Help - tempted to vote Tory, against my long held values! Convince me otherwise!

Boulevard yes they announced more spending on children's mental health but let's put this into context - NHS spending on children's mental health services in 2009-10, the final year of the last Labour government, was equivalent to £766m (at 2013-14 prices) and by 2012-13, it had fallen to the equivalent of £717m. And that's without taking into account all the cuts to mental health services that local authorities have also made.

Interested to see justgetthruthegoddamday saying coalition is good, it seemed to piss everyone off last time with the negotiations and compromises.

It is a bit crazy that we are offered diametrically opposed Option A and Option B, and 36% vote for one and 35% for the other, but our country is dragged unhindered in direction A for five years, then the situation reverses and we go in direction B for five years

I have a funny feeling stuff like Universal Credit, or reorganisations of NHS/education, waste far more money in consultancy and management fees than they ever actually save us or improve services.
Plus they only last till the next big swinging dick comes along and decides to make his mark on the dep't after a reshuffle/election, so we start the whole thing again. What's the point?

The Tories are not a pro- women ( and some might argue anti- women party), one of the first things they did ( in 2010) was axe the woman's national commission, an organisation that advocates for the rights of women. The women's national commission had been going since 1969. But obviously the Eton boys brigade have a very dim view of the needs of women, especially women in need. The effects of losing such a powerful advocate can be seen such as cuts to legal aid so that not all women who experience domestic violence are entitled to legal aid.

Like the NHS mental health service cuts, and cuts to social services, and to legal aid the people who are affected are often the most vulnerable and whose voices are often not heard.

Dear Mamuska, the NHS on its' own is enough not to vote Tory. You know they've been doing their best to dismantle it, piece by piece, and that isn't good for anyone, rich or poor. It isn't good for individuals, and it isn't good for the economy.

But I think blacksunday hit the nail on the head about unemployment with this:

Unemployment is nominally down because, although job opportunities haven't improved much, people are taking on low-paid, part-time jobs, or classifying themselves as 'self-employed'.

Cameron is right that the claimant rate is down, but this doesn't mean that those who were on benefits are now in jobs, it just means benefits are more and more difficult to claim. For many this just means they are destitute, or they are employed but on zero-hours contracts (destitute on the weeks when they are not offered work, but by the terms of that contract are unable to offer their labour elsewhere).

TheHouseOfMirth it's not something I have done my homework on, but didn't the LDs announce more money for children's mental health services this/last week? Do you think it's enough to make a difference, do you think it'll be targetted correctly?

Like the OP, I used to always vote Lib Dem but am honestly not sure which way to go this time (although never Tory). I've been reading up on the individual Labour/Lib Dem/Green candidates for my constituency as the only sensible way to make a decision here. Based on that, I'm tempted to go Green (even though I'm not that impressed with their leader).

Yes please explain why.

I had heard that right wing voters were less intelligent so, my view, they just follow blindly. Let's have a well reasoned argument please.

My brother was politically apathetic. He is a doctor and hates what the Tories are doing to the NHS, so he has joined the Labour Party and is hoping Andy Burnham will be our next Health Secretary.

Over the last 5 years our trade balance and Current Account Deficit have worsened, and we now have the embarrassment (as the 6th wealthiest country) of having food banks. People in work cannot pay rent and rely on food banks.

The vulnerable suffer like the disabled, yet the government cut the taxes to the very richest.

I have voted for them before but I am not voting for the current lot of Selfservatives.

silveroldie - why?

You and the other Tory voters on this thread haven't actually given a single reason why anyone should vote for your party.

www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/jan/28/-sp-david-camerons-five-year-legacy-has-he-finished-what-margaret-thatcher-started

Voting Conservative is the only sensible way to vote.

I also work within the NHS and have several friends who are Social Workers and friends who have children with physical disabilities and children with mental health issues and the lack of investment is clearly evident to all of us both personally and professionally.

HouseofMirth - I work for the NHS and deal with social services via work.

OhMrGove I am assuming you have very little current personal experience of the NHS or Social Services?

I am in the opposite situation.

I have witnessed the hell of zero or low hour contracts. No job security, never being able to ask for a day off because you won't be paid for it and you'll be "punished" with no hours the next week. earning significantly less than on benefits but refusing to claim any top up benefits because you don't want to go through the shaming at the Job centre

That is how unemployment has "gone down". Oh yes the benefit bill has gone down, but at what cost?

People with disabilities, mental health issues and caring for those in need sanctioned and losing their benefits.

I have lost friends because I care for DS who has complex needs and so am on benefits. Nowadays my middle class friends feel free to judge me because they "work" and I "don't". The horrendous us and them culture has become so widespread and oozed out of every word David Cameron says.

Yes I am impressed with what the Conservatives have done for the economy but at what cost

"swingeing cuts" my arse.

Vote Tory OP.

They have just produced a very clever and quite nasty budget. Basically, they could have used the extra and unexpected governmental income to reduce some of the swingeing cuts which are are already having a negative impact on the NHS and social services and which will only be getting worse over the next few years but instead they have used it for fairly meaningless tax cuts which any subsequent party in government will have hard time reversing because they will be seen to be taking money away from "hard-working familes".

