Why are the Tories so great?!

[WildFlowerBees]

Answers such as 'there's no one better' or 'would you prefer Kier or Nigel' aren't answers.

I see no benefits at all to having the current government we have, all I see is a bunch of self serving elitist willy waving boys who care only about the wealthy.

How are they voted in over and over and why has no one else stepped up that has morals and can actually do something good?

@MidnightMeltdown

Because the political system is essentially 2 horse race and Labour are so out of touch. They've spend too much time pandering to the middle class metropolitan elite, and have completely lost touch with traditional working class voters.

I used to vote Labour but I don't anymore. I don't want to vote Tory either so I just stopped voting.

@midnightmeltdown there aren't any trad working class voters any more, that's Labour's problem. And the middle class metropolitan elite is just a hateful term for people who went to university, so far as I can make out.

I think really the expenses scandal and level of vitriol aimed at politicians since puts most sane people off getting involved. So you end up with more rotten eggs and fewer good people and the cycle continues.

Labour will struggle to win now they have lost their Scottish heartland to the SNP. Their failure in Scotland against another left leaning party is instructive on how they have lost their way, Labour are the third biggest party now after the SNP and the Tories.

This thread makes me so sad. It’s mainly people saying that they would vote Tory because they hate Labour. There are other parties. You can split the vote and try to stop 1 party have an overall majority - so that there needs to be more consensus.
Johnson has
Taken us out of Europe with a terrible deal.. There are major issues with supply chains and job recruitment.
He is destroying the NHS and will bring in US style privatisation.
We have much higher covid cases/ death rates than the rest of Europe because he won’t lead - and take unpopular decisions
He spent £37 billion of taxpayers money on a useless track and trace system and has lined the pockets of his cronies by giving them procurement contracts with no tendering process.
He supports Priti Patel whose attitude to immigration and immigrants is racist and frankly evil.
He has cut UC . People are facing sky high heating bills and shortages in the shops.
I could go on and on. He is morally bankrupt and is destroying this country in order to make money for people who don’t need any more money .He is a total embarrassment to the country. A narcissistic idiot.
And yes - Rupert Murdoch has a lot to answer for too.
To be frank I find it hard to believe any decent person would ever vote for him
I’

Read the transcript, she was bigoted. He was blowing off steam.

Boris Johnson is on record saying much worse stuff, not to mention threatening violence, touching up female journalists etc

I think people vote for Tories because they like their policies and think they're doing a good enough job.

[quote DerTrotzkopf]@TheCountessofFitzdotterel so give us a clue. What policies ? I do believe the tories have quietly stolen quite a few from the 2019 GE. And Starmer has taken the party in a more centrist direction. So how can they make themselves more electable ? More adept at lying ? Better PR ? Catchy slogans ?[/quote]
Dominic Cummings has written a substack on how he thinks Labour can win. here
You might find it interesting. At any rate it’s probably based on more research than anything I might suggest.

Absolutely the Tories are stealing Labour policies at the moment but I think Cummings is right that doesn’t have to be fatal for Labour.

The Tories aren't that popular (less popular than Trump) but our opposition is spread over several parties.

I'm a working-class woman who will not vote Tory. But I can't vote for any of the other large parties, so I can't keep them out. I'm left scrabbling around to find someone to vote for that I know will be a waste of time. Bloody 'ell there might even be some sense in what Cummings says.

The question at the top is, Why are the Tories so great?!
In my opinion the useful answers that I agree with so far:-
At the last election we didn’t have a credible opposition. Do we have one now?
The media convinced people that Corbyn was dangerous. I think he is dangerous nothing made up about that, ask some of the women and Jewish members who went to the conferences. Momentum sealed that for him. He rejected all other allies and policies.
Labour seems to despise women and all people who do not agree with them. Angela Raynor calling all Tories scum is not even reasonable.
Tories seem pragmatic not dogmatic.
Tories are flexible, they find out what people want they don’t lecture them. That is how Cameron’s Government brought in same sex marriage.
But I think they are in trouble now because of "contracts for pals" Owen Patterson. etc.

@Kljnmw3459

I think people vote for Tories because they like their policies and think they're doing a good enough job.

Dear God that’s unbelievable frankly!

Anyone who votes tory should hang their heads in shame.

yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2019/12/23/their-own-words-why-voters-abandoned-labour

www.opendemocracy.net/en/oureconomy/has-labour-really-lost-working-class/

yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2021/09/23/labour-are-struggling-make-big-inroads-voters-are-

yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2021/10/15/how-britain-voting-autumn-2021

thestack.world/news/society/politics/labour-how-long-do-you-back-a-loser-1623273345019

labour.org.uk/about/how-we-work/

www.labourmuslims.org/

labour.org.uk/activist-hub/governance-and-legal-hub/clp-hub/equalities-structures/national-womens-organisation/

www.jewishlabour.uk/

The BAME page on Labour's own website doesn't even seem to be being monitored - check the comments at the bottom.

Younger voters are more likely to vote Labour.

The birth rate has been going down for years, there simply aren't enough babies being born to offset the older generation.

The population is getting older, with fewer young people, so the old outweigh the young.

Labour lacks any coherence - they lack the 'solidarity' the Conservatives have.

Starmer seems to be fire fighting the entire time, with CLPs, back benchers, the Shadow Cabinet, Momentum, the party membership and the unions all doing their own thing - they're not only not singing from the same hymn sheet, everyone seems to be making up their own words.

The Conservatives are effectively more 'groomed'.

Labour always seem to be on the defensive, angry at someone or each other and the antisemitism riven through the party, coupled with the allegations of islamophobia and the expulsion from the party of women who were expelled for, I dunno, being women, all help to give the impression that it's a collection of lunatics in desperate need of straitjackets.

