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???

Far as I can see just a load of people winging about what benfits the Tories won't let them have voting oabour so they can still have their benfits if that's not self intrest don't know what is

Right-o. I'll nip down to Hampstead, catch Esther Rantzen, Trevor Phillips and whichever other liberals I can find, in that neck of the woods, and ask them which benefits they were hoping for, Universal Credit, I expect.

I am still an 'undecided' in the forthcoming election. The only thing I know for certain is that I'd never vote UKIP.

As a teacher, I have definitely been financially worse off under the current government. As a disabled person, I haven't really noticed any difference (DLA has risen in line with inflation and Access to Work support has remained the same). However, I have not claimed any out-of-work benefits, so couldn't comment.

I live in a relatively affluent area where schools have generally performed reasonably well compared to the national average. This has masked the severe underachievement of disadvantaged pupils compared to others.

One thing that this government has done has been to make the narrowing of the gap in achievement between disadvantaged pupils and non-disadvantaged pupils a priority. The introduction of the pupil premium (although initially a lib dem policy) has helped, alongside the Ofsted framework which puts schools under tremendous pressure to ensure disadvantaged pupils make 'good' progress. The admissions code has allowed schools to give preferential treatment to disadvantaged students (there is a thread about this currently).

Many local schools have lost cherished 'Outstanding' or 'Good' ratings purely on the basis of the underachievement of disadvantaged pupils. As a seondary school teacher and primary school governor, I am now much more acutely aware of how much progress disadvantaged pupils are making relative to their peers than I would have been under the previous government and Ofsted frameworks which were much more focuesed on 'exciting lessons'.

I was never a great fan of Gove. However, it is hard to deny that he was very passionate about increasing the life chances of disadvantaged pupils through education.

Och OP such nonsense.

I am not and will never be a Tory or a UKIPer, but you need to spend some time on doorsteps to understand why people vote as they do.

The left are often not thinking liberally or even kindly. They vote as they do because that's how it is.

TheChandler, your Danish friend seems to have lacked insight into both the British system and their own. As far as I have seen, the Danish welfare system is far more generous than the British one.

The British welfare system is portrayed by British political parties as generous as a way to suit their own ends, and in a positive or negative light all according to the mood of the population.

Far as I can see just a load of people winging about what benfits the Tories won't let them have voting oabour so they can still have their benfits if that's not self intrest don't know what is

That's hilarious. Cos the kind of self-interest that has people concerned about their disability/in-work benefits is just the same as the kind self-interest that makes people vote for whoever will have them pay the least tax.

A lot of people like me don't claim benefits, but care a vulnerable people like disabled people who do.

Yes, that too, Samcro. I find the idea of voting purely for myself really puzzling – or, rather, I'm always aware that I could tomorrow turn into one of 'those people' who needs benefits and support. There but for the grace of God ...

I guess I'm also influenced in my pondering by things like this:

anotherangryvoice.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/myth-cleaning-up-labours-mess.html

Thanks everyone for lots of thoughtful and interesting replies. I'm still not convinced that Tory/UKIP really care for the most vulnerable, but I've enjoyed thinking about all the points raised.

Well Op, maybe you're just suffering from a superiority complex......

Well not convinced by your link, the 1974-79 govt only behaved they way they did as they had to follow the IMF, because they had literally bankrupted the country. Anyone who fails to realise that is not worth listeming to.
The thing I would really like to challenge is the progressivness of the Left as opposed to the Conservatives. Forget UKIP, they are reactionary arseholes.
How is abour trapping people in poverty with benefits progressive? what about 2 million new jobs and same sex marriage, how is that reactionary?
Please tell me all the progressive things done by the Left. Many things, such as strong unions and excessive job security actually punish the poor as companies do not hire staff.
For example, all Ed's promise on zero contracts will do is ensure companies do not provide regular work for people to avoid them reaching the 12 week threshold.
Other interferences cause unintended consequences, such as Ed's promise to freeze energy bills mean they are higher now than they otherwise would be.
Also the Labour party has always left unemployment higher at the end of thier term than at the start.

All I know is that the supposedly affluent area in which I live now has two foodbanks. David Cameron can go to hell.

Smilla TheChandler, your Danish friend seems to have lacked insight into both the British system and their own. As far as I have seen, the Danish welfare system is far more generous than the British one.

I will tell him - he's a Jutlander, from Kolding, previously living in Kobenhavn, and he might be a bit surprised. He was certainly surprised when I told him that housing benefit existed in the UK, and what it paid for, and that unemployment benefit wasn't linked to your last wage from your previous job. Housing benefit in particular astonished him. Mind you, jantelow is still prevalent in parts of rural Jylland, so I guess that will temper his surprise to some extent.

The British welfare system is portrayed by British political parties as generous as a way to suit their own ends, and in a positive or negative light all according to the mood of the population.

The left wing and the OP currently giving excellent examples of that.

I think a lot of the difference between lefties and right wingers comes down to their answer to the question "Why are people poor?"

