To think Tory voters have no moral compass and empathy

[Izzywizzyletsgetbizzy]

Firstly I'm not labour I follow politics but can not think of a party I really relate to.

Anyway every article I read the book I'm reading has made me come to that conclusion. I'm currently reading a book by Owen Jones which has really opened my eyes.

The fact that anyone with below £10 mil in their account can vote for them is beyond me.

But why would anyone vote for a party that bashes the disabled the poor and anyone outside of their Etonian elite. The only people that would want a party and policies like this have to have no empathy.

YANBU. I think Tory policy around the poor lacks a moral compass. I do food bank referrals for parents who have been sanctioned as they couldn't go to the job centre because of being at a job interview (Kafka-esque, but true). I deal with kids being evicted due to the bedroom tax. Both of those things are just plain wrong.

Pathetic. In the 40 years that I have voted in GE's I have voted for all 3 of the main parties at one time or another. My "moral compass" has not changed, I have not switched from "evil" to "good" and back again. I do not doggedly vote for a particular party from some bizzare sense of personal gratification. I vote for the party whose policies are those that I think are needed for the next 4/5 years.

Have I missed a post by the OP?

Or did they just throw a conversation bomb and run away?

This argument about 'the vulnerable' never makes much sense to me on MN where so many people seem to complain about pensioner benefits being protected. The elderly are amongst the most vulnerable, and if the Tories are protecting them, then they clearly are doing something for the vulnerable.

I agree that disabled people aren't being treated well by this government, but I'm hopeful that things will get better there now that ATOS has lost their contract.

Sanctions are not a good thing when they hit people who genuinely couldn't prevent them, but I think those cases are a minority, and something had to be done to begin to change the attitude that once you are on benefits you can stay there for as long as you want. People were not encouraged to fend for themselves where they could under the last government, instead people were encouraged to be SAHPs claiming benefits cleverly disguised as 'tax credits' and to work as few hours as possible.

I don't see how running the economy into the ground and creating a massive national debt when we didn't need to was ever going to help sick or disabled people in the long run. That's why I won't vote labour, and realistically we are either going to get a predominantly labour or Tory government so I may as well vote for one or the other.

BMW6

I vote for the party whose policies are those that I think are needed for the next 4/5 years

I'd rather have a party that can give us a better world for our children - and that should require thinking a lot further ahead than 2019.

I agree that disabled people aren't being treated well by this government, but I'm hopeful that things will get better there now that ATOS has lost their contract.

I suspect, given IDS rhetoric, plus the aggressiveness Maximus are recruiting "healthcare porfessionals" (because there are soooooooooo many out of work nurses and doctors ?) because they hadn't yet filled all the near-minimum wage [and the irony of the name isn't lost on me] jobs they will use to assess the claimants, then things are about to get a whole lot worse for the disabled.

Somewhere in the bowels of Whitehall, there is a memo. It's totally top secret (as is everything) and will have some rough calculations of lifetime payments of DLA/ESA/PIP, against a subsidised one way trip to Switzerland.

Actually that memo probably doesn't exist. But MrsLH thinks it does.

I think the best rebuttal to your assertion PtolemysNeedle would be to call - on this thread - for anyone who is disabled, to either state their support for the Tories, or explain why they are in fear of the Tories.

I had a "questionnaire" through the door from our Tory candidate last week. The thought process behind most of the questions was pretty transparent. Do you think your tax bill is (a) too high (b) too low or (c) just right? Do you think we should cut services for (a) dole scum (b) hard working families or (c) senior citizens who have worked hard all their lives, saved responsibly and fought wars for this country?

I want better public services, and would happily pay more tax for them. Where's the the party for me?

I want a smaller state and more progressive taxes. Where's the party for me?

if that's what you think then you're very ignorant. it's dangerous to dismissive one group of voters because you believe they are a certain way.
Same as dismissing all UKip voters as 'racist' is dangerous.

I quite liked Owen Jones' book Chavs. Well written if naïve and idealistic. The follow up (The Establishment - if that's what you're referring to) was a pile of crap and riddled with inaccuracies and had to undergo many corrections for the paperback edition. It's sixth form, shouty politics.

We need a vibrant ecomony if we are going support all the severely disabled people and cancer victims.

I feel that policies like the bedroom tax should be decided on a local level. In my area the bedroom tax has helped to free up housing stock for families living in cramped conditions. In areas where there is a huge pressure on housing we need to free up underoccupied social housing. Ironically the elderly have remained untouched even though they take up a high proportion of under occupied houses.

