Why did people prefer Boris?

[Meshy12]

I have been racking my brain on this and I can see that BOTH Corbyn and Boris have negative points of course. And I know that brexit played a key part in this election.

But I’ve heard that many in the ex Labour heartlands had Labour running through their blood but They didn’t want to vote for Corbyn and had to vote for someone.

What was it about Boris Johnson and his bandits that offered that alternative? It’s not as if Boris is exactly more trustworthy or moral than Corbyn is it?

Why didn’t they vote for LD for example? Or even Brexit party or Greens?

I don’t really understand it

Apart from Brexit insanity and hints at tax cuts for higher earners, I probably preferred the Tory manifesto, too.

It's a sign of how repulsive I find BJ that I could overlook the Labour manifesto spendthrift madness.

I've voted Labour every electon until this one where I voted Conservative.

My reason was not just Corbyn buy McDonnell and Abbott. McDonnell's views are to close to Marxist for me. I do not agree that equality is possible through the government controlling all resources and production.

Unfortunately Abbott I viewed as incompetent and that is after meeting her four or five times.

Then Corbyn himself is a fantasist, stubbornly put his views and beliefs before the party he represents. He could have apologised for the anti semantic behaviour in the party.

BJ isn't perfect but somehow I find him less scary than the 3 I've listed above, and was nothing to do with Brexit for me.

He has also gone straight to the north to visit areas where there have been hard times due to austerity and to show appreciation for the fact some have trusted Conservatives for the first time in 50 years. Maybe it's publicity but I am pleased to see that was the first priority either way.

Oh yes @daisychain01, forgot to put that one on my list!

Perhaps you shou give some of these a read:

• www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/dec/14/labour-meltdown-decades-govern-votes

-www.nytimes.com/2019/12/13/opinion/uk-elections.html -www.nytimes.com/2019/12/12/opinion/UK-election-politics-boris-johnson.html -www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2019/12/boris-johnson-britain-uk-election/603466/

All you that voted Conservative, have you given a moment's thought about whether you might need to claim benefits if you or your DH become too ill to work? Of course you haven't. Because you don't think you will ever find yourself in that position.

Any one of you or your DH could fall victim to a stroke, heart attack or car crash tomorrow. You could be in hospital for months and exhaust your employer sick pay entitlement and any private insurance you have. What then? No job, no insurance and not well enough to go back to work - if your employer hasn't dismissed your for your sick leave. Well then it's ESA or PIP. Where you're highly likely to be rejected because the assessor finds you fit to work. You have no income, can't pay your mortgage and find your house being repossessed. This is the reality of the welfare state under the Tories.

Don't imagine that you are somehow immune from it because you have a good job now. That good job could evaporate very quickly when you're too ill to work. Check out your employer's sick policy. You could find yourself reliant on benefits much sooner than you think. And access to benefits is much, much harder than you think.

But hey, Boris is such a fun chap!

A woman was interviewed in sedgefield saying she swapped to tory as she thought things had gone downhill in last 10 years and wanted to change things. Did she not realise the tories have been in government all that time???

I honestly think a lot of people fail to connect the national with the local, so everything going wrong is the fault of the labour MP.

There was also a lot (in that area) who said they would never vote for Labour under Corbyn. Certainly my experience was that they heavily outweighed those that said they would still vote Labour. (And this has been the case for a while, not just in the run up to the election)

All you that voted Conservative, have you given a moment's thought about whether you might need to claim benefits if you or your DH become too ill to work? Of course you haven't. Because you don't think you will ever find yourself in that position.

They are the people who voted Conservative.

• 21:29IAmCatBed

All you that voted Conservative, have you given a moment's thought about whether you might need to claim benefits if you or your DH become too ill to work? Of course you haven't. Because you don't think you will ever find yourself in that position.*

Honestly, I think this sort of thing is a big part of the problem. Not people not thinking, but the lecturing arrogance of some of the left.

I don't like Corbyn, Abbott or McDonnell but if you are deluded enough to think that the Tories are going to make your life better then I'm sorry, you deserve everything you get.

Loads of people on benefits voted Conservative.

The Labour Party as they stand are now utterly irrelevant and probably will remain so for the next 5 years, at least.

Anyone who doesn't think about that and think it might be time to change the record must be hard of thinking.

@IAmCatBed you know, I really struggle when people accuse anyone who votes Tory of being completely immune from life's tragedies. Labour voters seem to believe they have some monopoly on bad things happening. How bloody crass and insensitive can you be?

Yup, my DH did die of a sudden heart attack thank you very much. And my DBro also died 2 years ago of a brain tumour. And I had to cope as best I could And for your information it had sweet FA to do with who I voted for.

There will be a lot of people very insulted by your accusations borne out of ignorance and deluded ideology.

I don’t think Johnson is less (or equally as) ‘moral’ than Corbyn. Boris is an adulterer (in common with lots of t population - so maybe people aren’t so quick to judge) but Corbyn is a terrorist sympathiser and supporter.

......despite them being in power for nine years already

The first five years was the Cameron-Clegg coalition. The last 2.5 years has been a minority govt paralysed by its inability to get Brexit done and internal rebellion. In between we briefly had Cameron and then May, and many would say that under Cameron the party was barely recognisable as Conservative.

KatnissMellark

Honestly, I think this sort of thing is a big part of the problem. Not people not thinking, but the lecturing arrogance of some of the left.

How is this lecturing arrogance? It's the way it works. This is the way the welfare benefits system works. I only have 30 years experience of it. Perhaps you know better? If you can provide better advice crack on!

