AIBU to really dislike the Tories right now?

[Purpleflamingos]

They're benefit bashing for votes.
They are MP's who for the main part have had a privileged upbringing. Why can't they talk about their plans for the UK's defence in light of ISIS and the Ukraine? Why don't they talk about foreign policy and/or their plans for the EU? Why don't they speak up on green issues? Why don't they discuss immigration levels or London house prices? Or even patiently explaining that benefits aren't that large a portion of expense.

Why, dear god, with their education do they lack empathy towards people already living on the lowest levels of income and have no innovative suggestions to make? Clearly original thought and critical thinking wasn't on their curriculum.

They only care about themselves and their own kind, plus pretend to care about those they need to vote for them so they can carry on catering for their own kind for another few years. Their most recent policies are basically vote buying.

To be honest, i think the benefit bashing by the Tories will be their downfall....Again.

God, I hope so, but I fear not. Some of the most enthusiastic voters are the people who the Tories strenuously try not to piss off: retired and comfortably off people with good pensions from their working lives when people GOT decent pensions. People who want lower and lower petrol prices and lower taxes, and give not a shit about anyone who needs benefits or wants to go to uni but can't afford £9k a year.

The only reason the Tories continue to bash benefits, is because it works as a division tactic.

They are dividing us, and by our own actions and recations to their tactics, we are all pretty much inviting them to do so.

As the saying goes: "Divided we fall, united we stand".

People probably forget (or the Tories hope they have ) that immediately after the 2010 election there was a cabal of senior Tories who were convinced that they had lost the election because they weren't right wing enough.

The rise of UKIP has served to give them the oxygen to say to the rest of the party "see, we were right !".

Given the pisspoor excuses we have for "news" in this country, the real situation on the streets could be anybodies guess.

The only poll that matters is May 7th 2015 .

Not voting isn't an option to me but I don't know who to vote for.

I know dyed in the wool Tory voters who hate this lot. Sadly, and scarily, they are all switching to UKIP.

If you're in a marginal, vote Labour, or whatever else it takes to keep the Tories out. If you're not in a marginal, vote Green.

yep, wherehestands! and I'll add to that, if you're in Scotland vote SNP. in the hope that the SNP's new members continue to force the party to the Left, anti austerity and towards economic reform, and therefore Labour back to the left if they want propped up by the SNP.

Are Labour going to be any better though? I think they will just continue a lot of the Tory policies and their policies on housing are pretty weak as are their policies on energy, tax avoidance, the rich etc.

I hate the Tories but Labour basically being red Tories for 13 years under Blair/Brown has just given the Tories an excuse to blame Labour for so many things (not building enough homes, BTL and predatory landlords, too many languishing on benefits in return for voting Labour, too much immigration which means wages for the working poor have been suppressed, university fees, watering down of education, Iraq war etc). So many bad things happened under Labour and I am worried that they will revert back to being "nu" Labour/Blairite and not much different from the Tories. I really wish there was a genuine left wing party that wasn't crazy (like the Greens).

You should be pleased if people are switching to UKIP as it will split the Tory vote and with FPTP system, UKIP will only get a handful of MPs if any.

ghost, that's what I'm hoping, yes.

ghostland

the problem is the FPTP system isn't perfect, and doesn't always work to the main parties advantages - especially if an electorate has decided to get rid of the incumbent. UKIP won Rochester and Clacton under the FPTP system.

Part of me would love to hear a detailed - and correct - analysis by a respected pundit explaining that if we had implemented proportional representation, then UKIP would be much less of a force. And that Ed and Dave will have to grin and bear it.

Those with longer memories will recall the SDP* gained MPs in the 80s - again under FPTP.

• • ask your parents (or grandparents)

This thread has been very revealing, with many posters pointing to the number of people in receipt of benefits presumably unlikely to vote Tory.

But few have gone the further step to deduce that, maybe, just maybe, Labour ramped up benefit provision because they wanted to create dependency and effectively bribe people to vote Labour. Similarly, the large numbers of immigrants allowed in are presumed to be Labour voters also.

