To ask those who voted for the conservatives ....

[ginorwine]

Reading the threads here there is much criticism about conservative policy .
A lot of people must have voted for them .
Where are they on mums net ?
And on threads such as those re the w t c cuts are they not representing their views as it was clear this would happen ?
I can tell that they may be slated but surley differing views can be expressed so long as it doesn't get nasty - a know that feeling run high but surley ppl can do so .
So to Tory voters -is it how you anticipated .what are your views ?

Just to put right the idea that 40 years ago people just had 1 job which covered everything. I was in work almost 40 years ago and like everyone I knew we all had a full time job and 2/3 sometimes 4 jobs done at weekends and after or before work. So did our dhs. If anything the attitude now is you go to work for 40 hours per week and that should keep you.

Completely and utterly up to you bunty.

I know the area I grew up in and the people I went to school with. Sadly, it didn't surprise me one bit.

*He voted Conservative because he believes Labour fucked up the economy.

He believes they have stolen our children's future by getting into huge national debt*

But they didn't.

FanjoForTheMammaries funny how our kids futures are being stolen now

To be fair Fanjo even the Independent, which I had previously held in high esteem, came out in support of the Tories so they managed to convince even the more reputable parts of the press that they were to be trusted. I suspect it also lost them a lot of subscribers too though - my dad being one!

Done

Fanjo how didn't they fuck up the economy then?

The more you spend servicing debt, the less money you have for other things. To want to run a surplus is (for most people) a good idea. People will have to be convinced that this isn't the case. I can't see that happening.

I tactically voted Lib Dem to try and keep the SNP out - didn't work ...but if I had a choice between Labour and Tory (realistically that is what the option was for the major ruling party) I would have gone for Tory. I didn't trust Labour to run the country...and there was a cigarette paper between them really.
Honestly I think it was the lesser of two evils ...way I feel about voting in general these days...
And I have no regrets. The thing about tax credits was also that they were open to abuse - people limiting their hours etc. I have seen them criticised on MN a lot. And the cut off for receipt was huge - £50k+ iirc... which I guess in some areas isn't a lot but where I live the average salary is less than £20k and property is relatively cheap...

So the other stuff he says is true then.

But Labour did f**k up the economy. They even boasted about it with their 'Dear chief secretary, I'm afraid to tell you there's no money left,' Note

They just thought fuck the poor as long as the rich are getting richer, and I'll obviously never have to claim any benefits, as I'll never become sick disabled mentally ill or unemployed, or to put in another way. I'm alright Jack.

It's fascinating, this idea that the best way to bring others round to your political viewpoint is to insult them.

It backfired badly on the Labour Party though. Many left-wingers were (and still are) so vitriolic and offensive in their characterisation of the right that they drove opposing views largely off social media. As a result, Ed Miliband and his gang saw the dominance of left-wing views on platforms such as Twitter and totally believed they had the majority behind them - even after the exit poll said the opposite.

I am a Tory voter. It doesn't mean that I have to agree with all of their policies, or that I need to come on here to explain them.

Basically I agree with most of what helmet's husband believes, except I am vehemently anti Europe.

I will tell you what disgusts me about the Tories (the political party - not the people who vote for them).

It is the rhetoric of hate, division and fear. The whole strivers and skivers business. The incitement to hate people within our own communities. The incitement to look down on anybody receiving benefits as stealing from the country, with very VERY little thought to the effect this hatred would have on those people with no choice to survive without benefits. At a time when unemployment was high, it was unforgivable to categorise everyone currently without a job as beneath contempt, as a leech on society. A lot of very good hard working people lost their jobs post 2008 and to treat them so was appalling.

The manufactured fear of Labour's running of the economy was also gutter politics of the worse sort. We all know Labour didn't cause the global financial crisis and we all know that the balance of opinion of reputable economists has long been that austerity prolongs the recovery time rather than shortening it. We can also all see with our actual eyes that the Tory government is actually overspending by more than labour did - so they know austerity is bollocks too. This means all the fear mongering was nothing but political posturing of the worst sort. Since Corbyn's election I have a had a constant stream of messages by email and on facebook telling me I should fear this man. Apparently He will ruin my families security and hates Britain! I am sure he eats babies too.

