To wonder about the values of Tory/UKIP voters

[Campaspe]

Why would anyone vote for a party that promotes austerity rather than a progressive, liberal party (Labour, SNP, Greens, Plaid Cymru)? I'm not saying for a minute that Tory voters don't care about poor or vulnerable people, so how do they square their political support with their conscience? Is it that these voters genuinely believe Labour caused the recession (most analysts now discredit this theory and point to Tory failure to manage the deficit, but maybe these voters aren't aware).

So, given the economic mismanagement stuff doesn't stick, why??? Dislike of Ed Miliband - in which case, why not another progressive party? How do such voters justify the bedroom tax, benefit sanctions, supporting tax evasion, failure to protect libraries, the growing divide between rich and poor etc etc. What are their reasons???

i kind of think a lot of tory voters are like a person I know.
they vote for them cos it will make them richer...when asked well what about the disabled people who are getting hit so hard by the cuts...
oh I do a fun run for scope....so I care.
reminds me of when the rich would "help" the poor buy buying their kids shoes....but they had to be really poor first.
(I try not to think about ukip voters)

Ridiculous how people brand Conservaties 'right' Labour 'left'. Let's just be honest and admit that the middle ground is very crowed! Most traditional Labour voters wouldn't consider Ed and his gang 'left' at all.

www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/two-thirds-of-economists-say-coalition-austerity-harmed-the-economy-10149410.html

i kind of think a lot of tory voters are like a person I know.
they vote for them cos it will make them richer...when asked well what about the disabled people who are getting hit so hard by the cuts...
oh I do a fun run for scope....so I care.
reminds me of when the rich would "help" the poor buy buying their kids shoes....but they had to be really poor first.
(I try not to think about ukip voters)*
well how wrong you are I am BME I was a single mother from the age of 15 I was a foster carer now adopted twice and volunter at centre twice a week

So I very much doubti like th peope you know

FatFrom, in the list of cuts made by the Tories there's no mention of disabled benefits being cut. The only cuts I can see re that element were to Remploy and Access to Work. The current speculation is just that, speculation.

No one party will have a manifest that everyone is in agreement with, there will always be aspects that are not liked.

Also one things that really gets my goat is the way go on about toffs as if most of the labour lot are not cut from excatly the same cloth it's just they try to pretend they are not two kitchens ed anyone

The Tories haven't made me richer Samcro but I still agree with a lot of their policies.

Fatfrom, why should businesses pay more? Some jobs don't justify a higher salary as there is no skill involved. If people can't survive on their wage then it was foolish to plan children and then rely on benefits. We all have things we would like but some are sensible and wait until they can afford them.

99pokerface don't get your reply

not all people "plan" to rely on benefits.
people get disabled , sick.....

I don't 'agree' with the SNP or Plaid Cymru on principle (even though I'm in Wales). We are the UNITED Kingdom and I think the party in power should represent the whole of the UK, not have an agenda for one specific nation.

The greens are too fluffy for me...nice ideas, nowhere near enough realism, no experoence of actually having to balance the books.

UKIP have no ideas or plans other than immigration. Nigel Farage is (IMO) a fantastic public speaker, very engaging and convincing but thinks everything will be magically fixed by reducing immigration which is nonsense.

Which leaves the 'big 3'. I'd eat my own knickers before I help to put Ed in the job of PM. He's an ego-maniac, all 'me, me, me' and 'when I'm PM'. He seems like a weak and ineffectual man and I struggle to believe a word he says. He's grasping for power and trying to say all the right things, but with very little substance. No ideas to improve relations and deals in Europe, nothing concrete on debt and deficit, just 'we'll reduce it'. Well that's swell Ed but how?

I'd ideally like to vote Lib Dem. I thought Nick Clegg came across brilliantly last night, cleverly positioned in the middle of Labour and Tory. I actually think Lib Dem would do well with a majority vote but realistically it won't happen. So I won't vote for them because if too many do, it risks Ed having the majority.

Which leaves Tory. So it will be Tory that get my vote. I think DC is quite good at what he does, he pisses all over the others in these debates and he's a strong leader who's not afraid to answer difficult questions. So it could be worse.

The fact that the Tories have mad such sweeping and far reaching cuts and labour still can made inroads just shows how weak ed is and I di think it's him I think they would be in far better shape if the dumped the dead wood or ed wood lol

I see it like this if your running a house hold and you have no money you cut your cloth accordingly their is no fun to be had with cutting back but it needs to be done simples standared of living will plummet but belts must be made tight you can not spend you way out of debt and slowing down your cost cutting makes the process drawn out

99pokerface, the idea that Labour like people on benefits because they think they will vote for them is, with every respect, nursery politics. The vote doesn't work like that, and any politician with half a brain knows it.

