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?

From the ones I know the answer to the above question will be Brexit.
Completely ignoring the fact of how shit Brexit is, they think it's great.

[quote frumpety]@JaninaDuszejko

Perhaps that's why the EU are not sending the masks to poorer countries, because the storage conditions may not be suitable ?[/quote]
Looking at a non-U.K. version of this story, that is part of the problem they have. A lot of them are stored in warehouses in what are likely suboptimal conditions and it would cost much more to find out which ones are fit to use and which aren’t.

Obviously this wouldn’t bother the U.K. because we gave our own healthcare staff PPE that wasn’t fit for purpose so we’d have no qualms in sending ineffective stuff to developing countries.

The EU rules aren’t entirely blameless, but to suggest it is a reason for Brexit is stupidly ill informed hyperbole from someone who admitted in their own post they didn’t know anything about mask even having an expiry.

[quote DerTrotzkopf]@SkiingIsHeaven looney lefties, commies, hand wringing do gooders, lefty liberal elites, traitors. Yeah it's the left exclusively throwing the insults
Maybe people would have more respect for some tory voters if they could bring themselves to admit that the current tory government is clearly inept and corrupt.[/quote]
I didn't say that the Tory party was any good. I didn't say I don't think that they are corrupt. I said that Labour supporters are particularly nasty when complaining about the Tory Party.

When Margaret Thatcher died the comments were sick. You would not get a Tony saying things like that if a Labour politician died. They were throwing Parties.

Lots of people didn't agree with the way she did things but it was her family that heard the foul comments and reactions not her. Really low and disgusting.

@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?

I would absolutely prefer Starmer to Johnson, I think a lot of the population would if given the chance, even the Daily Mail is turning on Johnson now. However the problem was Starmer was not the choice at the election, Corbyn was and he would have been worse than Johnson, just worse in a different way.

I see no benefit in the Johnson government either, or in the current Brexit obsessed, anti-business party that the Conservatives have become over the last 7-8 years. The problem is that Corbyn's legacy and lackies taint the Labour party.

Labour under Blair offered not just an alternative to the Conservatives, but also something to vote for, where as Labour under Brown, Miliband and Corbyn became the anti-Conservative vote, rather than the pro-Labour vote.

They are voted in again and again because the alternative has been so poor that the electorate have deemed them the best of a bunch of awful choices. At the last election less than 20% of the electorate thought that Johnson was fit to be PM, but less than 15% thought that Corbyn was fit to be PM, so many people voted for what they thought was the least worst choice.

@DGRossetti

Our FPTP electoral system has a built in Conservative majority. I can't remember the exact figures, but the easiest MPs to elect are Tories.

We had the opportunity to change it, but clearly preferred PermaTory rule, since that's what we're in for.

Well, there was 13 years in which we had a Labour govt, with Blair winning 3 general elections, so Labour "can" be elected with the right leader and policies.

Well, there was 13 years in which we had a Labour govt, with Blair winning 3 general elections, so Labour "can" be elected with the right leader and policies.

But if iirc labour need a greater share of the vote to get a majority than the Tories do because of the electoral system and that is probably going to get worse with the proposed changes to constituency boundaries which will likely give the Tories extra seats.

@RafaIsTheKingOfClay

Well, there was 13 years in which we had a Labour govt, with Blair winning 3 general elections, so Labour "can" be elected with the right leader and policies.

But if iirc labour need a greater share of the vote to get a majority than the Tories do because of the electoral system and that is probably going to get worse with the proposed changes to constituency boundaries which will likely give the Tories extra seats.

It depends on the election, in some years it takes more votes to elect a Conservative MP, in others it takes more votes to elect a Labour MP, but it also varies wildly by constituency as some constituencies are won with over 50% of the vote and some are won with only around 30% of the vote.

Parties who are concentrated gain the most, in the last election the SNP gained 7.4% of the MPs with only 3.9% of the vote, the Lib Dems gained 1.7% of the MPs with 11.6% of the vote.

Turnout and tactical voting is also skewed by safe seats.

Below are the figures per MP for the elections this century, it does move about quite a bit.

2019
Conservative - 38,264
Labour - 50,837
SNP - 25,883
Lib Dem - 336,038 (yes, not a typo)

2017
Conservative - 42,157
Labour - 49,154
SNP - 27,931
Lib Dem - 197,659

2015
Conservative - 34,346
Labour - 40,290
SNP - 25,972
Lib Dem - 301,990

2010
Conservative - 34,980
Labour - 33,370
SNP - 81,898
Lib Dem - 119,944

2005
Conservative - 44,368
Labour - 26,908
SNP - 68,711
Lib Dem - 96,540

2001
Conservative - 50,347
Labour - 26,024
SNP - 92,863
Lib Dem - 96,540

As you can see it has slowly swung from hugely favouring Labour (requiring twice as many Conservative votes per MP), to lightly favouring the Conservatives (requiring 20% fewer votes per Conservative MP), with the the change from not favouring the SNP at all to putting them at a large advantage and a huge negative impact on the Lib Dems.