Lefties answer with social/structural causes such as deindustrialisation, class, discrimination, the global economy, the tax system, corporate culture, societal power structures etc

Right wingers answer with individualistic causes such as lack of ambition, low iq, poor lifestyle choices, unwillingness to work hard etc

Imo the right wing view is scapegoating and a slippery slope to fascism.

This decade is already a lot like the 1930s. If this election ends in a Tory/ukip coalition we are going to end up where that decade led.

Never forget a lot of Germans voted for the Nazis because they liked their economic policies.

The conservatives will not have a coalition with UKIP, despite the views of some on this thread and elsewhere, the Conservative leadership has nothing but contempt for UKIP or thier policies.
Fascism actually has much more in common with the Left in this country, centralisation, equalisation of income, lack of private enterprise, intrusive laws, group think on speech etc.
Below is the Nazi economic policy, which reads as fairly socialist to me:

The original "Twenty-Five Point Programme" of the party, adopted in 1920, listed several economic demands (including "the abolition of all incomes unearned by work," "the ruthless confiscation of all war profits," "the nationalization of all businesses which have been formed into corporations," "profit-sharing in large enterprises," "extensive development of insurance for old-age," and "land reform suitable to our national requirements")

Abolition of unearned (work and labour) incomes. Breaking of debt (interest)-slavery.
In consideration of the monstrous sacrifice in property and blood that each war demands of the people, personal enrichment through a war must be designated as a crime against the people. Therefore we demand the total confiscation of all war profits.
We demand the nationalisation of all (previous) associated industries (trusts).
We demand a division of profits of all heavy industries.
We demand an expansion on a large scale of old age welfare.
We demand the creation of a healthy middle class and its conservation, immediate communalization of the great warehouses and their being leased at low cost to small firms, the utmost consideration of all small firms in contracts with the State, county or municipality.
We demand a land reform suitable to our needs, provision of a law for the free expropriation of land for the purposes of public utility, abolition of taxes on land and prevention of all speculation in land.
We demand struggle without consideration against those whose activity is injurious to the general interest. Common national criminals, usurers, profiteers and so forth are to be punished with death, without consideration of confession or race.

I completely agree, Jackie, and I don't care if anyone calls Godwin's Law. It is genuinely frightening.

I don't think people one benefits are 'trapped' on them; for many people they are a temporary leg-up/backstop. Stories of all these individuals on benefits for ever, and families with several generations who've never worked, are just that; stories. Researchers have worked hard to find these chimerical beasts in any statistically significant numbers, but continue to fail to do so.

I will give the Tories same-sex marriage as the one good thing they've done.

The two million new jobs, as I've said upthread, means little as a lot of them are zero-hours, Workfare and people forced into working for themselves because there's nothing else available.

I don't particularly care for the Tories, but I don't see the left as progressive.I grew up in a Labour heartland, coal mining area and everyone was a labour voter/very left wing. It was also deeply sexist, racist and the unions were onky interested in promoting white men. Things have probably changed since then, but my impression of the left is still coloured by this.

caroldecker those policies honestly sound quite similar to those of the SNP. I wish you would post them on the SNP thread!

bertsdinner I grew up in a Labour heartland, coal mining area and everyone was a labour voter/very left wing. It was also deeply sexist, racist and the unions were onky interested in promoting white men.

I found that as well. I think the attitude of everything being done to ensure men have an easy job, well paid job for life is still at the heart of many left wingers in the central belt of Scotland (and I include the SNP in that, with their creation of protected industries by new licensing and regulatory regimes).

Agreed. I came from the Welsh Valleys and women shut up, put up and stayed out of the pubs and the men's way.

I left as soon as I could and never went back.

Compare that to the affluent, educated, wel travelled, open minded, tolerant, questioning , cultured people I now mix with.

All of whom will be voting Tory.

only there are less than 800,000 people on zero hour contracts and 66% want to be here
Even if your claim was true, better to have some job than none under Labour?

I find Labours Hypocrisy astounding and that's why I would never vote for them.

Never vote labour patronising attitude

Do you mean like the tax avoiding, privately educating father, Martin Freeman in his Vote Labour broadcast?

TheChandler, 'unemployment benefit' is only linked to your last job when you are a member of an A-kasse, aka an unemployment insurance scheme. The payments are called dagpenge and only last a certain amount of time. If you're still not employed at that point, you would then transfer onto the real unemployment benefit/income support equivalent. Dagpenge has nothing to do with the welfare system in that sense.

There may not be a direct equivalent of Housing Benefit but there is such a thing as boligstøtte, which I understand is a lot smaller in amount, but that is not to say that people in need of support with their housing costs are left to struggle any more than British citizens are. I'm honestly struggling to see why you would automatically interpret your Danish friend's surprise at how the British welfare system organises its support systems as surprise at how 'generous' it is, rather than surprise at how different it is.

The Danish system is based on the universal model, which operates on the basis of providing maximum welfare to all in order to increase economic equality, and the British system is based on the residual model, aiming only to provide protection from poverty for those in acute need via minimal basic welfare payments.