To think that no one will ever vote conservative again

[rogersmellyonthetelly]

At least in anyone in living memory of the current government and their immoral targeting of the most vulnerable members of society.
I voted conservative at the last election to my eternal shame, I won't make the same mistake twice.

I would vote for them in a heartbeat. Anything to stop Labour from getting back in.

I will never ever vote conservative. But I really want labour to get more over to the left. I want a real person in charge, someone who isn't a young career politician. Someone with a working class background who has been out in the real world, who understands the issues, and will look after our money, and our NHS.

You can always save your vote and use it in the x factor lol

Lurkingbeagle, glad to hear you got the treatment you needed. I have had a better experience on the NHS, fortunately.

To people who agree with benefit cuts and don't think they have gone far enough, what do you want to happen to people who cannot or don't want to work. Stop paying housing benefit and make it easier for LL to throw them onto the street. Pay their rents but don't give them enough money to feed, clothe and keep their families warm? Seriously how would you address it?

Denise. That's ludicrous. Why would you want a worse party in power?

Krumbum - because some people can't see anything worse than the Labour party?

People will probably vote for the Tories again, but God only knows why. Boris got in again in London, even though he is an utter idiot of a man.

What will happen if Scotland gets independence? The Tories will rule what is left of Britain forever. I will actually just have to move, there is no way I can live under such a hideous group of twats.

"Oh we want to encourage sport, which is shit because of TEACHERS, oh and by the way, are you in the market for a school playing field because we have 20 of them here we want to sell off."

TwelveLeggedWalk

Really Beagle? Because I see it the other way - at 18 you are entirely self-obsessed, it's the nature of a teenager, so Tory survival of the fittest policies make sense.
But as you get older, as you see your parents age, your friends' financial circumstances change, your family affected by health concerns, you travel, you come across a wider cross section of society, you grow, you learn, and you develop empathy and a social conscience. Hopefully.

Interestingly there's been a slab of research done on this, and it indicates that as people get older their politics become less 'I want free stuff forever' and more 'Everyone should work and pay their way'. So older people vote 'right' (for want of a better word). That was the main reason why Labour wanted to reduce the voting age to 16. All the voting evidence indicates that older people tend to vote for parties which don't promise them the moon on a stick, while wide-eyed naive kids without any real world experience, and who've never had a real job, vote for socialists.

LurkingBeagle

flatpackhamster

Actually, I think I would like to vote for you please

I'm not standing at the next election, but probably will (family time permitting) the one after. Look out for me.

Dawndonna

Do you know what, flatpack. My dh has just been turned down for his higher rate mobility. We're lucky in that we're not reliant on benefits. But I'm tired, I'm angry and I can't be arsed with being patronised anymore.
I'm not stupid, not by any stretch of a very limited imagination. What worries me in this world are the people who think they're clever, wandering around the internet, not discussing, but stating. Never shifting their point of view. You see, generally they're nowhere near as clever as they like to thing. Yes, they have a bit of vocabulary, and a prejudice against the left wing, whereby it can't be right by dint of the fact that it is left wing and then, there's nothing more to it than that.

So what we need are more clever people who agree with you, rather than stupid myopic people who don't. Glad we cleared that up.

If Scotland get independence, Labour will have to reinvent themselves in order to appeal to disatisfied people in England and Wales. They will have to stop being the party of the benefit claimant, and stop their obsession with identity politics that has turned so many WWC people off Labour in the past decade or so.

But obviously labour are better than the tories. Just look at how they treat us and why would anyone want to be poorly treated.

Twelve

Thank you, I am doing well :-)

Tressy

Glad to hear you had a better experience, but sometimes I think pro-NHS people display exactly the kind of "I'm alright Jack" attitude that the Tories are criticised for! I am pretty sure that the elderly people forced to drink out of vases in Stafford were "vulnerable" in every sense and look how many premature deaths occurred. If those people (or their relatives) could have walked out and gone somewhere else (taking their insurance with them) I am damn sure more people would have survived. That place killed more people than Shipman and yet the Labour gov refused a public enquiry....

