Why do people say ‘all the parties are as bad as each other’ ?

Additionally Sunak focusing on a potential £2000 tax increase per family over 4 years isn't that bad?

I would gladly pay £500 per year for the 5 of us to live within a better society as I'm sure most people paying taxes would

I think it's chilling the things that Sunak said and they way he delivered them in the itv debate, the press think he 'won' and no one is particularly bothered

Saying without hesitation he'd use private healthcare means he DGAF about the long term prospects of the NHS and he thinks people should move on and those who won't be able to afford private healthcare don't matter.

I feel the country is pretty decrepit and crumbling right now with services at the same level as in 1997. The Blair/Brown years weren't perfect but we were in a much better place and certainly those in government didn't act this way. I wonder if not for the global financial crisis if they would have stayed in power. I also think in years to come more corruption from the current lot will be revealed

I honestly think that the differences are too big for people to contemplate. Five more years of Tory government and the UK will be unrecognisable. Pulled ever further to the right by whatever Faustian pact they would have to make with Reform UK, they would destroy the NHS, leaving a tiny rump providing emergency care, dismantle the welfare system, remove all workers rights, secede from the ECHR, and introduce Farage's much-trumpeted flat rate tax system (which only benefits the wealthy). You think things are bad now? This is nothing compared to "Britain as Singapore" - a project first dreamed up by Liz Truss and her sidekick. Even the most diehard Tory supporters know this is true. "There's no difference" is the party line. Heaven help an electorate stupid enough to swallow it.

Because they are....

Historically they’ve always looked after themselves, their cronies and their families Tax evasion , misuse of funds etc, and they get away with it because of some loophole they created or because they’re pals with someone “high up”

I think if you really looked into how the Tories have slowly sold off all our assets (for peanuts), you'd be shocked. They're fucking scum. I've never known a more corrupt, lying, thieving bunch of parasites ever. Tories and whoever vote for them only give a shit about themselves. Austerity doesn't work. Any decent economists would tell you that.
How can some billionaire scumbag really have anything in common with the average Joe? He was going on about remembering when he had his first flat at 25... how hard it was on tv the other night.. Jesus Christ. And he says it with a straight face!

Absolutely deluded. And everyone who votes for them.

He said that he’d let a loved one suffer on a waiting list and not go private, despite having millions.

How do you know how wealthy he is? Probably far less so than you imagine.

But I am asking why scrapping it is damaging? It’s just such a pile of rubbish so it going isn’t really causing damage

Everyone I know who is saying this is voting Labour as the 'lesser evil that has a chance if they don't shoot themselves in the foot again like last time'. The ones I know aren't saying the policies or likely actions are as bad as each other, but that party internal politics and nature of the system makes the parties as bad as each other.

Every party has had issues of internal corruption and wielding power for their own gain. Every party has major scandals that don't get resolved well and issues with accountability. Every party is still a group of individuals that have both their own broad range of opinions, with many shifting their expressed opinions depending on audience and how the wind blows because that's how they maintain their jobs and power. The institution of political parties results in them as a whole largely being as bad as each other in these ways, much like corporations, with individuals who try to change things from within still needing to play this corrupt game to have any traction. How to resolve that or if there is a way to improve that is something people have debates for ages, some more cynical than others in it.

Tories are to blame for bringing such a badly thought out referendum, with those of the now Reform Party taking some in using successive governments habits of blaming the EU to their own advantage for power.

None of the big political parties were great about campaigning for Remain though. Labour and Tory offerings were very pathetic, with nothing beyond the status quo that both had used for years as a scapegoat when things were going on that the British public didn't like. Both parties could have put forward a much better campaign that actually discussed possible changes that could happen while in the EU, but chose not to for reasons likely to do with trying to appease everyone. There were also members of both parties that were and are pro-Brexit.

I'm in a largely safe Labour seat, and am really hoping one of our local independents is able to get the resources together to run.

Almost all of these issues have been caused by public money being siphoned into private wealth.

I agree but can they fix it?

Last week my disabled neighbour had a stroke, his GP called an ambulance and they waited for five hours.
My child has had four different teachers over her final A-Level year.
Our local wild swimming chair ended up hospitalised after an ear infection from dirty water gave her a brain infection. I no longer wild swim.
Our town centre is largely boarded up.
My friends in Devon have crytosporidium after sewage got into the drinking water.
The waiting list for my 'emergency' gynae surgery was a minimum of 18 months.

Not to mention the fact that the entire social contract has broken down and our society is now more fractured than ever.

These are the things that really matter to me. These are the things that were very, very different under a new labour government.

This election is like finding out Jimmy Savile's hospital visit has been cancelled only to hear the sound of a digeridoo coming down the hallway

Because each of the Parties have ideologies some of us fundamentally don’t agree with.

So Lib Dem stance on what a woman is. Some of us really want full minority support for people with gender dysphoria and have lots of empathy for them. But we don’t want our children to be told lies about biological sex and to confuse them and we want safe spaces for women. Nevertheless I am voting Lib Dem as my candidate locally is the best and I don’t think they personally are too into this.

Labour’s ideological stance on private schools is ludicrous and helps nobody. Why not just fund SEN better and make sure all kids in state schools get more exercise. It’s SEN and sports that the private sector do better, it isn’t that complicated. Joe Wicks will be happy to help if you want some branding attached to your ideology.
And I totally agree that your own child’s or relative’s health or education always comes first. Not your party’s outdated bloody ideology.

Tories a cess pit of infighting. They can’t agree amongst themselves. They are too focussed on the grey vote at the expense of our future as well.

The real truth is that politicians have divided the country and there is no clarity between the left and the right anymore. At the poorer uneducated level many hate immigrants and want the nanny state to look out for them. The reality is that all work needs to pay a better wage and housing conditions and access to health needs to improve for all, but some personal responsibility towards your own health (don’t smoke and get fat and drink too much) and own life needs to be taken as well. Lots of traditional Labour voters were pro Brexit. So Labour is too chicken to backtrack on Brexit/closer alliance which is rubbish for the rest of us.

For all of us it would be better if the Centrist got together and formed a whole new party and ditched the far left as well. Sunak was held to ransom by reform type thinking- it’s good they split. Starmer needs to manage those out in his own party gradually who have extremist views too, he clearly tried but the press won’t let him get away with it.

The irony is that I don’t believe that either Starmer or Sunak personally believe in the some of the ideologies their party stands for. So it is a shitshow.

Why is scraping inheritance tax, damaging?

I thought not many people paid anyway, it’s one of those issues that often comes up but doesn’t change much wether it’s in place or not.

But if you have lived through quite a few General Elections, heard the glowing promises, the arguments, the threats, topped off with gilded manifestos........and within mere weeks (sometimes days) have seen the pledges turn to meaningless ashes, whoever wins, it's tremendously difficult not to feel EVERY politician is a self-serving swindler.

It's just a conversational cliche or trope. Something to say if you are too lazy to think or care, or go out and vote.

I don’t know. I personally have felt fucked over by successive governments since I was about 16.

I think Conservatives are screwing people like my dp over (disabled) and Labour will be damaging to my adult daughter.

My local Labour MP is a bag of shit and either lies or ignores people.

Because no party can fix our problems and they don’t want to believe that