I voted Conservative, and am happy to admit it - why don't other Tory voters feel the same?

[MillyMolly99]

I voted Conservative, and am delighted with the election result. However no one else seems to admit to being a Tory voter, but there are clearly lots of us around. I told someone at work about my voting preferences - she looked at me as if I'd just killed a puppy.

DH commented that being left-wing is a more fashionable view, even if you don't agree with left-wing politics.

I think he has a point. And I get heartily sick of people who brag about being brought up on a council estate, holding it up as a badge of honour, assuming this gives more weight to their opinions than those of us who come from a different sort of background. It's some weird, inverted snobbery thing.

I totally agree with David Cameron's comments about wanting to ensure a good life for those of us who are prepared to work for it. What's so wrong with that????

Cupid - I can't remember the approx figure for benefits paid out, but it's a fair whack. No, I doubt that cutting benefits to piss takers with raise 12bn, but it wouldn't be an insubstantial amount.

Well unless you know something I don't Shiney I'll prepare myself to lose them.

Anyone who voted Tory, sorry, I think you're a selfish arse.

Hate to wish time away but the next 5 years till we have the opportunity to vote out this bunch of smug, arrogant self serving twats can't come soon enough.

You ask where they work in order to determine if they want to buy clothes? Nope. No dice. She's buying holiday gear and you ask where she works in order to try to flog work clothes?

And no, my benefits don't pay enough for me to go away. I had a small amount put away from my redundancy pay. All above board too, because shock horror (!) benefits recipients are allowed to have some savings. And hell, even if I wasn't, I, like you, have worked since I was 16 and until my redundancy last year paid a nice lump of tax and NI each month. I won't shrivel up and allow myself absolutely no luxuries because the thought of someone in my position (single mother, studying every evening, very little family help) offends your poor little brain.

Shiny In 2010 the Tories said they wanted 20% of people off DLA. They said people didn't have to provide medical evidence and weren't reassessed. That was bollocks, frankly. You do have to provide a lot of medi Al evidence and are reassessed between every 1-3 years.

They made out that millions were claiming fraudulently. This was bollocks to. The DWP's own figures say that 0.5% of claims are fraudulent, so the Tories are taking benefits from genuine disabled people. To qualify for DLA mobility you had to be unable to walk 50m. Now if you can walk 21m, with an aid in severe pain you don't qualify. That's how brutal and nasty they are.

Lets not foget the main beneficiaries of tax credits have been employers who have been able to get away with paying wages below the living level.subsidised miserly employers.

What we need is a a living minimum wage

Fairy - if the benefits for piss takers were cut, then surely there would be absolutely no need to look at cutting benefits for people genuinely in need. Isn't this what welfare is supposed to be? Help for those that need it most? If the piss takers were out of the equation, the welfare bill would be hugely reduced and people in genuine need wouldn't have to fight for it.

Welfare is a hot topic due to people taking the mick, because we all know that these people exist. I think you would be hard pressed to find ANYBODY who believes that people in genuine need should experience cuts.

The Tories believe that Shiny. They're cutting £12b and studies that have estimated the cost of benefit fraud haven't thought it was anywhere near that big.

Thing is though the piss takers will always find a way to get by. By illegal means if need be. It's the genuinely in need that always get fucked over when benefits get cut.

Fairy - the same problem exists for DLA claimants. It's only because people take the mick that people who are genuinely in need have to jump through hoops to get DLA. It's all wrong. I think you're pissed off with the wrong people really.

If there were no piss takers they wouldn't give everyone else any more. This is all ideological. If we are so skint that we are literally taking food from children's mouths why did millionaires get a £43000 a year tax cut? It doesn't add up.

Cupid - I imagine it's very difficult to estimate levels of benefit fraud, due to most people not admitting to it.

I can't imagine the figures were based on how many people admit to it Shiny

I'm not Shiny. It's really, really hard to get DLA which is why there are so few fraudulent claims. But the government and Daily Mail don't want you to know that so they keep feed you the bullshit.

The Government are cutting all these benefits because they don't believe in the Welfare State, although David Cameron claimed DLA for Ivan.

TheFairy - maybe they wouldn't give any more money to individuals, but surely the process of claiming would be a lot less arduous and stressful, and more fair.

Unfortunately we need millionaires. Despite cuts to their tax (not something I necessarily agree with) they still pay a lot. If all the millionaires and big businesses left the country we really would be fucked.

Cupid - no maybe not!

TheFairy - I haven't seen anything about any cuts to Tax credits or DLA. I guess it all remains to be seen. We'll see. I'm taking on board what everyone has said.

We'd be much less fucked if tax loopholes that big businesses take advantage of were closed. It'd raise a shit of a lot more than £12b. My main issue with the Tories is that they choose to ignore this and instead penalise the poor in order to reduce the deficit.

Yes, tax loopholes should be closed. Even so, we'd still be fucked without them. It's not only the poor who are penalised, everybody is. Labour taxing the wealthy into oblivion would have been a really bad move though, as they would simply up and leave.

I don't grudge people holidays, I have no idea what others circumstances are. I work hard also but not a Tory voter. I really don't envy people on benefits. I believe people should stop comparing each other. I have a mortgage, but that allowed me to choose the place I live in, many who are being allocated council housing have to take where they are given.

The ways in which people with money are penalised doesn't prevent them from feeding their children, keeping the house warm, clothing their families, etc. The wealthy will be receiving some tax cuts under this government I believe. Taxes being at the current rate hasn't made these people leave yet they're now to receive tax cuts while the poor get benefit cuts. There's a quote that I remember hearing in the past. Something like you can judge a country by how it treats its most disadvantaged. I truly believe that.

And Shiny, do you really believe that companies like Amazon are going to up and leave the UK and forsake the massive profits they make here, simply because they're forced to pay the proper amount of tax?

No, I agree, it doesn't prevent the wealthy from doing those things. If Labour had got in and starting taxing the wealthy indiscriminately I believe there would be a real risk that these people would leave, and then we would have a shit load more financial problems than we have now. There would have a lot more poor for a start. That can't be the answer.

I'm not wealthy, far from it actually. We just about make ends meet with both of us working. It's absolutely not the case that I support cuts to those genuinely in need.

I think there would be a real danger of large companies leaving. We won't know now, obviously. I think it's grim that these companies don't pay the proper amount of tax, of course I do. But if they left it would be a lot grimmer.

The issue is not around whether the claim is 'genuine' or not. It is the fact that they are claiming at all. Ideologically they want people to be self- sufficient and if they have to brand them as scroungers to get the public to support Draconian cuts then that's what they'll do and have been doing.

I don't personally believe the £300 story but I do know how the poster feels in some respects because I am in the same boat of being in a low wage working family.

Under Labour it was very, very hard not to compare. They abolished the 10p tax rate and put up taxes for the lowest paid including my family significantly.

I live in an area where quite a few people were in receipt of benefits. We worked 90 hours a week between us and our lifestyle was considerably less comfortable than those of our neighbours who did not work. And it was frustrating.

This has actually changed under the coalition and the same people seem to now be living much the same lifestyle as me.

I think it's very easy to say 'stop comparing' if when you compared yourself you would have significant advantages. But when you have significant disadvantages and you know that you are supporting people who are more comfortable than you.

Labour abolished the 10p tax rate for the lowest paid workers. The Tories have already significantly cut the amount of tax the lowest paid workers pay and are going to cut it further.

I have the general impression from my own personal experience that nowadays life on benefits is pretty much the same as for those on low wages. I would like it to improve for both sets of people. But I think it is wrong to have the lowest paid subsidising people who are better off than them via benefits. So I much prefer the Tories.