P.S. If anyone reading is as nerdy about politics as me, there's an interesting* examination of how of the Health And Social Care Act came to be written, amended and finally passed here: www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/sites/default/files/publications/Never%20again_0.pdf

*Your definition of 'interesting' may vary.

I'm voting for the Liberal Democrats and I want another coalition with either the Tories or Labour. I like coalition government and I've been glad to see the back of left-right-left-right pendulum politics. It seems a grown up way of doing things-groups of ministers coming from different ideological backgrounds debating policies and coming to a compromise in the interests of the country.I think the LDs have kept a check on on the right wing excesses of the Tory backbenchers. Yes-the LDs reneged on tuition fees but I understand that this has not impacted on the number of those entering higher education and it really is a graduate tax on those who research show will have the greater earning potential a degree confers.
AND if none of this were true-the money and focus the Lib Dems have got for mental health services for children is reason enough to vote for them.

Social care has been decimated, the Nhs is being cut through not replacing staff on top of cut backs, there is a massive shortage of affordable homes or rented accommodation ( they weren't allowed to replace the council houses Thatcher sold. Where we live unemployment is still bad - I'm the only member of my family of five adults who hasn't had an extended period out of work in the past 4 years, and the job centres haven't helped one of them find work - just interested in collecting stats and finding an excuse to stop benefits that week - once because someone tried to change sign on day for an interview.
I am ashamed of the society we live in. I used to vote lib dem - never again, they sold out and allowed the Tories to create the uncaring society.

I'm voting Lib Dem. The student fee thing was bad... But do you remember the last few days before the 2010 election; the right-wing papers were howling about how a hung parliament would DOOM US ALL and we'd lose our AAA credit rating? The coalition negotiations had to be pretty swift and brutal.

I mean, I'm pretty sure that if an LD government had been elected (ahem ), Clegg wouldn't have turned round and said, 'Oh yeah, we were just joking about the fees, soz!'
...not like Cameron did with his 'no more top-down reorganization of the NHS', and then managing to do exactly that with hardly anybody noticing/remembering/caring Funny old world.

(We lost the AAA credit rating in 2013 IIRC)

nHS privatisation has slowed down under Tories, labour brought in something like 400billion pounds of private money into the nhs and it all needs paid back with lots and lots of interest which will take years and years to pay back.

Mamushka-

Please think strongly about what kind of society you want to be in.

If you vote Tory, then I hope you never end up poor, destitute, disabled, ill, unable to work, or require legal counsel which you can't pay for privately, because the Tories don't care about who isn't rich and can afford to pay for everything themselves.

But really, if you want to vote for the party of sociopaths, then go ahead.

Since 2010, we have seen a massive increase in the number of families using food banks. A further increase in wealth inequality. Attacks on civil rights and liberties, including access to legal counsel.

Britain is leading the charge against basic human rights, Amnesty claims

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/britain-is-leading-the-charge-against-basic-human-rights-amnesty-claims-10067989.html

Access to education is being attacked, via the abolishment of the Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA).

Privitisation of the NHS. Sure Start centres closed.

Here are a few more:

The pre-election pledges that the Tories are trying to wipe from the internet

"No frontline cuts", "no top-down NHS reorganisations", "no VAT rise" - why the Conservatives are trying to erase all pre-May 2010 speeches and press releases from the internet.

www.newstatesman.com/politics/2013/11/pre-election-pledges-tories-are-trying-wipe-internet

However I am getting this horrible niggling feeling that perhaps the Tories have done a half decent job... Unemployment down, taxes down, hopefully reducing inheritance tax, "bedroom tax", extended help to buy, all good stuff IMHO.

• Unemployment is nominally down because, although job opportunities haven't improved much, people are taking on low-paid, part-time jobs, or classifying themselves as 'self-employed'. There are many people now on 'zero-hour' contracts - meaning they have no security and no steady income, but are officially counted as unemployed.

• The raise in income tax threshold is derisory, to be honest. Raising the threshold slightly is not a very good way of putting money in to the pockets of the working poor.

www.independent.co.uk/money/tax/autumn-statement-income-tax-changes-wont-help-working-poor-9901680.html

• I'm not sure reducing inheritance tax is a good thing. The Tories like to talk a lot of Capitalism being a meritocracy, but when social mobility is so low (like it is in the UK) and parents can pass on most of their wealth to their children, you end up with family dynasties.

• The "Bedroom Tax" has been an utter failure. It has failed to get most of the people it was intended to to move out of their homes, and many of those who have moved haven't found suitable accommodation in which to live.

www.theguardian.com/society/2014/mar/28/bedroom-tax-failed-overcrowding-savings

• 'Extended help to buy' may appear attractive, unfortunately, it doesn't address the society wide problem of there not being enough houses. Getting help to buy will only further push up house prices. The Tories have failed to build enough houses for the current population, let alone the growing population because doing so would stabilize house prices, which is not popular with Daily Mail readers.