Mumsnet Talk

- My children go to a Surestart children's centre and I don't want that threatened when they start their slash and burn;
- The schools in my area are going to get their Building Schools for the Future funding soon. The torys are saying no BSF project is safe unless all the contracts have been signed, so if they get in, my children's future secondary schools are likely to stay over-crowded and sub-standard;
- This report in the Evening Standard today about Boris Johnson's raft of broken promises since he was elected makes me think that a future Tory government is going to deliver on little that they are promising now.

Not sure who I will vote for though. I think I voted Green last time.

I totally agree with you. The Surestart issue is the single reason why I will not vote Tory which my husband thinks is the stupidest reason he has ever heard for not voting Tory but I work with Surestart centres daily and they make such a contribution to the community and it would be a travesty to lose them.

Worth having a look at C4's FactCheck on this one...it goes past the scare stories from Labour to look at what statements actually have been made by the Tories regarding cuts. Nothing from them regarding exactly would happen to centres themselves, but it's not (apparently) quite as clear-cut as Labour have made out.

I just can't

Crap reason, but that's how it is

I've listened to them, tried to be open-minded, tried to put my childhood brainwashing core beliefs to one side for a bit

But still couldn't vote for them if they were the last party on Earth

HAving said all that, I must add that I have managed to put my core beliefs to one side for long enouth to realise that I can't vote for the current Labour Party either

so where does that leave you notnowbernard? With all the fuss over the loss of the Tory lead in polls recently, it amazes me somewhat that the LibDem support level seems not to have shifted a jot....

I am seriously considering LibDem

I just can't face voting for a party run by a small band of over-privileged individuals who seem to have to have no real experience of what life actually is for 99% of the people they want to govern.

-I'm Scottish.

-I'm old enough to remember how awful it was the last time they were in power.

I have not forgotten the utter devastation the Thatcher government wreaked upon all the public services in the 80's.

Everyone in the Tory party is trying to pass off this "Caring Conservative" nonsense, but they all still idolise that woman and everything she did.

David Cameron is devious, sly and cunning. He would have us believe he cares about the NHS, education, social services etc.

My arse he does.

They will get in power unfortunately, and we will see what how much worse things get.

It's just too depressing for words

I'm also Scottish and just couldn't.

Also, where I live its a choice between Susan Kramer and --Little Lord Fauntleroy-- Zac Goldsmith so just really a no brainer

meh, obviously can't manage to do that strike out thing

... they can't even put together an accurate bar chart.

Actually, that's not the main reason, but it is the most current. There are far too many things to list here, but the main one is probably that I remember them in power before.

ecletech, the names might have changed but they're still the same old bastards. Government by the rich for the rich.

I won't be voting Tory because I find most people running for office under this party morally bankrupt and clueless.

I don't want people like Zac Goldsmith, a man who never had to work a day in his life, is a non-dom and ditched his wife after having an affair for 3 years, legislating what happens to the sweat of our brows and what happens to my children, the only thing in the world that makes life worth living for me, which they care not a jot about except in any sense that it enriches them and their cronies or relations.

bobthebuddha - they haven't explicitly said they'll cut 200m from surestart, but they have heavily hinted that they will.

surestart is one of Labour's greatest acheivements (along with tax credits, the minimum wage and free nursery places), and I do think they will cut it. even if, as they now say, they will will replace "outreach workers" for the poorest with hvs for all, I still think that's a bad idea.

I will not vote for them because their arguments now are frighteningly close to Thatcher's arguments in the early 80s (cut deficit at all costs etc). remember, in the 80s we had 3.5 million unemployed, by the claimant count (and they kept changing the definition too). now, despite the deepest world recession since the 30s, and a bigger population, we have 2.5 million unemployed, by the labout survey (which is more accurate).

Because they want to expand faith schools. No Dave, that's just wrong.

OP - do you really think Labour aren't going to make massive cuts too? The difference is they will be even more random and ill-thought through and they won't tell you about them before the election!

Any party in power after the election will have to make cuts.

I think you need to read this article for some information about the cuts we are facing. Scary stuff.

I'm old enough to remember the Thatcher days. Never again, please. David Cameron is hardly leader material anyway is he. Think he's probably a lovely chap and all that, but a leader? No.

Have voted Labour all of my life. But I may not this time. Just for the record.

Lone parent, full time worker, living on the threshold of poverty here.

Oh, they'll have to make cuts, and it won't be their pensions or pay. LOL.

So it's cutting my own skin or not voting for cutting their cloths?

Well, I know which one I'll be chosing.

I'm sorry to be out of touch but what is a surestart centre?

And not that I will be voting Tory but you do know that whoever gets into power will HAVE to slash and burn, don't you? We are totally in the mire, financially, and anyone who is elected will have to cut cut and cut.

for all the reasons listed esp. i remember last time under John Major, i lost my home.

I think its an old boys network out to make themselves richer.

was thinking lib dem, but had a run in this evening with a smarmy/ nasty LD councillor, which although it shouldn't - it is affecting my thought process

Quatt- they are childrens centres - get them in early so we can brainwash you into loving Tony Ed Gordon.

Custy- sounds horrible!

'I think its an old boys network out to make themselves richer.'

I think they are, too. And if they are not then I know people like us, the working poor, just don't even merit a blip on their radars. They just don't even care enough to find out, how we live. I'll bet they can't even conceive, of the concept of a working poor.

Hopefully, after 15 April, I will work on the ferry boats, swapping shifts with my husband who works in a hotel, driving folk through in a minibus or on front desk or portering or just whatever needs done. This is our high season.

And I don't like to think, it is all to feather their nests and they don't even care.

For me, it's for an example, to my children. A way to try to think I, we, can be something more.

But they'll never understand that. Because they don't care.

So that's why I, a Yank with energy only when I'm pushed, will campaign against them.

Give me a reason otherwise.

Hah!

'Fowards we rumble, that river and I
all along your green valleys
I work till I die.
Travel this road, till death sets me free,
For pastures of plenty,
Must always be free.'
-Woody Guthrie, Pastures of Plenty