to point out that tory voters are far from being in the majority

[IceBeing]

to the labour party...because they seem to have forgotten.

24.4% of the eligible population voted tory in the last election. At less than 1 in 4, tory voters are a long long way from being in the majority.

Why the hell would labour go after those voters rather than the biggest section of potential voters...the 33.9% who found nothing in politics worth voting for?

Totally agree mygardenistoobig some people seem almost gleeful about Tory cuts to the poor. Yes they won but it doesn't mean people will sit back and let them destroy the welfare state, NHS, cuts to disabled people etc. We should all stand up for what's right not just dismiss it and sit back and watch the vulnerable and children suffering.

As for the 'lone parents shouldn't have the money in the first place' argument, the fact is they DO have it now and rely on it. If you have to take it away, wait until wages have increased. Taking huge chunks of money (£1000-2000) away is sheer cruelty to families on

Cannot really complain about voting percentages when Labour bloody abstain, that is equal to voting apathy and people who spoil their vote. The money they earn and they play some stupid game because they have not quite decided on which way to go to please the voters. The blame game on those who vote Tory is ridiculas until Labour get a backbone and at least try to be decent opposition. They are as guilty as the Tories at the moment.

Yet again a total ignorance of the fact that these are people's lives. It isn't about winners and losers and "you'll get your turn". The ignorance on this thread is breathtaking.

Yes OP, YABU.
No party got an overall majority of the vote, but under our imperfect system they did win enough seats to govern. That's how our system has worked for hundreds of years so I don't know why people are whining now!
There was actually a poll a couple of years back to gauge support for switching to the proportional representation system (which I assume would please most of the post election whiners) but it was emphatically rejected with an enormous majority of the public voting to keep the system we currently have.
I fail to see what more could be done.

I voted Tory this time, but have voted for others in the past. I didn't vote for them with any great enthusiasm I can assure you, they were the least bad option and frankly anything other than the alternative lab / snp coalition would be okay by me (and given the shock election result it would seem a lot of people would agree with me).

OMFG I AM NOT A LABOUR SUPPORTER OR A LABOUR VOTER. THEY HAVE NEVER HAD AND NEVER WILL HAVE MY VOTE.

Is there any chance I might get some responses that don't assume I am a labour supporter in spite of my statements to the contrary?

Jeremy Corbyn thinks he is turning back the clock to Michael Foot and the "duffle" coat politics of 1983 !/

The difference is far from being 32 years out of date (not that those views were not out of date then) is that Micheal Foot was a highly principled man who was a brilliant speaker and who worked in the secret service during WW2.

Jeremy Corbyn is an apologist for the IRA hence his invitation just after the Brighton Bombings of 1984 to meet Gerry Adams. This apart from his other political views in favor of "Terrorist " groups against Israel .

Jeremy Corbyn is a "disgrace" and would bring the Labour party not only to its knees but to electoral disaster , leading to UKIP taking at least 20 Labour seats and the Conservative party winning in such places as Newcastle-Under Lyne in Staffordshire !.

I have been a Conservative voter all my life " i don't like what Osborne is doing" . However, Corbyn does not represent any form of credible leadership offering realistic policies dealing with economic or cultural problems faced by the country.

The only realistic leader is Liz Kendal .

can anyone remember when "education should be free at the point of use" wasn't a batshit crazy left wing policy?

It was totally normal till Blair....

Rtft maninawomansworld and then Google proportional representation and alternative vote and see if you can spot the difference.

Just ignore the divvies iceBeing. Something like every third poster only reads the op and just makes up the rest or repeats a previously dealt with point and about every fifth poster only reads the thread title. There was a brilliant/depressing thread started by Honeydragon which illustrated exactly that.

oh do you have a link to the HD thread?

There was yet more 'the majority voted for right wing' bullshit on the bbc this morning.

THEY DID NOT.

Seriously 24.4% of people voted right wing...and it simply isn't a majority.

Ice

FFS, the BBC were bang on with their assertion.

Out of those who bothered to vote, the Conservatives won a 36.9% share, UKIP, who you conveniently ignored and who I believe to be a little bit right wing, won a 12.6% share of the vote.

That is almost half the turn out, well 49.5% to be exact who voted for a right of centre party. If you throw in the DUP that pushes that figure up to 50.1% !

Even when you bundle together all the left leaning parties, Labour, Lib Dems, Greens, SNP, SDLP (and all the other loose change lefty fringe groups like Socialist Labour Party, Workers Party, hell you can even have the Monster Raving Looney Party) they still don't total to more then what the Conservatives and UKIP got in terms of vote share.

You can only decide an election based on those who put an 'X' in the box on polling day, whinging about those who could not be arsed to drag themselves away from Eastenders on election night or those people stupid enough disfranchise themselves by listening to Russell Brand is pointless. Trying to guess what party these non-voters would have opted for if forced to vote is pointless. By all means argue that Labour should target these people as well as the active swing voters in future campaigns. But as far as the 2015 election is concerned right of centre parties won a majority share of the vote then left of centre parties.

Maybe it comes down to maths? It makes more sense to go after the "other side's" voters because they lose one and you gain one.

If you're Labour and win over a Tory voter, they're one down and you're one up.
If you win over a non-voter, you're just one up.
If you go after a non-voter and they don't change, you're nothing up or down.

In marginal constituencies this can make all the difference.

pan A lot of ukip are left wing...as for the majority of votes going right wing...then you are definitely correct as all of the lib dems, labour, tory and ukip are located right of centre.

But I think you have to consider the choice the electorate were given. Labour used to be left of centre...and now they aren't. So a lot of people voted labour thinking they still had any kind of left wing policies when they didn't.

So did those people really vote for benefit cuts etc? Or did they basically have no choice?

also labours vote share went up from 2010 to 2015. The tories won because of the lib dem vote collapse not because they stole votes on average from labour. So why is the labour response to moan about losing voters to the tories? It didn't happen!