If someone is not reliant on benefits they should not be getting benefits. Staet handouts should be the safety net for those who have nothing.

yellowraincoat yeah blair was much better haha bushes poodle

The hole time its was here boy here boy walkies,walkies

Boris is awsome go bojo

Tressy

To people who agree with benefit cuts and don't think they have gone far enough, what do you want to happen to people who cannot or don't want to work. Stop paying housing benefit and make it easier for LL to throw them onto the street. Pay their rents but don't give them enough money to feed, clothe and keep their families warm? Seriously how would you address it?

This goes back to questions about the purpose of the welfare state, and it's a discussion that I don't think enough people have.

On the one side there is a school of thought which says that people should get enough from the taxpayer to live comfortably on and that anything less, which risks them going without, is wrong.

On the other there's a school of thought which says that this creates welfare dependency, whereby you simply perpetuate that life and that if you don't create that system, people will pick themselves up.

I incline to the latter. I think that when you look at the psychology of it you see that people who are able to influence their lives are mentally happier than people who aren't. A crude analogy is animals in zoos. Even if their life is harder outside than inside a zoo, they're happier animals.

The same applies to people. If you just give people what they need, how do they value it? Where is the challenge in their life? Humans are built to be challenged, every day, by our environment and our existence. Strip that away and you end up with a deeply troubled creature.

I hope there'll be some serious research done on the pernicious influence of welfarism on mental health, because I think the results will be startling to those people who are convinced that more money = better as far as welfare is concerned.

yellowraincoat Boris got in again in London because we couldn't bear another rein of Ken Livingstone. If Labour had provided a suitable candidate instead of the ego maniac that is Livingstone, I'm sure Boris wouldn't be doing a second term.

I can remember all of the labour years and all of the tory years before that, this means that I am also old enough to have heard about the three day week, rolling power cuts, one man for one job etc.

From all of the knowledge that I have accumilated I know one thing for sure.

Its the politicians that win and frankly there are very few of them that care about anyone but themselves.

"To people who agree with benefit cuts and don't think they have gone far enough, what do you want to happen to people who cannot or don't want to work."

I'd draw a pretty massive line between the two types for a start. We should support those that can't work. Those who can work (and can work includes being able to find a job) but just don't want to, must work - why should they be supported not to. I find it genuinely perplexing that some people think its a valid choice to be entirely state supported when you are perfectly fit and healthy and capable of holding down a job.

However, establishing which people fall into which groups is a desperately difficult task, and I don't think anyone has a solution for getting it right so far.

Krumbum it depends on how you look at things making a whole genration dependant on welafre is not being traeted well in my view and i doubut the assoicated agencies think these people are ebing well served either keeping whole familes

Mum, daughter and grandduagter on welafare is the cruleist thing anyone can ever do

Give a man a fish he will eat for a day teach a man to fish and all that

Also making up non jobs in the public sector pretty foul if you ask me because as soon as the tuff times cames they must of know those people would get the boot

Livingstone was pretty close to getting in though, but I agree, he's not hugely likeable. I didn't live here when he was mayor, so not sure if he was particularly shit or whatever.

Come on though, BORIS? The man is a fucking joke.

Tressy
"what do you want to happen to people who cannot or don't want to work."

People who cannot work should be looked after.

People who don't want to work, should get a grip and while they are at it a job.

But it's not the entirely fit and healthy people who are losing benefits. My DP doesn't qualify for ESA (the Incapacity Benefit replacement) and he is quadriplegic and bedbound. He cannot move his arms and legs at all, and is so profoundly disabled he does qualify for CHC, which only about 300 people in our county get. This is the reality of benefit reform. It's nothing to do with the fit and healthy.

I don't think there's much use this thread getting diverted into yet another bunfight about benefits. You think what you think. I experience what I experience. There's a chasm between us, and that's sad.

Clytaemnestra what about those who do work like myself (I work 32 hours a week - that's considered p/t at my company as we are ususally on a 40 hour week so salary went down by a 1/5 after going back after mat leave), are single mothers and receive benefits like working tax credit, child tax credit and housing benefit (because as a single person bringing up a child in London you'd have to be on a pretty large salary to afford to rent without help). Apologies if this has been answered before but it's a very long thread. I'm interested to know what people who want benefits reformed think of those in my situiation

So acumens the state is looking after him right?

No, Novack. I am.

CHC doesn't put food on the table. It's just a legal qualification to do with the Health Act.