To the Preachy Labour Supporters

ShotsFired Why would a few mouthy unpleasant individuals be the mouth piece for all labour voters? Works both ways.

Why would you think that the Fail is the mouthpiece of any sane individual, let alone the sole speaker for all Conservative voters?

What a bizarre comment.

Sorry personally feel that any Tory complaint about unfairness about labelling them "the nasty party" was lost when the Daily Fail labelled anyone who doesn't vote for Tory "Saboteurs"

You make some good points OP. People will choose on June 8th. Labour had their 13 years & royally fucked most of the country over. People won't forget that. Anyone with a pension would need their head examing after the Brown legacy

I just checked my facebook and one of my Corbyn following mates has liked a webpage called 'the tories are killing Britain' and today's evidence is that they've made VAT rises over a timeframe going back to 1979.

This is the sort of stuff that really gets my goat. Putting up VAT is not equivalent to killing. In fact, I wish both parties would campaign to put taxes up in careful ways to reduce the deficit and for us to get real about what the services we already have cost.

OP I couldn't agree more I had a friend after th e last GE post something along the lines of "stepped in dogshit outside my frontdoor today couldn't smell it over the stench of tories" another who posted "if you voted Tory you're a selfish idiot" she is a regular churchgoer and teaches RE at a local private school! Seriously do they think this is a winning tactic, only my Labour voting friends ex friends have behaved like this. My job involves meeting a large range of people a week and involves a lot of social media. Many add me on social media and for a long time I tried to keep a variety of friends. I don't want to live in a social media echo chamber but I delete or unfollow anyone who posts like this now.

I'm fed up with all the posters and memes that say that Labour are going to ride in on a white horse and save the NHS, give the entire public sector pay rises, raise the min wage, award everyone a free unicorn, save the cheerleader and save the world and on and on and on. All spending the same money over and over again.

i shall take a better look at my local labour person and the manifesto before I vote, and the polls. My main fear is that Corbyn will claim any result is a victory. The local elections were horrendous and he described them as 'mixed'. Burnham won despite him...

Deranger01 I would like to promise that JC will definitely, 100% not be PM, if it would change your vote, but politics is so unpredictable nowadays! That said, I would be much more surprised by a Labour victory than by Trump's election, the leave vote, or even by if Le-pen had won in France. The polls aren't even close, and everything is in May's favour - including the media, the timing, the division within Labour over Brexit....
What are your local candidates like individually? That is a big factor in how I'm voting.

I don't think that huge majorities are healthy for democracy, especially when such massive, long reaching decisions need to be made. I really want to see a decent number of MP's on the opposition benches, to do the crucial job of scrutinising the government and holding them to account. I don't think Corbyn is as bad as some people do (although he would not be my first choice for Labour leader), there are things I like about him. I hope that if Labour lose- even if it isn't a landslide - he admits defeat and steps down. I think otherwise there will be another messy leadership challenge, and he wont be able to hang on again. I also hope that there will be enough Labour MPs left to produce a new leader.

i agree with that squishy on austerity, i feel we've got a somewhat incompetent party (tory) and a really incompetent party (corbyn's leadership of labour). I'm hoping labour can raise their game a LOT for the next GE after this one.

The Tories have borrowed ridiculous amounts and increased the debt while imposing austerity measures that have stifled growth in the economy. The cuts they have made are a short term gain for long term pain and many of them make no financial sense. They are destroying the NHS and we will probably lose it altogether in a few years. The cuts are not just made for the purposes of reducing the debt, however, with the Tories it's ideological.

All of this pales into significance, however, when you consider that they have made the worst political decision for generations in allowing a referendum on a simple majority basis on leaving the EU.

That one shitty, arrogant decision has plunged us into economic strife for years to come.

How anyone can think they are doing a great job and vote for them is unbelievable.

muckypup I agree with you on Corbyn. He's as much use as a chocolate tea pot. Yes some of his supporters can be aggressive and almost evangelical about him. Which is why I left the labour party. I'm still voting labour though, well I'm voting 'not - tory' iyswim and in my constituency 'not tory' is labour.

