To think that all Tory voters should become volunteers

[donkeyderby]

Give over your jobs to those who didn't vote for this bunch of monkeys, and run our libraries or feed our old people - for nothing.

I am a Labour supporter and I volunteer.

I agree Donkey

jasminetom - FWIW I do agree with you regarding news and opinion sources using one and taking it a gospel is so fucking tedious to listen to.

Why not sell the house? You should be aware there's a shortage of housing here. Hell, if you don't need the money sell it at a reasonable price to a first time buyer.

I was being flippant, of course. Apologies to those who took me completely seriously.

I am the product of two Tory voters who volunteer and I know lots of horrible lefties who are too busy complaining to do anything for anyone else. I occasionally read the Telegraph too.

My fundamental worry is that this Big Society idea, seems to have no detail. It seems to be as well thought out as a schoolboy project on 'What I would do when I am Priminister'.

What are we all meant to be volunteering for? Previously paid jobs? New posts? Where are the structures within which we receive our training and supervision (especially working with vulnerable sections of the community)? If we need to be volunteer librarians, are we also meant to be maintaining the library buildings and doing all the Health and Safety checks and risk assessments?

Are we just going to withdraw funding from organisations, only to have to recreate them on the cheap?

If so, someone else can do it and I will continue to volunteer for the organisations I am already involved in thank you very much

Donkey- you are as silly as your nickname.

I'm certainly not a Labour voter but I do think it would have been interesting (in an awful sort of way) to see what would have happened to the country had Labour stayed in power. Personally, I think we would have gone bankrupt by now and there is no way the IMF would have been able to bail out an economy as big as ours. The world would have sat back and laughed at us. No one would come to our aid and why should they?

The wealthy liberal lefties would have packed their bags and got on the first plane out of here, forgetting all about their carbon footprint. Leaving the rest of us, totally fecked.

But hold on a minute, didn't Gordon Brown put an end to boom and bust....???

The Tories aren't perfect but someone has got to sort out the mess.

Im working class, but I can recognise that yes, the Tories are a priviledged bunch who are no doubt out of touch with most people but I'd rather that than a load of so called 'politicans for the working people/class' who are totally out for themselves.

Just out of interest OP, are you a wealthy southern leftie or a poor, working class Thatcher hater from a northern mining town?

i've been volunteering in at least three capacities while working, paying tax, and bringing up two children.

So has my husband. And both sets of our parents.

How about you? What do you contribute, OP?

hahahahaha

Good OP.

Particularly like the thread like this recently where someone said along the lines of "but my daddy is a conservative and he volunteers. he helps with the old boys cricket club. and mummy does the flowers in church"

righto that's that sorted then

Another volunteering Tory voter here. How nice it would be to live in a Utopian society where the state provided everything. In the meantime, I'll put my cross on the card for the party who's got the balls to make the necessary cuts before the IMF do it for us.

Obviously some recipients of volunteering are more worthy. If you're a drug addict in a northern industrial city you are more worthy than a lonely elderly person in a rural southern village. Obviously.

Please can you point out who has said that the elderly are not worthy of assistance please abride.

Where on earth did you get that from?

Abr1de Read the last sentence of my last post re volunteering. I have volunteered since my early 20's and I am now nearly 50. I also work and care for my severely disabled teenager.

CJ2010 I am neither of these two categories of non-Tory voters you have identified. Are you a wealth Southern Tory or a poor, working class, Thatcherite from a northern mining town. Or are you, like most people, not defined by a stereotype?

DonkeyDerby

I see the logic in that.

Perhaps millionaire tory ministers should work for charities.

They are creating there own charities to help people they have dumped in the poo,poo.

Thats crafty but not convincing, they have already been rumbled. "Gabby"

Donkey - a very apt name.

sardine
from this weeks hospital care of the elderly scandal, perhaps. "Gabby"

Just out of interest, all the people on this thread who have blamed the economic problems on the Labour government - are they also responsible for all the other countries' economic problems? Should they be apologising for Greece and Spain, Ireland, the US?

