To think that being Tory doesn't make you thick?

[RainbowSheep]

Ok, my family are all very liberal (I mean my parents, aunts & uncles, who incidently have all had lots of money & opportunities throughout their lives). Their parents (who were poor working class) were more conservative as are me and my brother, who are both pretty poor. We recently had a family get together where I was told by my uncle (university lecturer) that Tories were unitelligent and I was beginning to sound like an idiot for having conservative views... I don't think I am particularly right wing.

Sorry

Hb housing benefit

HA .. Housing authority housing or as been told a free house

cb. Child benefit
Ctc child tax credit

DLA disability living allowance this is paid whether work or not as aknoledhes being disabled is more expensive

hRM means either unable to walk (me) or walking causes pain and distance eta is issues (ds3 )

Hrc high rate care

Harry I think the basic difference is that some people can see that a part-timer with TC, and a full-timer, are a) probably not earning the same, at all; b) probably not getting the same things out of their jobs (prospects etc; I don't know what the job is) - it is not going to be an equal situation, and it's misleading to present it as such.

I simply don't find in life that people decide their politics in the way you say. There are many, many people who are happy to pay into the system and who are distressed by the prospect of people being nudged into poverty, even though they hardly use the welfare state. Please don't judge others by what you yourself feel.

Did you not read the bit where I said I didn't vote on what was best for me?

Despite being hit hard, I've almost always voted Labour because I agreed back then with their viewpoint.

That is no longer the case, however. I believe in the welfare state passionately but it has become a bloated monster and needs taming. We simply cannot afford the annual 221 bn pounds it costs us and that is that.

Well, it's not going to be tamed, it's going to be slowly privatised, reduced, it's going to make pots of money directly for many of those who are instrumental in its dismantling (that'll be your money, or the money of people you know), and those who needed it will be further vilified for their lack of bootstrap-pulling.

How is it going to make pots of money for me and people I know? Will it make pots of money for my single mum friend? My teacher friends?

??
It is going to make money for those who are in charge of dismantling it - many already have demonstrable interests in the companies that are shaping up to take over.

The money is money which comes from the tax payer, and money which we will eventually have to pay at point of use to access, say, health care.

I agree with the proposition that there's a lack of empathy from Tories.

There's no more lack of empathy on one side of the political spectrum or the other. Empathy is required to assess and diagnose societal problems and the sides agree on those, e.g. sub-optimal health, living conditions, hope for a child's future, etc. (In fact, the current Tories are quite fixated with Happiness indicators, so no lack of empathy there.)

However, what you perceive as lack of empathy may in fact just be a different way of approaching the same ends: i.e. Improvement for the whole of society. It really is what both sides want, even if it might be that a few individuals on either sides are motivated by envy or greed.

And all that stuff about Tories just feathering their own nests, it's all a stitch up, etc, etc is immature. I've not met anyone in politics who didn't absolutely believe that what they were arguing for was the best outcome for society. (That might not necessarily mean a utilitarian outcome, of course.)

one of the things that rainbow said was that 'we don't go hungry as we are well supported by the government via tax credits.'

am i missing something or was it not the last government that introduced the tax credit system to help low earners not go hungry...?

"am i missing something or was it not the last government that introduced the tax credit system to help low earners not go hungry...?"

It was the last Government who introduced Minimum Wage legislation to help low earners not go hungry. That was really sucessful. Not.
That was because the Govt shafted their own supporters by allowing cheap labour from acession countries to undercut them.

You're misquoting me SWC.

Would you pitch up on the avid S&B thread to deliberately post an opposite point of view, for example telling them they're all shallow for being concerned with clothes and how they look? Of course not. Going onto a support thread, whatever the cause, to deliberately attempt to derail it is at best misguided and at worst just trolling.

Why do you think everyone with left-wing tendencies thinks the same?

"tax credit system to help low earners not go hungry...?"

Like most things in politics, how you view this depends on your stance.
Lefties might see this as a lovely gesture to help the most disadvantaged.
Right-wingers might suspect that it was a way to buy votes and infantilise the country into dependence on the Labour Government. It does no-one any favours to trap them in poverty (see above examples of 'not being worth it' to go full time and lose benefits).

oOH well - individual opinions and such like I guess.

My dad - lifelong tory but not a cameron fan at all. Based on the fact a) he believes everyone should consider themselves a self employed business and get work accordingly b) is multicultural and hates the labelling of people aka labour. He finds it patronising - increasingly.

My mum - (sort of) migrant from developing country. She finds left wing people racist in the sense they pander to what they think she is and wants to hear an elderly asian woman. She's not those things. She finds it far more racist as it's hard to counteract - she'd prefer someone to be outright racist and she can tell them where to go. But she did like labour at one point.