Boundary commission report:
researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN05929/SN05929.pdf

Any redrawing of boundaries is done under strict rules. The aim is to be as fair as possible while not ignoring the needs of island communities or the location of other administrative boundaries.

If the Tories get more seats out of it, that might well be because of population movements. For example, I live in the east of England: massive population growth here in the past 10-20 years. It's a Tory-voting area, on the whole. If we get an extra couple of MPs then yes, they will probably be Tory, But does that mean we shouldn't have the MP commensurate with our population numbers because...?

If you want to do PR, that would kick the SNP out of sight. They get about 4% of the overall UK vote, and about 50 MPs, iirc. The LibDems get about 11% of the vote and half a dozen MPs...

As you can see it has slowly swung from hugely favouring Labour (requiring twice as many Conservative votes per MP), to lightly favouring the Conservatives (requiring 20% fewer votes per Conservative MP), with the the change from not favouring the SNP at all to putting them at a large advantage and a huge negative impact on the Lib Dems.
But that's in part to do with who actually wins, not to do with constituency boundaries. The SNP has wiped out the other parties in Scotland, because they pick up enough of the Scottish vote (about 45%) to ensure that they win almost every Scottish seat, and all the votes cast by the other 55% for Labour, Tory, or Screaming Lord Sutch return no MPs. And those 'wasted' votes go in to the calculation of how many votes it takes to return a Labour or Tory MP.

I have no idea how many votes it takes to return a non-SNP MP in Scotland - a bloody sight more than 26k, that's for sure.

@MatildaIThink the number of votes needed for a Lib Dem MP in 2019 is dwarfed by the number of votes needed for the lone Green MP - around 900,000.

On masks, France was caught on the hop at the outbreak of the pandemic because a lot of the mask supply for its overseas territories had simply gone mouldy in storage.

@Blueskip

Because the Tories are the only party (other than maybe the Communist party?) that won't get rid of women's hard-won rights. Labour, Lib Dems and Greens have reduced "woman" to an undefinable feeling in a man's brain. I won't let my DD grow up in a society where any man (predatory or not) just has to say they're a woman and can access women and girls' changing rooms, toilets, hospital wards, rape crisis centres, hospital wards and refuges. I also believe in science and that people dont magically change sex just because they say so.

Completely agree.

If you want to do PR, that would kick the SNP out of sight. They get about 4% of the overall UK vote, and about 50 MPs, iirc. The LibDems get about 11% of the vote and half a dozen MPs...

Not necessarily. There is already PR in Scotland and in last years election the number of seats the SNP got was indeed roughly proportional to their vote. The Conservatives and Labour got a similar share of the vote but Labour got far fewer seats. The Liberals got fewer seats than you'd expect from their vote. People still vote tactically under PR but in different ways so it's still not entirely fair.

I fucking hate the Tories…that is all…

@Obsidiansphere

I fucking hate the Tories…that is all…

But Kier Starmer took the knee.

So…this thread is about the Tories…

@Obsidiansphere

So…this thread is about the Tories…

But Jeremy Corbyn

I liked Jeremy Corbyn

@Obsidiansphere

I liked Jeremy Corbyn

But it is entirely his fault we have Boris.

People tend to vote Conservative when they get older. It's an ageing population. Basic maths.

Also 40% of the vote will give them huge majorities under FPTP, whereas the anti-Tory vote tips over 50%.

Furthermore, what makes me laugh about the Conservatives is they're in no way actually conservative. Cameron and Thatcher were neoliberals. Boris isn't anything, he'll do whatever is popular and ditch any policy which gets him bad headlines (hence weekly u-turns).

The thing to know with the Tories is they have no actual values. They'll do and say anything if it wins them seat. They go whichever way the wind is blowing. Whether you like the other parties or not (I don't like Labour at all), they do at least have some principles.

I cannot understand why they just don't care about people less fortunate than themselves. They make it so obvious that they despise the deemed great unwashed.

I also cannot understand why there hasn't been another party formed by non elitist twats who can answer a question with an actual answer that's relevant to the question and answer it honestly.

I am so sick of only having two incompetent parties to choose from, neither of them actually care it's all lip service.

Our whole system of governance needs a massive shake up. No more over privileged Etonian bully boys who haven't got a clue.

We tried. It did not go well.

It's why we've now got the Liberal Democrats, rather than the Liberal Party

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Democratic_Party_(UK)

The Liberals still exist, but they're rarely heard of.

liberal.org.uk/

The Labour Party were the best thing to happen to the Tories. The Liberal Party were in government for the majority of the time between the mid-1950s and the early 1920s and had so many great polices and revolutionary governments from Asquith and Lloyd George to Gladstone. Then the Labour Party turn up and split the non-Tory vote and the Tories have since been in for most of the last 100 years.

Apart from Atlee's government, Labour haven't really achieved that much in government. The last PM to really achieve much was Thatcher, it's just that her policies set the country on the path to destruction. So many Thatcherite policies have come home to roost in recent times.