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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To think that all Tory voters should become volunteers

176 replies

donkeyderby · 17/02/2011 09:30

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.

OP posts:
ScramVonChubby · 17/02/2011 17:55

I know a few Born Again types (more Quaker, me) and they do seem to be fairly right wing; try telling a few about what the Qur'an ACTUALLY says.......

becomes quite a good game after a while Wink

BeenBeta · 17/02/2011 18:15

I voted Tory and used to volunteer for a charity until the Board of the charity, dominated by Labour councillors and trade union members, made the salaried General Manager redundant and asked me to do the job for nothing.

The Board didnt do anything for the charity at all except turn up to a few meetings.

This was well before the election so nothing to do with Coalition cuts. I refused to go along with it and stopped volunteering.

NoSuchThingAsSociety · 17/02/2011 19:37

ScramVonChubby - er, no. Given the massive amount of borrowing taken on in the last few years, public sector employees are simply churning public funds - net takers of to net takers of .

If the latter sum is greater than the former then all the more reason to slash welfare.

You can't keep taking from the productive part of the economy and give to the unproductive part of the economy.

Again, if you don't understand this, please let me know.

smashingtime · 17/02/2011 20:31

God I'm depressed by the number of people on here still peddling the line about the deficit and necessary cuts etc...they obviously did put the brainwashing fluid in the water then Hmm

We will ALL have to volunteer soon because there WON'T be any services left other than the absolute basics to keep people alive. Even then vunerable people are going to die because of these cuts and that is not stretching things.

The OP was tongue in cheek I know but the picture out there is more than grim...

PelvicFloorTrauma · 17/02/2011 20:41

Dillydreaming - Blair took us to war BECAUSE HE WAS FUCKING GEORGE W'S LAP DOG.

PelvicFloorTrauma · 17/02/2011 20:42

Correction. Blair was the lapdog. not having sex with a lapdog, although, given how plug ugly Cherie is maybe he is.

ScramVonChubby · 17/02/2011 20:44

No things you ahve an opinion its not mine though

you fuck of dear and enjoy yours I will fuck off and enjoy mine

of course i bloody understand all this; I actually have a post grad in a field that is massively suffering ATM.

you know, real people that have no choices such as the disabled.

Sod them eh, as long as the deficit goes down teh needy can shove it? +

just- not in my world love, in my world I fight to protect the most vulnerable, deficit or no.

Inertia · 17/02/2011 20:54

All the Tory MPs should volunteer. Their constituents get to say what for.

And -ooh, bonus money saving suggestion!- make the MP's secretarial support staff redundant. And their drivers. Get volunteers to do the job, or manage without.

bigbeagleeyes · 17/02/2011 21:03

Donkey, YADNBU. My sister has worked for the last 20 years in a day centre for people with learning difficulties - from the mildest form to the most extreme . The cutbacks coming into force now mean that instead of taking them into town, swimming, all outings to teach them how to live in real life, they stay inside the centre all the time.
So who is going to volunteer to change their nappies, put up with their (sometimes quite scary temper tantrums?
She went to College for 2 years to do this job. She used to love it with a passion in spite of the shite wage.
Cameron's idea of the Big Society is what? That we all volunteer to do the crap jobs? I really don't beleive the traditional Tory voter realises the services we are losing, and that how much our most vulnerable are going to suffer.
We are not a Big Society at all from what I've seen from the above posts, we are the me me me society.

DillyDaydreaming · 17/02/2011 22:08

Not disagreeing with that fact pelvic but just saying that the Toroes were braying their support in the dame hung ho way as Blair and co. They'd have done most different.

DillyDaydreaming · 17/02/2011 22:09

.... and I can't spell on this bloody iPhone.

rodformyownback · 17/02/2011 23:00

Nosuchthingassociety you are utterly wrong about who does more volunteering. I've been doing paid and voluntary work in the charity sector for years, and I can tell you the vast majority of volunteers I've met are on the left. They don't volunteer as an expression of how much they think the state should or shouldn't do, but because they give a shit.

rodformyownback · 17/02/2011 23:03

If all these Tories decide that they do actually believe in society after all and want to give up their time for free, they may well find that the infrastructure to help them do it just isn't there. I speak as a volunteer supervisor who is in the process of being made redundant. For fucks sake.

NoSuchThingAsSociety · 17/02/2011 23:20

ScramVonChubby - when it comes to household finances, I'll bet that when you get to your overdraft limit, you then max out a credit card, don't ya?

Heaven help you cut back on anything!!!

nomorefrizz · 17/02/2011 23:21

Well congratulations!

Wook · 17/02/2011 23:31

Yes, they should volunteer to clean up all the dogshit on the pavements. With their tongues.

MsFaithless · 17/02/2011 23:39

NoSuchThingAsSociety - For someone who claims not generalise based on narrow sourced one sided information you are failing. Badly. Hmm

I guess that lefty family of yours really did a number on you eh? Being a rabid neoliberal Guardian reader must be hard though so you have my sympathies. Confused much?

donkeyderby · 17/02/2011 23:39

Ha ha, Francis Maude on Radio 4, reduced to a blathering wreck when asked by presenter if he does any volunteering. Ha ha bloody ha.

OP posts:
Wook · 18/02/2011 00:12

Born again Christian Tories who vote Tory and are not even sorry should volunteer to actually read the bible occasionally and find out what it says about loving your neighbour.

dizzyblonde · 18/02/2011 00:14

I live on Hampsgire /Surrey border and volunteer. I also work for emergency services and vote conservative. Bit of an oddity me. :)

OliveMalay · 18/02/2011 00:15

YANBU

ScramVonChubby · 18/02/2011 10:18

'ScramVonChubby - when it comes to household finances, I'll bet that when you get to your overdraft limit, you then max out a credit card, don't ya?