Now, the 'transphobia' row is out in the mainstream media, with Prof. Kathleen Stock resigning from University of Sussex, Jo Phoenix at The Open University, Alistair Bonnington at Glasgow University and other cases, voters are seeing what looks like the 'Left eating the Left'.

Everyone involved in these witch hunts and purity spirals would ordinarily be considered Labour voters and the voters on the outside, looking in, are wondering what's going on.

Voters are watching people who are claiming, with absolute sincerity, that words are violence, while violent crime is actually going up, sex crimes are going up and murders of women and children are an almost daily occurrence.

The people who voted for Blair and saw what subsequently happened, are the people who feel betrayed and are voting Conservative.

These and the people who vote for other parties, outnumber the 'young 'uns' who would ordinarily vote Labour.

Labour has a labyrinthine, almost impenetrable structure of committees, steering groups, special interest groups and hierarchies which seem to be issuing statements on a daily basis.

How is someone supposed to keep up with it all?

I think the Tories are in trouble and I think quite rightly so. Their outright failures over Test & Trace and the mask contract and before that the Ferry Company with no ships. These will be held against them, or they should be.

Tony Blair won elections after the Tories had some problems with corruption. Blair and Brown held it together. Who can show the leadership needed to repeat the act? The possible future leaders are not in parliament such as the other Milliband or Andy Burnham. They both have jobs where they are making a difference.
Who would want to take on the fight within the Party in a similar way to Kinnock taking on Militant?

Another problem that Labour or any other Party has is seeing Local Government running dirty towns. Glasgow and Brighton are not good examples of alternatives. In Wales there are serious questions about the political management of Health Services.
Labour might pick up a few seats in Wales or Scotland.
Can other Parties earn enough votes to make a difference, even to cut the Tory majority significantly?

They aren't so great.
I don't even like the tory party but they do seem to keep being the least worst choice.

For me, they are the party who are least against elective home education & the party who are least hateful towards natal women.

Any party who put transwomen into positions that should belong to women will never get my vote.
Any party that puts transwomens rights ahead of womens rights (& they are not the same) will never get my vote.

Any party who stand against ehe will never get my vote.

I'm left with the crazy parties or maybe the Tories if they get the transwomen out of womens prisons & single sex spaces.

Voters are watching people who are claiming, with absolute sincerity, that words are violence, while violent crime is actually going up

Comments from Boris and others about ' letter boxes' and picaninnies are totally wrong but they are nowhere as bad as the vile abuse against various women in universities. The 'Left' are trying to pretend that they are equal wrong, and the Red Wall voters among others understand this. They understand that there is a gradient, it is not the same principal.

I wonder if labour are having an identity crisis?

I honestly don't think they WANT to be associated with what the proletariat has become, now. And in many ways I cant blame them. I think the working class have moved away from the values that once concerned them (which were reflective of a very male/manual worker which doesn't really reflect the current workforce) , and are something of a homeless demographic that has been hoovered up by the alt right/leave crowd.
I don't believe there are any current parties that align with the proletariat, everything seems to be more focused on populism and division than any other time in my own history.

Since Brexit, there has been a lot of media attention on the working class communities throughout the north, and I do not sense that their current values have anything in common with the Labour Party - quite the opposite. And I don't exactly blame the Labour Party FOR that, because it would not do them any favours to appear to support what the current proletariat demands. I wonder when the WC lost connection with such potent concerns such as over the nhs, wages, worker's rights, etc?
The entire UK political landscape has been dominated by immigration/nationalism for far, far too long, to the detriment of all else, and I am including the SNP here, too.

Sadly, labour and the current 'cervix' bollox is making the whole disconnection even more bizarre!

Regarding identity, I think the conservatives have done well to capitalise on the current working class zeitgeist, and are manipulating it to their own ends. I feel that barely anyone is represented well in politics now, apart from the usual monolith of wealth.

I also agree with a pp who suggested a collective party with diverse interests, perhaps combining the less toxic elements of ugly 'left/right' politics with a focus on something entirely new and inclusive.

I think our entire political system is outdated, unsustainable and rather depressingly predictable, now.

I don't even like the tory party but they do seem to keep being the least worst choice

except, we actually don't know this, do we?

Labour might pick up a few seats in Wales or Scotland.

They have as many seats as ever in Wales. In Scotland, no. When Margaret Thatcher had her landslide victory in 1983 Labour had 41 Scottish seats (SNP 2), when Labour had their landslide in 1997 they got up to 56 seats (SNP 6) but by 2019 Labour had 1 Scottish seat (SNP 48), which considering there were only 59 seats (vs 72 in the 80s and 90s) is a pretty startling turnaround.

It's similar in the US. The Democrats have just gotten whacked in the off-year elections because of ideological overreach and an inability to get anything done at the national level.

@Pheasantlysurprised

I don't even like the tory party but they do seem to keep being the least worst choice

except, we actually don't know this, do we?

How can you say this when Labour have not been in power for 11 years? The austerity years (wrecked the NHS and local government services completely), and Brexit (fucking disaster), all down to the Tories.

Another of these threads - yawn

It's because Labour are so awful and most people like the stability that we usually get with a Tory Government. Also 75% of people over 55 Voted and compared to 60% of under 45s. Most old people vote tory.

Cause none of the other parties are committed to safeguarding women and girls.

I hate a lot of their policies, but preserving the legal definition of sex is so, so important.

It's made a lot of women into single-issue voters.

@Gettingthereslowly2020

Jeremy Corbyn did step up but people preferred Boris because he has funny hair

He was the worst possible leader for the Labour Party.