Me - labour.

I appreciate my parent's viewpoint completely, however. They aren't stupid people at all.

giveitago "a) he believes everyone should consider themselves a self employed business and get work accordingly " I think this is a brilliant way of putting it and I'm a left-winger.

Ah but deberny - he's a lateral thinker from a different era.

His view when I was studying and thinking about work was this - love if you were a business and thought about opening a chemist (for example) in an area that already had 20 chemists on the high street you'd either think about opening an chemist in an area that had none or you'd think of a different business altogether.

He's so right. Many of us think it's our god given right to do only one particular job that might not lead to any money. Then moan when they can't earn a living. Obviously, this is not everyone (and many people struggle to earn any living at all) but I know lots of people who think if I can't do 'this', I won't do anything and want to be bankrolled.

He's a right winger but thanks to his views I'm far less of a snob and I'm taking on work I wouldn't have considered doing 10 years ago because I realise I'm not in a position to offered the sort of work I was 10 years ago.

He has a lot of nous. I agree completely.
Invest in yourself and your skills, early on. It benefits everyone.

I don't really care what you think about that SWC.

giveitago your dad sounds like a sensible sort

yup but what my parents really want to say is that they find the left cultural and not multicultural. And that's what they think britain is now.

Gosh what responsibility! I didn't realise that I spoke for the entire left

SWC you are a hypocrite. You misrepresent my posts and then come out with "I don't see the need for vilification on either side".

Also, it may have escaped your notice but I am not in the business of winning elections.

As it happens I continuously question the views I hold and I have changed my mind on occasion. Some of my opinions on solutions are quite far left, some are more right of centre and most are in the middle. I have a few core values that I live my life by and that inform my opinions. I think that's a fairly reasonable place to be.

You deliberately chopped the end off something I said and quoted it to distort it's meaning. That is misrepresentation.

What power you imagine I have! What is this political persuasion that I have? Which political party do you associate me with?

So do you all think that the only people claiming Tax Credits are those that choose to work PT? Because I can reassure you that a LOT of FT workers cannot afford to pay their RENT out of their wages without top-ups from the state. Are they just not working hard enough?

It is a fact that in a Capitalist Society, there has to be a pyramid, with a few very rich people at the top of the pyramid, and a LOT of very poor people at the bottom. If this breaks down - then so does Capitalism. Which seems to me to be the Tory ideal, Capitalism.

Now think about those people at the bottom of the pyramid. NMW does not pay enough to cover the BASICS that you need to survive in this country - You cannot afford to cover your rent, let alone childcare, utilities, food, council tax bills. So if the State does not top this up, then these people starve and die.

Why does Capitalism rely on a bank of unemployed people? To keep the low-paid insecure in their jobs, because that way, there is a steady stream of people waiting behind them to take their jobs if they complain about the low wages, or if they actually starve. And Capitalism is BASED on this principle. Without at least a fair percentage of unemployed people - Capitalism WOULD NOT WORK.

Because the Tories WANT Capitalism to work - they need to keep a 'bank' of the unemployed. However, they don't want to have to pay to KEEP that 'bank' of unemployed people any more. What the Tories seem to have forgotten is that if they leave the 'bank' of unemployed people to starve, Capitalism will fall to pieces.

They have already started along that path by the introduction of Universal Credit. I can't say that I see it as remarkably intelligent to undermine the foundations of a principle that you believe in in the way the Tories are doing.

They are undermining the foundations of Capitalism by putting such draconian Sanctions on Universal Credit - for things like refusing to do Workfare, they will stop your UC for 3 months, then 6 months, then 3 years - who will be alive at the end of that?

There is NO WAY I will ever do ANY form of Workfare again - My labour is worth AT LEAST £6.08/hr (min wage). I WILL NOT BE SLAVE LABOUR FOR TESCOS FOR £1.88/hr. I would put my dc in care, and starve myself first. I am not, and NEVER WILL BE an indentured slave.

Just because I am 'for' a Welfare State, doesn't mean that I can't have an opinion on where the Tories are going wrong.

Indentured servitude? The definition of indentured Servitude is: The historical practice of contracting to work for a fixed period of time, usually 3 to 7 years, in exchange for transportation, food, clothing, lodging and other necessities during the term of indenture.

Workfare ('Mandated Work Activity'): The Modern-day practice of contracting to work for a fixed period of time, usually 6 months to 2 years, in exchange for a payment of Universal Credit that covers the costs of transportation, food, clothing,lodging and other necessities during the period of indenture.

And THIS is the way forward as far as the Tories are concerned, for the 21st Century...