Heaven help you cut back on anything!!!

We don't have credit cards and stay within overdraft limits. We don't do credit at all barring the most basic mobild phone tarriff we could find at under £10 a month each. We COULD get credit but choose to save and buy- credit causes people massive dificulties and IMO seems to be the big difference between getting by and not. We do rent but only becuase DH became very ill for a while when we owned our own home and we sold to cover all expenses rather than DH claim during the six months he could not work. So we owe nobody anything and nobody ever lost out by lending to us as we take absolute financial responsibility for ourselves. I don't have an issue claiming DLA as legally that is for the children's needs and they did not ask for autism. The boys do not know they get it as I do not want them (well ds1, ds3 would not undertsnad) growing up thinking their SN is a ticket to cash, or an excuse for dependency other than when absolutely essential- it will be for ds3. Sadly.

You might also like to know we both have jobs. Self employed ones that we started ourselves.

And some savings, though not as much as we'd like as we just replaced a car Dh needs for work.

don;t you just ahte it when people don;t fit your narrow classifications? of course, youa re so sadly entrenched in your views (and I do pity you) that you won;t beleive me but hey ho. I have myself to answer to, and my own conscience / faith.

NoSuchThingAsSociety · 18/02/2011 10:27

ScramVonChubby - if your approach to household finances is so commendable (which it seems to be, from what you say), why do you condone a 'splash the cash' approach with the public finances?

If you can see the merits of living within one's means in your own family, why do you not support those that seek the same for the country?

ScramVonChubby · 18/02/2011 10:32

And a thought. if people don;t realise that the vast majority are vulnerable.

My dad worked from age five, pushing people's shopping home in a wheelbarrow and fetching coal. He ahd no chocie: as child 15 / 16 to a disabled Mum and alcoholic dad he worked or ate. At 11 he apssed the 11+ and Nan said no due to the cost of uniform and the fact that his siblings didn;t get to go to Grammar. So he left school trained as a bulder and did very well until my Mum becmae bedridden for a while following her fifth lost baby (baby before me- the staying in bed kept me alive).

dad went and got a job in a factory and by the time he hit his mid fifities was in charge of a thousand; so we have a huge work ethic there. I remember Dad working 16 12 hour shifts plus overtime on the trot without a complaint.

Anyway, they never went abroad, bougth a car or anything- they mexed their pension fund instead: big focus on holidays and a bungalow 9they ahd a rented house) in retirement.

Except dad's employers were bought by a big American firm, who were then allowed under US rules to asset strip the pension fund to pay off a claim for asbestosis they were facing. Beleive it or not 9and the evidence is on the net somewhere) this happend twice- Dad's new employers sufffered same fate.

Dad has been offered £2k as a token payment; there's a fund to be divvied up between them but the young ones keep appealing as they think that the more older ones die off the bigger their share- clearly they do not understand legal costs! there will be nothing left for anyone.
Dad now works as a cleaner pushing the age of seventy, in a plant making sausages- lovely job, the sort he si frequently told English people don;t do, though he is English: we cn trace his side back until the 1600's. Another stereotype gone. he ahs to cycle in as he cannot drive, despite the fact a botched op means he has no feeling in one leg below the knee.

he considered retirement at 70 but went to talk to council and got a mouthful from a mean cleark about why he ahd not provided for himself: she must know what happened, in our small town it's ongoing main news, everyonbody knows. I wanted to complain for him but he was so shamed he refused to allow it.

So I don't believe that everyone gets what they put in, or that very many are as safe from poverty as they think. Apart from the absolutely random issues of disability and sickness, plenty of things that seem sewn up can go badly wrong in an instant. So as a family we hunker down, try and build the businesses, gather in qualifications, build back ups- DH's business is more successful than mine is ever likely to be as most people needing my service would be betetr served by me volunteering for free so I am applying for teacher training tow rok in an SEN environment. Build as many and varied back ups as we can. Becuase we trust nobody except ourselves, and if we screw up it's not just us, it's two disabled kids being scrwed over as well.

ScramVonChubby · 18/02/2011 10:39

'ScramVonChubby - if your approach to household finances is so commendable (which it seems to be, from what you say), why do you condone a 'splash the cash' approach with the public finances?

ou will ote my splash teh cash approach is confined to those who cannot help themselves at all.

I am beleiver in inestment: in start up businesses, youth unemployment, porgrams that enable disabled people to work. Childcare provision for carers- NOT necessarily free, I am happy to pay same as anyone but it would need to be there at all. I beleive in selective investmment in schemes that protect people whose dependency was not through choice, and provide ladders out of poverty. In turn I would sacrificae the many silly things I see: the stupid blue architectural lighting my council has just invested in (DH is in that field, his estimate at cost is staggering); I would see winter fuled payments cuts to anyone on a decent income and the money spent on schemes that can generate employment and independence, absolutely.

I don;t think that is what is happening. Why keep forests and scrap teh future jobs fund, for example?

An example: At present special needs education and support is divvied into different groups all with separate budgetary responsibility. So what happens is SEN say no to a therapy that has proven success costing £5k, despite the fact that it might well mean the person becomes independent, working etc and that woudl save a cost of many times that, with massive personal benefits for disabled person and their family as well, in the long term.
but instead of obvious flaws like that beinga ddressed, what I see insted is penny piching of a few pounds here, a lost respite unit there. The lack of long term planning is incredible.