Down to personal PR. Boris is cheerful, warm and smiling - Jezza is rigid with horror and when you see the two together, (Queens speech, debates etc) Jezza is all Kevin the Teenager and Boris is straight for a handshake, twinkly eyed to the last. He went straight to greet the question askers on debates. He never gets (outwardly) irritated, even dangling from a wire, waving flags around and stuck up in the air for the Olympics. He used positivity to sell his position and didn’t woffle much. He said repeatedly this was a great country that he loves and he believes that the UK has potential and will be bounding ahead free of the EU shackles because we’re awesome. He acknowledged that everyone is and was sick to death of the refusal of MPs to act as servants of the people, even if they do think they’re cleverer than that thick racist majority they serve. He thus managed to get a load of Brexiteers to vote for him when they have been labour voters for decades. Being a womaniser does not go against him with a huge proportion of voters for some reason. They don’t care. They just don’t. They aren’t shagging him so they don’t give a shiny shit if he is unfaithful to his wife / Girlfriend / teapot.

Jezza has principles and I think honesty as I don’t think he dissembles at all and this PR wise but looks sour and cross and humourless in comparison. He looks as though he takes himself Incredibly Seriously and this is a society now that in some ways views a General Election like a really grown up X Factor. Jezza doesn’t really go in for saying the UK is an amazing place to be. He has a sexy socialist thing of the sharing caring variety but he couldn’t get into his stride because his neutrality on Brexit stuffed him and stifled him instead of the last election in which he did well, vowing to implement the result of the referendum. These pesky Leave voters are many and they vote where they believe they are listened to.

It is ALL about PR. Get Keir Starmer in as leader as a competent opposition leader and once Brexit is done, he may well wipe the floor with Boris.

I found this quote to ring true, particularly of the many “Tories are cunts” posts during the election and after:

“ Finally, Johnson has benefited from critics whose mode of analysis is that anything and everything he does is dumb, dishonest, wretched and ruinous. Lately, they warn that he will bring about the end of the country itself. Similarly in the United States, some anti-Trump pundits have been forecasting economic decline and doom for three years straight as the economy continues to grow and unemployment plummets.”

“ Bad things can — and, inevitably, will — happen. In the meantime, what we have is a trans-Atlantic case of boys crying wolf. Does it ever occur to the critics that, by constantly inferring or predicting the worst about either man, they make their less-than-worst moments look good, and their good ones seem positively great?”

@IAmCatBed it's not the point you're trying to make particularly, it's the way you're doing it. It comes across as lecturing, arrogant and patronising. No one is allowed to disagree with the left, lest they be a selfish arsehole. People are fed up with the name-calling and mudslinging. I know I am, and it doesn't even 'apply' to me, I don't vote Conservative!

If you read back the bit of your post that I've quoted, it's not explaining how the benefits system works,it's criticising those who have voted differently to you as unthinking.

It's so arrogant to label c50% of the country as selfish/stupid/racist. People just disagree with you!

• Because they wanted Brexit done

Because they wanted a strong government, not another hung parliament*

These were the reasons I heard most often.
It ultimately doesn't matter they are nonsense, they were what people wanted to believe.

(Didn't vote either Tory or Labour)

But we didn't end up with a hung parliament, so that wasn't nonsense.

daisychain01

I am very sorry for your losses. Clearly you have had a hideous time and I send my condolences.

But I think you have misinterpreted my post. My post was in relation to people voting Tory now, going forward, in relation to the welfare support we have now. As in if people lost loved ones tomorrow due to a sudden illness or accident, what assistance they might receive from the state to enable them to keep their homes when they were unable to work etc. Let's be honest, it's very limited.

My son has had cancer twice so please don't waste your time telling me how I don't understand this shit. I do. It's fucking horrible and both times were the worst times in my life. But please don't pretend that the Tory party aren't a total shit shower. I'm old enough to remember them from 1987, when I first voted.

I'm from a mining town.
Born in one, now live in another one.
(I voted Remain and Labour btw)
Because people are sick of not being listened to.
They feel that for after a long time, BJ is the first one to stand up and actually listen to what they want.
All the patronising, shouting down of viewpoints coming from the Left it's accumulated in this result.
It wasn't a surprise, (although I'm slightly surprised it was such a majority) it's been a long time coming.

@Trewser I meant the strong government/leader thing was nonsense.
Johnson has already agreed to an internal UK border.
But his short, snappy catchphrases give an illusion of personal and governmental strength.
I think people genuinely believed that Brexit could get done, ie leaving the EU at the end of January would be the end of it.

...despite them being in power for nine years already

To be fair, no they haven't. There's been two coalitions, first with Lib Dems and then DUP.
This is the first majority parliament they've had since before 1997 when Labour got in

I voted Green, in the end I got to the polling station and despite being a life long Labour supporter I just couldn’t bring myself to put an X in theit box, I certainly wasn’t going to actively vote Tory or spoil my ballot so I thought I may as well help the Green candidate keep her deposit.

The difference between JC and BJ as I see it is personality and I think a lot of people in Labour have disregarded how important personality is when it comes to dealing with the general public. BJ will say and do anything to stay in power, so he’ll change policies on a whim if it will make him popular, whereas JC is rigid, he’s got his ‘principles’ and there is no room for compromise whatsoever. When there was that vote of no confidence in him he showed that he won’t step down easily and I think the wider public was worried we’d be stuck with him even if he made a huge mistake (and to be fair he’s not accepting the Labour defeat was anything to do with him nor did he step down immediately as others before him have done) JC doesn’t come across as confident or a leader, I can’t imagine him being good at the soft skills you need as a leader, whereas if Boris wants something I reckon he could hold the attention of everyone in the room and charm them. It’s not fair and it’s not right but that’s life I’m afraid.