To not understand why people hate David Cameron and the Conservative Party?

[SuperWifeANDMum]

Just that really.

I am a Conservative voter.

PM Cameron has disappointed me in some ways such as his lax approach to curbing immigration, deporting foreign criminals and addressing the alarming benefit culture but he has implemented a fair few positive changes.

For example:

Reducing our Debt.
Introducing Bedroom Tax.
Cutting corporation tax.
Frozen Council Tax.

Of you vote labour, why?

I am deeply concerned at the thought of another Labour government next election.

But, the parents of adult children will be more likely already paying full rent, so, they don't need to pay anything extra to stay in the house with too many rooms.

It doesn't encourage people to downsize after their children move out...it only encourages families with young children to downsize.

It's not a logical system if the aim is to free up homes for young families.

the '15 holidays' story is ridiculous. it's counting weekends!

it's not like nobody is running the country and it's not like he isn't still working from wherever he is.

Joseph Rowntree report on 'culture of worklessness'

It may be that DC has simply had spectacular bad luck that every time he goes on holiday then something kicks off (London riots, Libya, Syria, Gaza, Iraq) or it maybe that if any PM took a break every couple of months then, statistically, they would be away a lot during significant events. It does rather mark him down as a passive 'leader' though, willing to be 'kept informed of the situation' rather than actually doing shit.

The bedroom tax is nonsense. As is the way people with disabilities are treated by this ridiculous farce of a government.

It doesn't encourage people to downsize after their children move out...it only encourages families with young children to downsize.

Why not?

Lots of people choose to downsize when their children leave home home anyway, regardless of whether they get housing benefit or not. I'd have thought that if you are no longer getting enough housing benefit to cover your rent because your children have moved out, and you can't cover the shortfall from your children paying board, or your own wages, then you would want to downsize if you were struggling to pay the rent yourself.

George W Bush took a lot of holidays IIRC, though that was probably for the best and possibly gently encouraged by those around him. 'No, it's OK, you go, we got this. No, seriously.'

Since so many people on this thread realise how ridiculously unfair the bedroom tax is, how about emailing your MP and asking them to support the Private Members Bill that's trying to change it? Voting doesn't change much in our set-up, but sometimes harassing MPs does...

You don't often see threads like this:

OP: Why does everyone hate the Tories?

OP: Oh. OK then.

Fair play to you OP.

Still quite interested in where the OP's husband went to school.............

As previously posted: Hakluyt actually GO attended Colet court then St Paul's then Oxford. HTH - I have already said my husband attended Colet Court and Oxford the same years as GO.

Boulevard it's not often you are directed to things that you have been oblivious too and have to eat humble pie.

"I'd have thought that if you are no longer getting enough housing benefit to cover your rent because your children have moved out"

No, they're less likely to be claiming housing benefit at all, so they will already be paying their own rent.

SuperWifeANDMum, I ought to congratulate you, too, on allowing your political gaze to be directed towards the bigger picture

I really, strongly, hope you'll continue to learn and share some of your discoveries with your friends.

I hate DC and the Conservatives because I have a bloody conscience and care about others,the less fortunate in society.
I would have to remove every fucking vestige of living,breathing and feeling before I voted for those bastards..ie over my dead,cold body .

Thanks for listening Superwife

Is a fair question to ask. it is not unreasonable to ask. that's what freedom of discussion is about. why should people say it must be a joke posing the question about David Cameron. SuperWifeAndMum is entitled to her opinions and thoughts just like anyone else on here and she may even alter her opinions if a reasonable discussion is put forward

Benefits lifestyle claims are bunkum

did they find 47 WHOLE people for that "study". forgive if I think it's incomplete.

I am a pretty big guardian reader, but they are stretching there.

Try reading the Rowntree foundation study too.

From the Rowntree publication: (appendix on methodology)

Our original aim was to recruit 20 such families where, in each
generation, there was at least one family member who had never been in
employment. So as to investigate the popular idea, reiterated locally by
practitioners – that intergenerational cultures of worklessness can take this extreme form – a determined effort was directed at meeting this aim in the first month (and this continued as a goal across the eight months of this stage of fieldwork). It quickly became clear, however, that we were unlikely to recruit such families. Indeed, despite our best efforts we were unable to recruit any families that included individuals, across three generations, who
had never worked (see Chapter 2).

