Scottish voting coming up soon and I think I am voting reform

[ScroogeMightHaveBeenOnToSomething]

Scottish elections coming up next month. I think I have decided to vote reform.

I guess my reasons are (in no particular order)

1. Policing - I am getting really worried by the lack of law and order. I live in a decent place and there is constant trouble at the bus station at night with buses getting their windows smashed. Police have been seen riding the buses to try and get it under control. However I just don't think our current police force is fit for purpose. The job is too dangerous for what it pays and so it can't attract people. They don't have enough powers to deal with the little scrotes and there is no respect. I mean look at the whole shoplifting chaos and the tik tok riots. The whole thing is start to feel quite dangerous and reform are saying they will have more police with more powers and be more strict with law and order. This is what I want - more jails, more police, tougher sentences, respect brought back
2. Housing. Okay so we all know about the housing situation and it's long been an issue. Tonight I was watching an old episode of 'how to get a council house' and I felt so angry and helpless and outraged. Family of romanians come to UK with no money. Mum and Dad and 5 kids. The dad has no particular skills so has been doing odd jobs at a car wash but currently not working. Both have broken english and missing teeth (in other words I don't think they will find getting work easy). So what does the council decide. Well the man is claiming job seekers allowance which maintains his 'work status' and so because of this and the fact he has 5 kids he gets a 4 bed council house. Presumably paid for then by benefits since neither he or his wife are working. They were both very, very pushy and aggressive and then when they got the house waxing lyrical about 'how generous english people are'. You couldn't make it up. Update on how they were getting on a few months later. Neither parent had started working so them and their 5 children were just in their paid for house living on their benefits with no skills that the UK needed. I mean seriously if you want to see what is wrong with the UK this is a good place to start. British people homeless and this outrage going on. So yes give me reform who can hopefully do a Trump and start rounding the fuckers up. I have no issues with people moving to UK and coming with a plan and money and getting jobs and supporting themselves etc. This family came to the UK with no money, no jobs and literally were outraged when they thought they were not getting their free house. The housing lady said they were getting a house through gritted teeth. I got the impression that it was to shut them up and get rid of them but totally unfair on homeless british people.
3. Benefits/Welfare - well I guess I have touched on that above. I think most of us used to have real sympathy and no issue with real disabled people or genuine out of work people being helped. They were in the minority, it was often short term as it was something they were embarrased about. Now I feel like because there are so 'many of them' I have no empathy at all. Which means the genuine folks are being lumped in with the scroungers and I sort of hate them all now if that makes sense. So another reason for voting reform.

Now I'm no doubt going to get told how terrible I am and that the kids are just having fun throwing bricks at buses, that I'm racist for not wanting unskilled romanians and their 5 children to live life free on our tax pounds. I'll also be a monster for being sick of the benefits issue and woah is me little johnny is going to be out on the streets with his 25 disabilities. Fuck me though. Surely voting for more of this shitshow would be insane.

Will it be better under reform. Yeah probably not but at least it's someone different and it might be better and yes I have read their manifesto.

(By the way one episode of get a council house had a boy with multiple sclerosis and he was getting a council house which of course was right. However you saw him crying and telling his dad he didn't want to live on his own (he was about 20) and it made me think of the posters here who are dead against homes or institutions for their disabled kids. I just thought what a disaster giving this boy a house on his own with careers 4 times a day was going to be (he was in trouble with police alot and was always drunk and getting brought home by them). He was just far too disabled to be living alone even if he was getting a house plus benefits. Sure enough the update was he had been moved into supported accomodation. So for this chap some kind of home was the right place to be and where he wanted to be. I've digressed a bit with this point as it's not really about reform and voting but I just wanted to throw that in there to see why people don't want their kids to go into homes. I mean do they really want to live alone in a council house with benefits. This one definately did not. Anyway might need a seperate thread for that issue or I guess we can discuss both issues here)

I agree. Voting for more of this shitshow would be insane.

Unfortunately so will voting for Reform.

Unfortunately, I don’t much fancy Labour, Conservative, Lib Dem or Scottish Greens either. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Is this what they call the end of the internet, where it’s just Russian bots talking to each other?

The end of the internet can’t come soon enough.

All I really have the energy to say at this point is that you don’t at all understand the housing crisis. And you have based you entire opinion about this on a tv programme which aired in 2013??

I’d recommend following Zach Lincoln on social media (an American who is desperate but unable to settle in the UK with his family) to understand HOW difficult the UK is to move to from other countries.

PS immigrants coming to the UK massively increased after Brexit - which was a shitshow making us worse off, yet Nigel Farage’s only successful policy/campaign. What a badge of honour…

And here he goes again with his insatiable need to blame the other while pocketing cash from his rich mates but convincing you ALL that he is a man of the working class. His poxy councillors can’t even run the councils they’re currently stinking out.