Also, let's be clear, labour are not running on a 'let's raise taxes a bit and fund existing things better' moderate platform. They want to borrow £500bn to create a national investment bank, that's absolutely terrible in the wrong hands. I hope they drop that from the manifesto. I also think the political interference in the minimum wage setting is all wrong.

Austerity was needed, imo (not an economist but have really tried to read around the issue and understand as much as possible) but not to the extent it was imposed. Some of the cuts were false economies: Short term savings, which are likely to result in higher costs in the future.
Cut the fat: necessary.
Cut into muscle: Painful, and risky.
Hack away at the bones: Store up very serious long term problems, both societal and economic.
(Sorry, gross analogy).

I know a few working at universities that don't want tuition fees scrapped and a return to being woefully underfunded bobby!

squishy see now that sort of thing does have me rethinking. If I could be sure JC was not going to be PM.

But the Tories cut taxes for the rich while cutting benefits for the vulnerable.

So basically they're happy to reduce the National Debt by penalising the poor but they are not happy to reduce the National Debt by taxing the wealthy.

If you're in favour of managing the National Debt how does this logic sit with you?

I could understand if their policy was to reduce benefits and increase taxes for the wealthy. But it isn't?

The Lib Dems for example argue that they would improve support for the NHS by raising tax by 1p. That's how you improve services without increasing National Debt.

And FWIW I'm a top 2% earner, the Tories are planning to reduce part of my tax next year (corporation tax) when I would be willing to pay more tax.

tootiredagain actually why don't you read his book and decide for yourself. Why dismiss his theories before you have even read them because he might be left leaning? (He is fairly apolitical in his book by the way). By dismissing him before you even know aren't you just doing what you accuse others of?
There are very few economists (whether right or left) that think austerity is a sound economic policy.

I try not to be insulting to the very few Tory supporting acquaintances I have on social media. Belittling , sarcastic posts just get peoples backs up.

At work I don't know anyone that would vote conservative - as I work in a university it would be like a turkey voting for Christmas - but if there was I would try and have reasonable conversation with them. As it is there are many interesting conversations held between Greens, Lib Dem & Labour supporters.

I'm sorry you feel preached to TooTired; you are of course entitled to vote conservative if that is what your heart and mind tell you to do.

The obvious problem is , with sites like MN, is that a large proportion of members use an underfunded NHS, have kids that go to underfunded schools or are scraping by on DLA payments that are trying to be taken away from them. These areas are not priorities for the Conservative party, just as looking after big business and reintroducing grammar schools are not priorities for the Labour party.

Its an "honest" labour poster.
Much better at convincing those unsure of Corbyn than insults and name calling, I think.

I stole this from another thread, which in turn was stolen from twitter I think:

The trouble with Corbyn is he seems to think he has a money tree and he hasnt, I have had people slagging me offf left right and centre because I have said I am not voting for Corbyn, he is a fool, I wonder when he will offer the poor 3 gold bars to vote for him, he seems to be telling people what they want to hear with no substance behind it. I have been a lifelong Labour voter and I resent anyone having a go at me because I dont want to vote for a muppet and especially one whos deputy cannot do maths!

Or wasted millions on free schools

Perhaps the Tories wouldn't need to borrow as much if they hadn't reduced tax receipts by cutting the top rate of tax.

I don't like the venom from some people either and they come in all varieties. I think we just tend not to notice the ones that we broadly agree with.

However, if you want to vote tory and pretend they are going to help the poor, disabled, the NHS, education or anything else you are perfectly entitled to do so. You'd just be incorrect since all evidence points to the contrary.

Yes labour are a shower. Everyone else is too small to really matter. I ain't deluded.

The biggest problem for Corbyn's supporters is that name calling is not effective at winning people over, really, and that's why it's a bad plan. It is also clear some people saying horrible things to Tory voters are scared and they deserve sympathy and understanding. I do care that they are scared of 5 more years of May, and I wish the Labour leadership hadn't left them down so bloody badly.