As a consequence, we loosened our recruitment criteria, first, to two
generations of the same family where an individual had never worked
and, when this also proved unlikely to generate a sample of 20 families,
second, to extensive worklessness in two generations of the same family.
By ‘extensive worklessness’ we initially stipulated in respect of the middle
generation a current period of worklessness lasting at least 10 years but,
again, this had to be relaxed to ‘at least over 5 years’ (many had been
workless for considerably longer than this, however). In respect of the
younger generation, we aimed to recruit people from these families who
were aged over 16, were no longer in full-time education and had never
been in employment (in practice a few here had previously had a job).

Summary: They spent eight months trying to find three-generation workless families in the two most depressed areas of the UK. They couldn't even find 20 two-generation families.

The entire report is worth reading, if you're actually interested.

OP, I've been thinking about your posts overnight, particularly about what you said about bedroom tax and property ownership. I totally understand where you are coming from, when you buy a house then you can buy one with spare bedrooms and it is nobody, else's business, obviously. I think that one of the principles of the Conservative party and many of their voters is 'equality of opportunity' which assumes a level playing field and an attitude of 'I worked hard and bought my own house, so why not you?'

The thing is, it's not a level playing field. People don't start from the same place or have the same resources, contacts and opportunities.

The problem that a lot of people have with the Conservative party comes down to the attitude mentioned upthread by BasketzatDawn
DC, GO, and other are rude and arrogant in public and on camera and it's because they have a sense of superiority. They think that because they have landed on the top of the heap then they are innately 'better' than those they govern. They look at the poor, the sick, the disabled, the 'little people', the 'hard-working families' and sneer at them, make things harder for them and introduce punitive policies whist simultaneously skimming off the cream (expenses/Royal Mail/NHS contracts/shambolic child abuse investigations) for other people 'like them' who have won in the game of life, and they think it's fair and right and just because of the 'equality of opportunity' myth.

When you are in government, you have to run the country, for everyone, not just for your own friends and your party donors. You don't get to let your friends, or people you'd like to be your friends Gary Barlow get away with tax evasion and paedophilia while screwing the chavs and the vulgar middle classes. You have to govern for people you don't even like, people who scratch their balls through cheap tracksuit bottoms, people who commit crimes, people who are thick as mince, people who watch Jeremy Kyle.

It's really good. It's American, and about the polar ends of Park Lane but it is relevant to Britain too. Our inequality is based on the same principles as theirs. We also have 'The 1% of the 1%' at the top and stagnation at the bottom. I really urge you to watch it.

If you cba to watch the whole thing then there is an interesting rich/poor monopoly experiment at 3.30 which will only take a couple of minutes to watch.

I keep banging on about the NHS and party donors so I'm linking this

"Circle Health landed £1.36billion worth of health service work after several ­of its investors gifted about £1.5million to the Conservatives."

"Care UK has contracts worth another £102.6million. Its chairman John Nash was made a peer after boosting Tory coffers by £247,250."

This is what is happening to our NHS right now. Private companies can cherry pick the profitable parts of the service and dump the tricky stuff back on the taxpayer. They can also fuck up and have the NHS pick up the tab for them such as these cataract operations

Yes, it was a huge change when a Labour Government broke the principle, began the privatisation of the NHS.

It's easy to follow stereotypes of who is 'nasty' but when I read things like 'Thatcher shut down the grammar schools' (example from a thread way back) I get the feeling that it's 'slag off and hope some sticks'.

And as I've clocked that sort of (often baseless slagging) when eerily similar threads appear on different sites in a short time frame, it does make me think 'style not substance' even now.

It's why I like the Indyref thread: the stereotypes are minimal and the issues themselves are discussed. The 'Two Minutes Hate' just isn't there.

Sorry OP, but you're completely factually wrong. This kind of ignorance seems to be what is maintaining the Tories' vote share.

The debt has NOT been reduced by one penny. I'm fact, it's higher than it was when they gained power, and will continue to grow for years to come. They have committed to reduce the DEFICIT (the amount of overspend); their success in this has not been resounding yet.

Please make sure you understand the facts before considering your political allegiance.

good posts MrSheen, you hit the nail on the head there.

op, can I ask, do you find your friends and family members have a superiority complex over others outside their social circle? I'd like you to be as honest as you can be. I'm not goading you, I'm honestly wondering if you think they have or not.

song about Mr Prime Minister hes rubbish check it out

YES YABU