In other parts of the country the bedroom tax has left perfectly good houses standing empty. In places like County Durham the bedroom tax has forced people to move out of council/ housing association properties into more expensive private property. Clearly this is stupid. We should be looking to encourage people to live in these empty houses rather than covering the south of england in concrete. Depopulation of the north east/ west reduces jobs in these areas even further. They are in a vicous circle. Maybe if there was a bedroom tax in London and no bedroom tax in county Durham then people on benefits in London who want a bigger property could have the OPTION of taking a larger empty house in county Durham.

I wish there was an alternative to the Tories. Labour seem to be lacking in ideas other than to soak the rich even further.

www.channel4.com/news/horden-county-durham-bedroom-tax-one-pound-housing

Surely both labour and tory voters would agree that its ridicolous to have people sleeping on the streets when there are empty houses in the UK.

Lurking

I have been left with a mild disability as a result of nhs negligence. In a nutshell, the delays in diagnosing my cancer led to me having a much more extensive and serious operation that I would have required had my GP not been an utter twat. The incident leading to my disability was a "never" event (hahaha) and entirely avoidable. It happened at a time when Brown was pissing borrowed money all over the NHS and was still blamed on "cutbacks" and overwork by the staff.

So - cards on table - I am cynical about the bleeding heart whining that goes on by public sector workers around election time, and about the "big state" generally. I am struggling to think of anything that has been delivered well by a government at any time in history.

I will vote for whatever party I believe is most likely to deliver fiscal competence - at the moment that party is the Tories. Without a properly run economy, we have less ability to help the genuinely needy. At the moment, any responsible government must take policy decisions in the context of the UK- on some measures - being the second most indebted countryin the world (after Japan).

The best bit of that 'Establishment' book was the way the right-wing newspapers are all part of The Establishment and in on the evil plot, but for some reason that other well-known broadsheet The Guardian isn't

I shouldn't keep coming back to this, and thank god most of the responses have been more nuanced than the OP, but it really bugs me the way a certain type of lefty claims to have a monopoly on morality.

These are the same people who claim to believe in tolerance, and in multiculturalism - a generous willingness to accommodate others with different values - but for some reason this tolerance doesn't extend to people with right-wing views. How is that not a set of values to be accommodated?

I can only think it must be that the robust right-wing assertion of individual agency, rationality and competence is an affront to the soggy, condescending vision of human and social helplessness commonly used by lefties to underpin the ever-expanding incursion of the state into individuals' lives.

Big thanks to man for explaining the world!

I'd say there might be three types of person: net takers, net givers who do so resentfully or prefer to give on their own terms (like whining about taxes and thinking that donating to charities of their own choice means they shouldn't have to pay them), and net givers who are OK with some of their taxes going to other people.

I'm sureit's not that UKIP voters are all racist (some might just be idiots)... it's just than a disproportionate amount of racists are drawn to UKIP, for some strange reason. I mean, Farage does boot them out the moment they say so publicly and in an embarrassing way, and I'm sure he's really frustrated at having to do so on such a very regular basis. I'm sure he's racking his brains to find a way to stop attracting racists to his party.

I can only think it must be that the robust right-wing assertion of individual agency, rationality and competence is an affront to the soggy, condescending vision of human and social helplessness commonly used by lefties to underpin the ever-expanding incursion of the state into individuals' lives

But isn't it quite problematic and even wilfully blind to say 'individuals have agency, are rational and competent'? Huge swathes of people genuinely do lack agency in their lives, and nothing's ever going to work if we just say 'well, they shouldn't, they should sort themselves out'! It's not left-wing to say that there is general 'human and social helplessness' - that would be wrong. But I do think it's central to a left-wing vision to say that there is some - and we should probably think about why that is, admit it, and try to help with it.

The disabled won't be treated any better because ATOS have lost their contract. The targets are still there, the rules are still there, the sanctions are still there.

WRT to man's post I worked all my life, including through a disablity until an operation that had an 80% chance of making me better made me worse 9 years ago. I have tried to go back to work but it wasn't possible. I claim DLA, I don't claim anything else. My DH has been in the Forces for 28 years, he has just signed on to do 32 years, he pays quite a bit of tax. DS1 is in the Forces too, he pays his fair share of tax, and DS2 is off to uni to do nursing in September.

I resent being called a "taker" and people referring to anyone on benefits as a "scrounger" or "workshy". We're one of those "hardworking families" that David Cameron keeps going on about, unfortunately through no fault of my own I am disabled, so we aren't included in that, and it absolutely pisses me off.