But that's the massively most frustrating thing, all those hoops you need to jump through to legitimately settle here including safety and background checks - can be completely ignored if you turn up on a boat claiming asylum

@ScroogeMightHaveBeenOnToSomething I really think you should think about why and how any of the issues, which you understandably care about, might be better under reform.
Farage is such a negative person in our current political world, he is self serving and divisive and I have no doubt life could get an AWFUL lot worse should Reform gain any power - just look at what his pal Trump is doing.

No one is saying there aren’t issues but you really lack empathy. You want the UK version of Trump’s America? Ok go ahead. Thankfully SNP is on track to win so hopefully your vote won’t make much of a dent.

Yeah think it’s called the dead internet theory

That’s nice dear

@ShakyBake I’m guessing that you didn’t vote for Brexit then, given that we previously had a policy in place to send people back. Nigel Farage’s success is the reason those people are here.

Indeed.
Thankfully most (human) people in Scotland aren't Russian dickheads

🤣🤣

I have literally no one to vote for in Scotland - I’d rather spoil my vote than vote reform. I agree with you completely more of the current shitshow is insane. I was SNP all the way until they began to shaft women. But reform - there is zero evidence they will be any better. Last local elections here, there was a women’s hustings and the Reform candidate actually got up and walked out because he didn’t like women grilling him about what he was going to do about violence against women. It was pathetic.

I would comment, but I'm one of the disabled you hate, so I'll just fuck off.

We'll just ignore the 40 years I paid into the system before I became disabled overnight by the (completely unexpected) stroke, & that the small amount if pip I get is all I get.

But if you think Reform is the answer, there's not much sensible people can say 💁🏻‍♀️

Who is the Reform candidate in your area?

This says it best, just substitute UKIP for Reform (much like Farage did, this proving that he's a disloyal fuckwad who enjoys the grift of being the front man but avoids the graft of actually doing real work).

So you're trying to tell me all the EU does not have a problem with illegal immigration? France and Spain can easily return their illegals no problem?

As much as I have issues with SNP I would never vote anything else as everyone else only has England’s interests at heart . I loved from England 8 years ago and I do NOT want Scotland to be anything like England . It’s not perfect here but disabled are more protected , nhs and schools are better . Yes I pay over £1500 per year more tax here than England but the money is well spend mostly !

nope just one middle aged, white scottish woman who is sick of the way this country is being run

I know what you are saying so I suppose I am going for who I perceive might actually do something. Also reform has quite a few tories now so I view them as a bit of a reform/tory party.

I'm certainly not basing my housing information on just one TV show. In fact if you are right and that show was from 2013 things will be quite a bit worse by now. I've been a landlord. I've rented in the private sector. I've bought 2 houses in the last 10 years and sold two flats. I watch lots of current affairs, I reads the news, I listen to people's opinions on here.

I just so happened to watch that romanian family shitshow tonight!

There has been plenty of threads on mumsnet alone about people being evicted, homeless, can't buy a house as too expensive etc etc. I'm old enough to have bought my first house in the nineties and my goodness what a calm affair it was back then. There were little closing dates, no btl's outwith university cities, people were not buying houses for their pensions, airbnb's were not a thing, immigration had not really started yet under Tony Blair.

So yes I know the problem is much more than just immigrants. However surely we house our own people first before we dole out houses to people from elsewhere. Secondly surely we only dole out houses to people who we want to come here because they are doctors, plumbers ie skills we need. People coming here with no skills and no money and lots of kids needing educated and doctors should not even get across. I mean is Britain a registered bloody charity.

If you don’t understand how the economy works, you dislike people from other countries, and you’ve been conned by a different set of posh white men that these ones may really care about you, then that’s up to you.

I understand but honestly I can't sit back and vote for the current lot that are in up here. Law and order seems to be a thing of the past. Shoplifting, vandalising things and benefit lifestyling seem to be the order of the day.
Houses being snapped up for huge sums. My own house bought in 2019 for 195K is now worth 270K it seems. It's complete madness. They are not sitting on the market either. They are selling within days as there are just not enough houses. Not to mention can't get a GP appointment. Thankfully I haven't been to A&E recently but I read the horror stories on here weekly.

Well, I shall be voting Reform in our forthcoming local elections for one simple reason: without them, I wouldn’t be able to vote at all. Our local elections were cancelled last year; they tried their damndest to cancel the elections this year as well, and it was only Reform taking them to court that meant we are now to have an election. I am outraged that the Conservatives did not shout from the rooftops about this subversion of democracy - I gather three Conservative councils actually voted in favour of cancellation of the election - and shall cast my vote accordingly.

shower of shite. Turkeys voting for Christmas. Populist propaganda.

for shame.