Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Child-safe in minutes.

Meet the Other Phone.
Child-safe in minutes.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

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

755 replies

RainbowSheep · 10/12/2011 19:28

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.

OP posts:
londonone · 13/12/2011 23:42

That is where we disagree. You can't be grateful to the state as the state has no resources to provide anything, all it has is other peoples money. It may well be elitist but this idea that people have all sorts of entitlements rather than people seeing them as the benefits they are IMO is one of the problems.

The resentment and anger I see is often focussed at the rich and the question of why they will not pay more. The reason I would not want to pay more is that I don't see the state as being able to spend money effectively. I personally don't thnk there is a shortage of money, I thinkit is badly spent. I work in the public sector and the sheer volume of non-jobs and dreadful waste I see makes me believe ever more strongly in the shrinking of the state. That is not to say I agree with how all the current cuts are being done.

claig · 13/12/2011 23:43

'Most people I talk to say they think the Daily Mail is awful.'

But it is the 2nd most popular paper in the country and the 2nd most visited news website in the world. You are obviously not talking to a lot of people.

perceptionreality · 13/12/2011 23:46

I think that people often flick through a newspaper without taking it seriously (what is the most popular, The Sun?). But if you don't think about and challenge what you're reading you open yourself up to the influence of prejudiced nonsense. There is no such thing as unbiased journalism but I can't read the DM it makes me frown and I prefer to avoid wrinkles Wink

Pendeen · 13/12/2011 23:47

Being Tory doesn't make you thick.

It's probably an advantage...

claig · 13/12/2011 23:52

'what is the most popular, The Sun?

Yes the Sun is the mosty popular. Most people are not interested in politics. They prefer gossip, celeb stuff and sport. They prefer Bug Brother and X Factor to Newsnight. That's OK. It doesn't mean they are stupid. They still know what's what. They know that teh parties are "all the same" and they know that "sustainability" and "global warming" are not for real, so why waste time reading what the "intelligentsia" try to push on them?

claig · 14/12/2011 00:06

Orwell said "hope lies with the proles"

The ordinary people are smarter than those who fall for what they are fed by the "intelligentsia". It is ordinary people and their free choices in a free society that offer the best hope for the future. Their instincts are sound, their choices are smart. They voted Thatcher and they voted Cameron and the "intelligentsia" were hopping mad.

claig · 14/12/2011 00:10

They said they had no empathy, they called them thick. They didn't like the fact that they made a free choice in a democracy.

spiderslegs · 14/12/2011 00:21

Interestingly I live in a deeply rural area, but near a well known 'intelligentsia' left-wing town, the dichotomy is telling. The incomers with their private incomes & projects are all left wing - without exception. The farming families who are trying to scrape a living are right wing.

claig · 14/12/2011 00:24

It's just like the Eurocrats who think the public are thicjk when they vote the wrong way in a free referendum, and tell them to vote again until they get it right.

In fact they think the public are so "thick", they want to deny them a vote in a democratic referendum.

Controlling opinion formers are the same the world over, they look down on the proles, their views and the newspapers they choose to read.

That's why so many proles back Cameron on the EU and so many other things.

claig · 14/12/2011 00:25

Exactly, spiderslegs, and I bet those incoming left-wingers call the hard- working farmers "thick" as well.

spiderslegs · 14/12/2011 01:25

Well Claig - much as I hate to agree with you - there ain't no mixing.

HarrySantaatemygoldfish · 14/12/2011 07:18

I agree with every word of Londonone's.

The " state" is other people. We should all be thankful there are evil rich tories and evil rich lefties and vile bankers and all manner of nasty rich people here because they are the ones feathering everyone else's nests no matter how unpalatable you may find that fact. Of course all working people pay tax but millions at the lower end pay less in than they take out. That is the mark of a civilised society but those of you screaming about taxing some people even more need to be very careful what you wish for.

ElaineReese · 14/12/2011 07:24

Orwell's character said 'if there is hope, it lies with the proles'.

What the novel goes on to show very clearly is that it doesn't, and there isn't.

DeckTheHugeWithBoughsOfManatee · 14/12/2011 08:22

I personally don't thnk there is a shortage of money, I thinkit is badly spent. I work in the public sector and the sheer volume of non-jobs and dreadful waste I see makes me believe ever more strongly in the shrinking of the state.

This, exactly. I have similar experience - the amount of money that gets pissed up the wall in the public sector is disgraceful. The old false dichotomy always gets trotted out 'oh, you want a smaller state, do you want to fire all those nurses and teachers then?'. But no, I don't want to fire all those nurses and teachers. I want to fire all those parasites in middle management, busy featherbedding their own retirement and giving each other hand jobs at the expense of taxpayers - or of carers for disabled children, who no-one with a fraction of a heart would say should go hungry.