But left-wing cynicism is okay, whereas right-wing cynicism is pernicious and wrong. Naturally.

Meanwhile I take solace in today's Guardian poll: www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/feb/16/tories-up-six-points-latest-icm-opinion-poll

newsthump.com/2014/11/28/ukip-warns-of-schrodingers-immigrant-who-lazes-around-on-benefits-whilst-simultaneously-stealing-your-job/

wiltswonder, please tell me that your post was satyrical?

deeedeee

priceless

deeedeee Far from it - why else would Gordon Brown have thought it appropriate to give money to many people who, frankly, did not need it (i.e. OAP bus passes, TV licences, winter fuel payments) and who feared that voting any other way would lead to the loss of such bribes?

All parties 'bribe' voters. The Tories bribe people by promising low taxes and protected pensions.

Bribes?

I think the problem with tory voters like yourself is you think that everyone votes like you do, in your own self interest.

There are many people whose votes are not bought and sold depending on a percent either way on income tax, or a bus pass here or there. People who vote for policies that will improve the lives of everyone in the country, not just themselves and whether they get to keep an extra thousand or so a year.

The Tory strategy is simple ..

1. bribe your core demographic. White, middle class, ageing voters.

2. Ignore the youth - they don't vote

3. Split your opponents vote by appealing to the slightly masochistic streak of the British (or is it English psyche) which would rather make your own life miserable than risk someone undeserving (i.e. immigrants, poor people) benefiting. It's amazing how many people that the Tories will shit on [say] are voting for them.

OnlyLovers All parties 'bribe' voters. The Tories bribe people by promising low taxes and protected pensions.

Of course, if one considers all private property to be theft and that everything should be owned by the State, then with such a worldview people can be 'bribed' by having less of their own money taken from them in the form of taxes.

deeedeee The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money.

How many people are voting for themselves, or their children ?

For better, for worse, my time here is done. The energy and idealism of my youth has faded, to be replaced with a creeping cynicism, and growing despair. I no longer trust, nor care for my own well being in the near future. I had my chance to prepare for that 20 years ago - we all did. Given how political cycles work, and the fact we are still experiencing the fall out from the 1960s, then who I vote for come May, will be of little effect to me.

However my (as yet unvoting) DS still has a shot. So I'm voting to give him the best go of it. Which isn't necessarily 2015-2020, but could be 2025-2035.

So even if my vote hurts me - it might help.

I don't follow you, Wilts. Don't you mean 'more of their own money'? Genuine question and I apologise if I'm being dim.

And while I'm not afraid of the word 'socialism' or of being called a socialist, I think I'm more inclined to hope and vote for a model of compassionate capitalism, whereby people can do well individually but still give a shit about other people as well, by not avoiding their taxes and not cutting benefits, on the basis that they're assessed as well enough to work, for people who then go on to die a few weeks or months later of their illnesses.

Very detailed article in the New Statesman

www.newstatesman.com/politics/2015/02/ministers-are-reaching-beyond-scroungers-and-aiming-britain-s-working-poor

OnlyLovers

I don't follow you, Wilts. Don't you mean 'more of their own money'?

No, the charge is that a tax cut is a bribe - when in fact it merely involves taking away less of someone's own money, hardly a bribe.

Taking someone's money and giving it to someone else is bribery to encourage a certain outcome is bribery.

People claim to want more money to be raised for public services but many of them simply want to make the rich less rich. After all, since the highest tax rate was cut, the take from the richest went up - lower taxes bring in more money as people stick around and are less likely to avoid or evade taxes.

I want the maximum take possible, which means lower taxes all round.

Ok.
But, er, how is taking away less of someone's own money not a bribe? I mean, it isn't literally, in the sense of giving someone money, but it is effectively that.

I'm not sure people 'simply want to make the rich less rich'. I for one would like to see tax loopholes closed and the system made less opaque and more difficult for the super-rich to play. I'm for making the poor, and public services/funding, more wealthy rather than making the rich less rich.

Ive just done this very basic survey to give me an idea of who to vote for.
voteforpolicies.org.uk/

I came out with 60% Labour and 40% Green