I work on a more than full time basis and would certainly never contemplate voting Conservative, even if it would make me personally better off - and I was in fact brought up in a household where the possibility of voting anything other than Conservative was not contemplated. That is because I keep my eyes open, and I can see how extremely vulnerable people are essentially despised by this government. There are so many people on benefits because they have no choice, for instance because of serious illness or disability or because their employers went bust under the Tories. But, more seriously, there are people already living on a shoestring whose lives have been made a whole lot worse under the Tories.

I wouldn't mind so much if it wasn't that many of their policies don't actually achieve what they want. The bedroom tax, for instance, is actually costing more because it didn't factor in the reality that smaller houses weren't and aren't available. Legal aid cuts have meant that the costs of running the courts have shot up way beyond anything that those cuts have saved. And so on and so on. Many benefits cuts have been put in place essentially as a cosmetic exercise, because they think it will please Conservative voters.

It's been said before upthread

Right= poor bashing, selfishness, tax evasion, limitless knighthoods for investment bankers, xenophobia, endless propaganda

Left= endless liberal propaganda, vague fiscal management, endless social academics and not a definition in sight

The real question is:

why does anybody vote for any of it?

you talk about cuts and how they have to be mad blah blah blah.
but why make cuts to benefits for people have no choice, like the disabled.
whilst not touching the elderly?
being so disabled you can't work is not a choice, yet those benefits those people rely on are being cut and will be cut further if the tories get in again.

That's easy to answer, just redefine being disabled so that the recipient is no longer disabled. Incidentally, if the applicant is already dead, and has still been judged fit to work, then apologise, but don't alter the policy.

99poker - Running a country is not the same as running a household. The fact that you even use the word "simples" further underlines how simplistic your argument is.

But it's good that you posted, as I'm getting far more of an idea as to why those who aren't super-rich vote Tory.

YABU to lump conservatives and UKIP together.

End of.

The so called bedroom tax is easy to justify. It shows me just how misguided labour are when they say they'd scrap it if they got into power. Why couldn't they just say they'd make disabled people exempt, it would be a much more credible stance on who deserves to have a spare bedroom paid for by government.

Benefit sanctions can also be easily justified, as long as they target the right people. The problem with sanctions is that sometimes they are implemented unfairly, so that is what needs to change, but we shouldn't get rid of them altogether.

No party is supporting tax evasion, and preventing tax evasion will always be an ongoing thing just like preventing any other crime. None of the parties can claim tax evasion is non existent on their watch.

Libraries are important, but with limited amounts of money I'd rather see local budgets concentrate on providing social care, not books and Internet access.

The divide between rich and poor grew under labour, so I don't think that's something that Tory voters have to justify any more than labour voters do.

Lumping UKIP and Tory together is far from wrong. The typical U-kipper was a Tory who couldn't go right enough in the Tory Party. So, they're ex-Tory swivel-eyed loons, basically.

I can understand why people vote Tory, quite easily.

Many recent UKIP voters are former Tory supporters who are fed up with having a "liberal" Tory Govn. So it's not entirely out of order to put them together.

However, I save my concerns over morality etc for UKIP voters. UKIP is a facist party. It has been admitted that the target demographic are less educated people, particularly those who grew up in the UK before mass immigration. Oh and racists, misogynists and disabilists. So there are two types of UKIP voters as far as I can see, the ignorant (in the true sense of the word) and the deeply unpleasant. Not a great combination.

From my POV (and I have no political stance however my parents voted Conservative but I have never voted in the main elections from memory).

I found myself nodding along to a lot of the Green party's values but I am terrified as to how it will be funded. I think she has said it would be tax rises and I think that's why people who already pay a lot of tax (your middle and high earners) are more inclined to vote Conservative as Cameron has pledged to leave income tax untouched.

I think those who pay little tax or no tax (people in receipt of state help and low income bracket) are always going to vote for parties who promise to spend money on services and welfare and tax the rich (anyone more well off than themselves).

Absolutely agree with Itsnotmeitsyou at 0826, she sums up my feelings exactly. We don't vote properly in the UK and it shows.

I think there is no 'good' party, rock and a hard place just because they can't multi-task between understanding economics and putting in policies to support this alongside meaningful help without haemorrhaging money.

I think those who pay little tax or no tax (people in receipt of state help and low income bracket) are always going to vote for parties who promise to spend money on services and welfare and tax the rich (anyone more well off than themselves).

Exactly! And then they think they have some kind of moral authority over others who do exactly the same thing by voting in their own interests. It's laughable.