really well in Scotland. The SNP poll about 50% of the vote. In the General Election under first past the post, they got 56 of 59 seats. In the Scottish election, which uses deHondt, a system which includes proportional representation as well, they got just under half of all MSP's. This was a much more accurate representation of their support (and I say that as one of their supporters).

It is clear that FPTP isn't democratic, but every government who is voted in by it has an immediate disencentive to change it, as they would be removing the system which had put them in power with no guarantee that a more representative system would do the same.

[HugoBear]

I think the Tories tend to get in because there is a perception that they are competent in certain areas [1], and most people just want stuff to be run competently.

[1] perception, of course, is not necessarily reality

[ThoraGruntwhistle]

I think the last GE polls showed that people do lie about voting Tory because people will think they have an attitude of 'well I'm alright, why should I give a shit about anyone else?'

[Chrisinthemorning]

I vote Tory

[louisagradgrind]

Yes, thank you Milpool.

I am aware that universal suffrage was a long time coming but, and this may surprise, you at one point-only women, lunatics and prisoners were not allowed to vote.

That is why there was the rise of the Suffragist and Suffragette movement: because women did not have the vote.

It took longer for women to get the vote: in order for this to happen, at least one woman died and many others were imprisoned. Several felt the negative effects of forced feeding while in gaol for the rest of their lives.

That is why I say ESPECIALLY women,

[maggiethemagpie]

I find it amusing that people are willing to vote Tory but not admit to it in an opinion poll (which presumably is confidential). Like they're ashamed or something? People are welcome to vote for whatever they want to, but if they are ashamed of their vote this suggests a slight internal conflict to me.

[Clawdy]

Reminds me of that line from "Brass"......."You never meet anyone who votes for 'em, but the buggers always get in...."

[redpinkblue]

Remember on social media it's very "on trend" to be a lefty leaning liberal who shares videos of why we should let all and sundry into the country on the premise that it's "our duty"

It is not cool to be even slightly conservative and the lefty liberals bash at any opportunity.

Much like Alistair Darlin said after Scottish Indy ref, the silent majority have spoken

[louisagradgrind]

Also, Milpool, when one writes or says 'especially' that generally means all but highlighting a particular group.

Hope both this post and my previous helps to clear my meaning up for you.

[bertsdinner]

Im a conservative voter, working in a labour stronghold with very vocally left wing people, after the last election they were all very angry, going on about tory scum, etc. Hence, I tend to keep my opinions to myself. I dont have the energy or inclination to constantly defend/explain why I vote the way I do.My mum was the same in the 70s, after tentatively mentioning to my staunchly labour voting family she was considering voting tory. I imagine it can be the same for labour voter in the reverse situation.

I agree with louisa, I think social media has sometimes given the impression labour are more popular than they actually are. I think there was an article about this in the Guardian about this after the last election.

[HumphreyCobblers]

The existence of sites like 'Everyone Hates a Tory" should give you a clue why people don't talk about being a tory. People I know link to this on their Facebook page often.

[Roussette]

In answer to your OP, it could be because on here after the GE, the threads by miffed labour voters were beyond ridiculous in their vitriol. Who can be arsed to put themselves up for a pasting?

I know lots of Tory voters (and labour ones too) and the feeling I get is that they believe (probably rightly) that the Tories have a far better idea how to run the economy than Labour do after the mess they left before with a note saying all the money's gone

[Whiteplate1]

Another thread to hide