to be genuinely confused as to why anybody who isn't rich would vote tory?

[StuckinTheMiddlewithYou]

Seriously, I don't get it. Unless you're earning at least £40K, why would you?

Enlighten me!

Alouise so you want to force families to stay together. How do you intend to do that?

I didn't say I would force families to stay together!!

I stated a fact. The correlation between divorce and poverty is well researched.

"Children in poverty have lower outcomes than anyone else. That is because they are in poverty. Single parent families are most at risk of poverty, for obvious reasons. The low outcomes aren't because of the effect of relationships, they are because the children are terribly terribly poor."

Yes read what I wrote earlier, I agree.

What of it? How does it affect your argument, what are you proposing.

I'm not calling families that are fractured to stay together. I'm suggesting that it might be sensible to try to make the right choices at a very early stage. If you have one child and the relationship breaks down to try to make sure that you don't have another one in the absence of a stable relationship where the partners have got know each other properly and have actually decided to have a baby together because the relationship is permanent.

I guess you think the gang culture on some of our estates is OK, I guess you think it's OK that children are living in families where the mother openly conducts prostitution, that it is OK that in some areas every family is aware of another where a teenager has been stabbed. That it's OK to condone drug use within schools, that it's OK to allow children to think this is a normal way of life.

onceamai don't be silly of course I don't think those things are OK.

"I'm suggesting that it might be sensible to try to make the right choices at a very early stage. If you have one child and the relationship breaks down to try to make sure that you don't have another one in the absence of a stable relationship where the partners have got know each other properly and have actually decided to have a baby together because the relationship is permanent."

How are you going to make people make different decisions? People are making choices like these across society, not just poor people. How are you going to change that?

You stop rewarding them through the benefits system, teachers start telling the truth (not as my children heard in a CofE school during sex education that sex was fine in established relationship - I queried it and was told the word marriage could not be used as well because not all parents were married - the message should have been established relationships or marriage but marriage should not have been left out. Social housing incrementally is reintroduced into other areas - one or two social houses purchased in private areas so the ghetto effect is diluted.

Overall the education system has to start to help every child have aspiration. My MIL was deputy head of a deprived school for 25 years. Her view was "our children were off the estates - they weren't going anywhere so SATs were pointless and just stopped the teachers doing the things everyone enjoyed like drama and extra rounders and art!!!!

She has argued and argued and argued against the literacy and numeracy hours over the years and there is too much of that approach left in education.

ISN'T - got to go Xmas shopping now - it's already late and car parks will be too full!

So Labour ran up debtto improve public services. Thatcher by contrast pissed away the gains of North sea oil and sale of public assets like gas/electricity on tax cuts for the rich. I know which I prefer.

"A typical example of how the liberal left had contributed to the destruction of society."

That's not the liberal left about your cannabis story. That's just moronic.

As for "rewards" through the benefits system, it's such a piddling amount of money. How is it incentivising people to have more and more children? I'm not convinced about this at all.

I mean, I do believe the benefits system needs to be overhauled - most definitely - but the way the Tories are doing it with their slash and burn is most unjust and well, unprofessional. That will cause so much social damage. So much more misery for many children.

I think the behaviour that ends up producing fractured families isn't about money - a father leaving his child doesn't give him any money, it leaves the mother up the creek on piddling benefits. More needs to be done at the root causes of social deprivation which, I'm afraid, means spending money. Investing in people. That will never happen under this government.

People in general cannot and will not suddenly get an aspirational germ if they have lived for generations accepting poverty and deprivation as their norm. They cannot see a way out. I know I couldn't if I had to live that way, eking out an existence, lurching from meal to meal. And I bet there's not many others who could either.

Onceamai as a senir teacher who has spent much of her career in Inner City schools I d not recognise wat you are saying. I don't doubt that it is true and that there are examples of crap teacher/ headteachers but that is not the norm. While you are right that lots of children are not from two parents married family units the majority are not from families where women have children with six fathers.

Agree with a couple of your points there once

"Social housing incrementally is reintroduced into other areas - one or two social houses purchased in private areas so the ghetto effect is diluted. "

Yes absolutely I agree that having mixed housing is a great idea. In my area which is very affluent there is still some social housing (amazingly!) and it works much better. Ghettoisation is a disaster and leads to total entrenchment of poverty and poor outcomes. Also it means the wealthier people never mix with people who are struggling, and this can lead to feelings of them being "other", rather than just ordinary people, and that in turn can lead to resentment and worse.