I have never been so scared of a General Election in my life. I am really scared of the Tories getting in on their own, I think the Lib Dems are vile for going against all their values but they might have held the Tories back abit. I dread to think what they will do if they have free reign over the country, but woe betide us if they go into Coalition with UKIP!

Oh, and as for Labour almost bankrupting the country, it was a global recession and Georgie boy has borrowed more money over this parliament than Labour did over the whole time they were in power. They just don't tell you that. All these cuts have been for nothing.

Wtf does that mean no moral compass? What a complete fucking generalisation. If we're going to talk about morals, I have no time for Ed Miliband who couldn't even bothered to put his name on his own son's birth certificate. What sort of person does that to a child? Or Tony Blair who has made millions despite being responsible for an illegal war which caused so much suffering. Where his fucking moral compass?
Somebody upthread said they've never met a kind Tory. Well my parents were active Labour party members and there were so many hypocrites amongst their friends, some of whom were elected officials or high up in the party, I grew up to hate the Labour party. They were quite happy to get rich themselves but wanted to hold others back. I remember hearing people boast or joke about dodging tax or VAT. This was in Scotland and I think the Labour party there are getting what they deserved because they took the ordinary people for granted.

The Tories don't dodgers tax do they? Why do you think they won't close the loopholes? Because they are all that together, that's bloody why!

TheFairyCaravan you make some very good points.

if cameron and co get in again it will get worse imo.
they have money to spend on their pet projects, yet still insist on cutting benefits for people who have no choice but to claim.
and then they cut local spending, so day centres. respite, care homes, home school transport(to name a few) are affected, slowly support for disabled people is being eroded. what next? maybe they will take a leaf out of UKIP's book and suggest "communities" (we all know what that means.)
at least people with disabled children will not get scammed again, thing cameron gets it.

Of course there is some vulnerability and helplessness. I'm not stupid, unobservant, or made of stone.

However humans also have agency, rational minds, the ability to make decisions for themselves.

Very reductively, right-wing politics starts from a presumption of human agency and rationality, except in pretty extreme/dire/unfortunate circumstances, and tends to work on the assumption that the good society is best effected by giving these inborn traits as much room to develop as possible.

Left-wing politics seems to start from a presumption of general human irrationality, helplessness and irrationality, and tends to work on the assumption that the good society is best effected by keeping these inborn traits in check and putting structures in place to ensure the good life happens.

I'm not a libertarian and it's obvious that some have more agency than others, by accidents of birth/natural intelligence etc. Hence of course there need to be some structures in place to plan for the worst while hoping for the best. Where I do diverge from the left-wing vision, though, is on the appropriate reach and extent of those structures. In my view, beyond a certain point they train people to greater helplessness than would naturally be the case, and actually perpetuate the situations they claim to try and ameliorate. That desire, common in right-wing politics, to lighten the structures that it is believed are deadening humans' natural resilience and abilities, is commonly interpreted as callous and lacking in compassion for the vulnerable. In fact, from a right-wing philosophical standpoint, it's respectful of individual autonomy, fundamentally hopeful about human potential - but founded in a different vision of what humans are and what human society is capable of.

I'm sure someone will be along shortly to take an extreme example of welfare bureaucracy reform having an appalling effect on an individual, and compare this sneeringly to my explanation above of the philosophy behind shrinking the state. I've no doubt there are instances of great suffering caused by changes in this bureaucracy and am not trying to claim that the current government is perfect. What I am trying to do though is show two different philosophies, and offer a different perspective on the one that the OP wrote off as the simple absence of a moral compass.

sorry should be "think" not thing

Is it too late to get my popcorn?
Honestly, OP nowhere to be seen.

It's a bit like saying only Christians or Jews or Muslims have a monopoly on the moral compass.

I'd like it if we could all keep our moral compasses away from politics - and religion, for that matter - thank you very much.

(Totally disenfranchised voter here who has never voted Tory btw!)

Fairy - there will always be wily accountants helping their clients avoid tax. They also existed under the Labour government. My DH employs just such a wily accountant and he is a public sector employee!

I wish there was an alternative to the Tories. Labour seem to be lacking in ideas other than to soak the rich even further.

This.

Ed Milliband will probably start scrutinizing bank accounts that exceed a certain balance before too long.

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00ntmbf

when a mothers love is not eough, brilliant program by Rosa Moncton, on realities of caring for disabled children, it was filmed under LABOUR government and in it she says its a disgrace families stuggling when at that poinrt Pm and shaodw PM both had disabled dc.