TORIES: Are you thinking what they're thinking?

[victoriapeckham]

Do you feel - from people you talk to and how you feel about the election ? that the Tories are winning hearts and votes with their campaign. They're going for very emotive issues (abortion, gypsies, immigration, MRSA etc) will they have pressed enough buttons to win in May?

[Twiglett]

I was talking to DH about those ads yesterday

I think they are vote-losers TBH

it is a bad, poorly executed campaign which makes middle of the road voters who may actually have more chance of swinging to Tory turn more liberal

I quite like the tagline though

the one that really gets my goat is the 'What if someone on early release attacked your daughter?'

[SeaShells]

Well I for one won't be voting for them!

[SeaShells]

Wasn't it the tories that utterly f**ed up this country in the first place?!

Hopefully we won't be stupid enough to fall for all that tosh propoganda that they are churning out!

[Twiglett]

But its not even good propoganda

"How difficult is it to keep a hospital clean" .. well actually fairly f'in' difficult since some party tried to privatise our national health service


at least 'Labour isn't working' with huge dole queues touched a nerve in the populace (campaign from way back when)

[anchovies]

Know what you mean about the 'What if someone on early release attacked your daughter?' Twiglett, I couldn't quite believe that one. Going a bit far IMO.

[victoriapeckham]

One would hope so Seashells. I think the "I mean how hard is it to keep a hospital clean?" is particularly rich since it was their introduction of contract cleaning firms which led to fall in standards and thus to MRSA in first place.

But in suggesting there are certain issues we haven't been allowed to talk about for politically correct reasons ? like increase in immigration ? I wonder if they aren't pulling in a lot of support. And with very disaffected Labour voters (cos of Iraq) I fear they might sneak past the post.

[SeaShells]

That 'how hard is it to keep a hospital clean' one really annoys me, wasn't it the tories that sold out the hospital cleaning contracts to the cheapest outside companies?

It's as if they are targeting the people who believe everything they read in the tabloids!

[Twiglett]

No, I don't honestly

I think its a nice conceptual piece that should have been researched a damn site better on non-tory voters before it reached the light of day

I think its a vote-loser for those who might be currently swing-voters

TBH I see little to choose between Tory and New Labour anyway

[Heathcliffscathy]

No, unfortunately the tories have about as much chance of winning as I do, and i hate them, but wish there was a credible opposition. the libdems should be cleaning up: what do they do, go awol over the crucial home arrest bill thingy...so pissed off with them for that. argh. i still can't bring myself to vote tony after iraq. my only hope is if they install gordon, otherwise i'm voting libdem despite their ineptitude. it is all so very depressing.

[victoriapeckham]

But Seashells, an awful lot of folk read tabloids.

And Twiglett with that attitude (that they parties are both the same) Tories could slip in and then we will remember with a big shock the difference between Labour and Tories!

[Amanda3266]

Yep saeshells - the hospital cleanliness one really annoys me too. When they sold the contracts for hospital cleaning back in the 1980s I was a student nurse and remember the uproar amongst staff about how it might affect cleanliness. The Tory press absolutely ridiculed those of us who dared to say that hospitals would get filthier as a result. Twenty years later with the hosptial cleaners halved and the hospitals filthy their riduculeing jeers have a very hollow ring.

[Twiglett]

What difference would that be then???

[Potty1]

i know what you mean sophable - Labour get away with murder because the opposition is so weak. And they wonder why people don't bother to vote!

[Heathcliffscathy]

we have to vote tho. people round the world are still giving their lives for a vote. just think it is totally immoral to chuck it away, much better to vote monster raving looney imo.

[misdee]

i have never voted am stil ltrying to make up my mind for this year about who to vote for. i read the leaflets that come through the door but havent had much chance to really delve into it.

[victoriapeckham]

Are you serious? I am so fed up with that idiotic attitude.

Just hearing the deputy Tory chairman say actually we re going to cut public services by more than £35 billion (and getting sacked for it) was wake up call enough. They will cut spending on hospitals and schools (which have received MASSIVE investment over last 8 yrs, even though it takes ages for things to improve).

And remember why we have shite school dinners - because the Tories privatised them as well!

Yeah, vote Lib Dem or don t vote at all. Great idea if you want to go back to the Tories. People have such short memories.

[Potty1]

Problem is, around here people are voting BNP ............monster raving loonies would be a real improvement!

[Heathcliffscathy]

errr.vp, not sure who that's aimed at, but don't think anyone has been idiotic have they?

[ladymuck]

The Tories won't win because they have a better campaign. They might win if people who would otherwise vote Labour fail to turn out (because whilst those voters wouldn't vote Tory, they're finding it a bit harder to bring themselves to support Tony).

LibDems have just lost tons of potential support over their inability to have their guys in Westminster at the right time. If they don't take themselves seriously as a political party, then why should anyone else?

Most of the Tory posters are just irritiating, but I have found that a) at least it is not all about Europe this time and b) we are starting to see some reasonable debate about some issues eg immigration and housing issues (still not enough debate over semi-horror stories, but I've seen some better reasoned artilces in the press recently).

[victoriapeckham]

Where do you live Potty1? And do you think the Tory banging on about immigration/gypsies is going to make them vote Tory instead?

[Twiglett]

Um privatisation .. and Labour get in power .. did I miss the re-nationalisation programme?

Bureaucracy .. lets add another layer shall we?

[Potty1]

I live in Stoke-on-Trent, historically safe Labour but there have been issues with asylum seekers and the BNP have made more of it than is healthy. The voters wouldn't vote Tory if there life depended on it but they may (indeed have) been swayed by the BNP.

[OldieMum]

I think this Howard Flight thing has sunk them and we don't need to panic about them getting in. This episode gave DH a great deal of pleasure. He heard him give an after-dinner speech last year (to a group of economists) and came home spluttering about what an idiot he was - the kind of person you might find propping up the bar in a golf club. Despite having studied economics at Cambridge, he seemed to have little grasp of economics and didn't even understand how the tax system works.

[victoriapeckham]

Oldiemum I hope you are right. This election is making me very uncomfortable. With their new ruthless Australian spin doctor, Tories seem to have no shame about how low they will go - race, abortion, gypsies - which has a reek of the far Right about it.

Thankfully economy is healthy with almost full employment, so although people are being worked up about "the British way of life" under threat, they don't believe foreigners "have stolen our jobs".