All the Integrated Communications Officers, Waste Minimisation Officers, various 'outreach' jobsworths and other people who sit around wanking on about 'engagement' all day and generating mountains of paper. I've worked with them. I've seen them in action. Public sector service people such as nurses are often the most courageous, hardworking and socially committed among us; public sector administrators and middle management types are, in my experience, often idle, inefficient, blinkered and self-serving.

But unfortunately this lot are never going to be first in line for cutting, because they're the managers - and thus they'll be the ones who have a say in what gets cut. Turkeys don't vote for Christmas.

BIWIshYouAMerryChristmas · 14/12/2011 08:55

No, Harry. The state is us. And as I have already said, I would willingly pay more tax to help others. I wouldn't like to lose my income, especially as it can be quite precarious at times and is unpredictable, at best, but if it was necessary then I would.

I'm sure that there is money being badly spent and I'm sure that there are layers of unnecessary management. But I thought the big story from the Government was that there really isn't any money. Or have they been lying to us all along ...

The fact still remains though - if there is enough money, why are those without any having it cut? That makes it look even more like an ideological stance being taken by the present Government.

(Oh, and I didn't use the words 'evil' or 'vile')

spiderslegs · 14/12/2011 10:03

Agree completely with Manatee, I briefly worked as a PA to a CE of a Labour run council, the shit that went on there was unbelievable - you could have wiped out 95% of that department with no discernible impact on council services. I was constantly aghast at the idiocy & wastage that went on, I was sacked after making one too many 'useful' suggestions - really, working there made me feel grubby.

AND I used to get told off for reading the Telegraph at my desk at lunch time.

Fuckers.

claig · 14/12/2011 10:19

Sounds like you are better off out of there, spiderslegs.

It's a shame you didn't take the people's paper in one day, the Daily Mail. That would have made their lattes and cappucinos even more frothy.

claig · 14/12/2011 10:22

Their faces would have been as red with rage as the red flag in the corner.

EdlessAllenPoe · 14/12/2011 10:28

NO the left wing is not essentially liberal. equally the right wing (which is economically liberal) is not inherently socially liberal or authoritatian.

Hitler, Stalin, Mao....state control, redistributive policies. Extreme-left.
on the far-right you have Batista and the south-american dictators who had free-market economies functioning alongside authoritarian regimes, with almost no provision for the poor.

the 'liberal left' abounds here on Mumsnet, and doesn't seem happy with the Labour party grass roots - who are every bit as likely to read the Daily Mail as the Mirror (think about it: its a women-hating racist piece of crap that runs endless envy-pieces on the rich and famous looking stupid..)

think about where the labour movement started. In working mens clubs - some of which still have men-only bars, total no-go areas for the openly homosexual, black, etc...(or so it was in the late 1990s when i was last in that bit of the North East) the people i grew up amongst (notably my grandparents, who i think voted communist and labour most of their lives) in safe-labour constituencies were not liberals in any shape or form. homophobic. not feminist (deeply chauvinist) quietly racist.

if your best argument is to laugh, it rather shows the weakness of your case.

EdlessAllenPoe · 14/12/2011 10:32

a lot of people at my work read the Daily Mail. this was also true when i worked for a supermarket too. at factories: mostly the Sun. but the Mail wasn't so big back then....

EdlessAllenPoe · 14/12/2011 10:34

claig is completely right about China...it is in no way shape or form a free-market country. there is no such thing as a Chinese NGO.

Hullygully · 14/12/2011 10:38

As usual all the terms need defining

DeckTheHugeWithBoughsOfManatee · 14/12/2011 10:38

My local council, Lambeth, is an outrageous offender on this front. They've been pissing untold millions up the wall on random shite like paying drug dealers to take part in surveys, and have had the brass neck to blame cuts on the government and target reductions at things like mobile libraries rather than - say - the £270,000 Lambeth's chief executive gets paid.

Or the 505 full-time managers on more than £50,000 a year who do who the fuck knows what something or other, or the nameless number of council officers who let themselves off parking fines and abuse the blue badge system.

I fully support those who are horrified at proposed reductions in support for carers of disabled people. But I do feel that if we're campaigning against cuts that affect vulnerable people, we should be campaigning as well to end profligacy and pork-barrel politics. Every public sector non-job is another nurse's salary not paid, another youth centre losing funding, another library that can't pay its staff or another disabled person not getting the support they need.

'How much money is needed' is a very movable feast.

DeckTheHugeWithBoughsOfManatee · 14/12/2011 10:39

Oh - and I stand corrected by Claig on my statement about China Smile

Hammy02 · 14/12/2011 10:40

Unless you are fairly well off, it is very misguided to vote Tory. They are the party for the wealthy. Their shrinking of the welfare state and cutting of benefits is evidence of this.

Swipe left for the next trending thread