This is why I am so upset about the idea of moving the poor out of wealthier london boroughs. It's just a bad idea for so many different reasons.

I think we should bear in mind that most of us probably didn't go to the polling booths thinking that the party we voted for was absolutely 100% wonderful and correct on every single issue, while the other party were simply wrong about everything.

You weight up the pros and cons and you make a the best choice you can.

It's called democracy. We're all allowed to have different opinions. And thank fuck for that freedom, eh folks?

Quite right, winky. Poverty is exhausting and depressing. It's all very well for people who are comfortably off not to look outside their own bubble, but people struggling to pay their bills are knackered. And far more likely to be physically or mentally ill. Partly because they are ground down, partly because illness or disability often plunge you into poverty.

People vote for all sorts of reasons but some habitual Tory voters tend to believe the worst of other people - blaming the poor for being poor instead of realising that someone has to do the less well paid jobs, some people are ill or disabled, that capitalism depends upon a level of unemployment to keep the workers in check.

Of course there are some people living in poverty who other people don't like or approve of, but the same applies to people who are comfortably off or well. Your economic circumstances don't make you either virtuous or blameworthy (unless you've stolen money, I guess).

Well I also think many people believe the poor are poor because they deserve to be. Which really isn't credible.

To Op, I could never vote Tory - there's a lot about them that utterly revolts me. Tony Blair is vile too mind.

You think winky. The evidence is on most mumsnet benefit threads.

oncemai you talk alot of sense especially about women having children with partners when their relationships are not well established.

YABU and/or devoid of ambition.

I don't get why being ambitious is viewed as the sole domain of tory voters.

Yes that's what I was going to ask. Why is it unambitious not to vote conservative?

alemci how do you propose to change society so that people stop doing this. Bearing in mind that it happens across all incomes.

well some inherited Tory voting from their parents. Some actually like rich people.
some find the Tory hangin and glogging to their taste. The vast majority of poor people dont vote Tory. (Most very poor people probably dont vote.)

I am pleased this question was raised.

I wont second guess Lux Logans voting habits but she lives in a wealthy part of London

You see a problem with women having children in relationships which are not established. Do you think it is solely the responsibility of women to make sure this doesn't happen. What about the women who have been fed a line/the men turn out to be horrible/the man leaves etc etc. The most common time for DV to commence is while a woman is pregnant. What is your suggestion for women in that position.

Reading all this has just reinforced my view that the majority of Tory voters fundamentally believe that the poor are there of their own making; that they're lazy and if only they could 'aspire' (that magic Tory word) then their lives would be nice and comfortable.

Until a couple of months ago we lived in Mr O's own constituency of Tatton. A nice middle class existence in the second most affluent constituency in the country. But I taught in inner city Salford so I, too, could have been considered a MNtter with a foot in both sides. Drugs education was thorough and kids were left very clear as to the legality and danger drugs posed. As for sex, we teach them that sex is best when part of a loving, commited relationship. I don't think it's at all 'leftie' not to stipulate that it must be within marriage.

I never encountered any extreme lefty views nor did I hear any teacher suggest that we should all 'do art and rounders'. In fact, IME, teachers in schools such as ours were even more acutely aware of how important it was that those kids got a decent education as fundamentally, teachers see education as a way out of the trap.

I also take issue with the assumption that 'teachers' can be grouped together as one big leftie organisation intent on smashing traditional teaching methods and moral codes. That's just nonsense. There may have been a large ethos of that in the 70s but that was 40yrs ago! It wasn't good but it's certainly no longer there as a mass ideology.

Me? I went to a nice, RG university and became a teacher because I love it. Married a nice lawyer, have 3 kids in private school and live very comfortably on our six figure combined income. I guess on paper I should be a Tory voter and I'm sure they will endeavour to continue to make my life as comfortable as possible. But, it's not just about me, is it? That's why I could never vote Tory.

Nice post monty.

"But, it's not just about me, is it?".

What we have to establish is whether voters select the party that is right for their personal circumstances at the time or what is best for the country as a whole.

The voters who voted Conservative because they are worried about this country's ever escalating level of debt did so because they put the interests of the entire country above their own personal agenda.

Excellent post Monty, nice to read something devoid of smugness and selfishness.