I do wonder about this, because WE HAVE JUST BEEN THROUGH THE DEEPEST WORLD WIDE DEPRESSION SINCE THE 1930s and I am not entirely sure that it was just Labour's fault.

Obviously it would depend on whether the elderly person was a Tory or Labour voter and on whether the volunteer was Tory or Labour. That's the inference I'm drawing from this thread and the previous one.

Because all the virtue lies on the Left, doesn't it? Even literary taste.

I am a voting all singing all dancing (and occasionally baking) Tory - my local MP is William Haig. I do charity work, visiting elderly people in their homes and am also embarking on SSAFA voluntary work (helping soldier's families in nearby Catterick) too. Oooh - have I mentioned that I have been helping with the flowers in York Mister for the Rememberance Service for four years now...? I also wear lots of tweed, have a labrador and went to public school...
I am also incredibly poor - my business took a hammering with this recession, so whilst it limps along I get some housing benefit to help keep a roof over my head. I'm also a single parent having escaped an abusive relationship and if you hadn't guessed from the Haig and Catterick reference - I'm a norther lass born and bred.
What particular category do I fall into?

when chief execs start earning a more realistic salary will be the day i start taking more responsibilty for the monumental fuck up every government seem to get us into.

Nice one CJ2010

Donkey - I'm a working class person who neither benefits from having a rich Mummy and Daddy nor do I get any state benefits apart from CB. But talking of stereotypes, from looking at your post, you obv have a set opinion on what type of person would vote Tory; heartless, self - centred capitalists, who don't care about their communities? Would you agree?

I'm part of the fed up majority who work hard and get screwed, in all ways. I pay my taxes, abide by the law and try and make a good life for my family. I try and help my family, friendS and neighbours when I can.

The 'Big Society' is just a positive spin on 'The country is well and truly fucked, the pot is almost empty, funding across all areas has got to be cut. Deal with it' It's crap but that's the truth. To make matters worse, someone sold off all our Gold supplies at the bottom rate....how prudent.

This Big Society thing is just another way for the government to treat us all like kids and try to disguise the painful truth. I wish they would just say it how it is and make it clear that if we want vital services to continue we all need to chip in. I'm not happy about funding being cut to charities that do important, vital work, but what choice is there?

"The only reality is the present"

so we do have to move onto it occasionally.

One radio station were very unconvincingcing on Welfare to Disneyland this morning.

The presenter was lacking the basic info
on the subject. (But she would not stop talking.)

In a hole , stop talking. "Gabby"

I'm a Tory supporter and voter, and I'm not even sorry.

I don't volunteer as I work from home and look after my ds, so I don't have the time.

I presume we'll see Brown & Blair helping with the communities in Afghanistan & Iraq that they helped destroy. No? Didn't think so.

CJ2010, I have no stereotypes of Tories as I well know they come in all shapes, sizes and have different belief systems, like people who vote for any of the parties.

As I pointed out in a recent post, I was being flippant. My serious point is how unformed the Big Society idea is, and also, those who think it is such a brilliant idea should put their money, time and energy where their mouth is.

Blair took us into an un just war for sure but the Tories would have donbe exactly the same as they threw the weight of their support behind Blair and co. So the Tory voters talking about war would do well to remember that whoever was leading the Tory party ay that time would have done exactly the same had they been in power.

And YES YANBU to the OP

Lady, a lot of us have just as busy lives, working and looking after our ds's (I have three, one is severely disabled), but still find time to volunteer. There may come a time when being 'too busy' for volunteering will not be an option if this government expects some essential services to be run on the cheap.

Well we need to establish what is really "essential" and if they could function without volunteers. The NHS? No. The fire/police/ambulance service? No.

Everything else of my concern is privatised so....

Perhaps if all the Blair supporters are so desperate to see change, they should start volunteering.