We deserve so very much more from our leaders than fear mongering and socially divisive rhetoric. We need leaders who inspire compassion and community not fear, hate and isolation. If the only way for them to stay in power is to teach us to hate each other then they REALLY don't deserve to be there.

I have been a lifelong Labour voter, but my eyes have been well and truly opened by being on Mumsnet over the election period.

The awful name calling and intimidation by some left wing posters has made me ashamed and prevented me from posting any opinions on political threads, even as a Labour voter!!. I genuinely thought that people grew out of this kind of behaviour after the mid twenties.

I am not so sure that Mumsnet is as left wing as people think, because we are not allowed to hear everyone's views. I don't actually know how I will vote in future, I will have to have a long hard think, away from Mumsnet.

Well, I did not want to be governed by a Labour-SNP coalition. Saw Tories as the lesser evil

Evil still. But less evil. I thought Ed Balls was a huge liability.

But those were the choices I felt I had. Voting green or lib dem would be a "lost vote"

I guess I will have to name change after this confession!

I stand corrected...there actually are still people out there, and on this thread, so stupid they think labour caused the global financial crash in 2008...presumably the Tories are responsible for the slow down in China going on at the moment too....

In answer to your question, OP, MN is generally left-leaning and I think the posters who incline to the right tend to keep quiet about it because of the widespread phenomenon of those left-wing proponents of tolerance, compassion and empathy calling them 'scum' and 'vile cunts' and the like. It's a phenomenon that goes well beyond MN and has been discussed a fair bit in the right-wing press but AFAIK seems to go largely unacknowledged, or even excused, by the left.

One thing that annoys me on mumsnet is the assumption that Tory voters swallow everything the Dailymail says and are unable to think for themselves.

I listened to lots of Ed Balls and Miliband speeches and interviews. In my view they were a liability.

I don't think Labour caused the global financial crash.

I think they failed to regulate the banks despite having years of advice to do so. I know they sold off our gold reserves at a ridiculously low price - a huge mistake. I know that despite his claims to prudence - Brown was spending, borrowing, spending, borrowing, spending, like a loon.

Clearly I am stupid though.

I think there's a problem with both sides imagining that their political enemies take a very black and white view while they themselves of course can see the nuances.

I don't think anybody really votes for their favoured party thinking 'yay! This lot have never put a foot wrong or broken a promise. They have all the answers, and they're just the people to solve the nations problems in short order' .

But many think that's how others vote.

Oh don't get me wrong although it is well established I am no friend or voter of the conservatives. If I had to swear on oath I couldn't say I thought labour were much better. I do have to be honest there. They all aside from Jeremy Corbyn voted in favor of the cuts. Love him or loathe him, but at least he acts like what labour are expected to left winged and against the Tories. At least he displays compascompassion for the poor. Were as current labour party members are basically just Tory lites.

I only voted labour because there the most caring out of an insensitive bunch. Plus my nan would haunt me if I voted anyone else but labour.
I was actually considering not voting but after all the suffragettes fought and what they went through. (,I went to see that with dd the other day. Very compelling, and sad. So it would be an insult not to vote.

Baby - there are some deep philosophical reasons for that. Lefties tend more towards a social constructionist view of the world that sees individuals as products of their environment and ideology, with individual agency severely constrained by 'false consciousness' type brainwashing designed to keep them compliant with the hegemony. Right-wingers generally tend more to the idea that humans are rational beings capable of making free choices. (Of course there is nuance and crossover, the above is pretty reductive, but is still broadly true.) So the left is always going to be more attracted than the right to notions of mass brainwashing and propaganda as major factors in the electorate's decision making.

There is a nice irony in all this, which is that the left-wing proponents of 'the People' actually trust the People less than the party of their supposed overlords, because the left think the People are mindless sheep who are entirely gulled by ruling class propaganda.

helmet I neither know you or your opinions on this...I certainly have no reason to think you are stupid...you seem pretty certain the cap fits though!

At least one person on this thread accused labour of fucking up the economy. Labour may or may not have been optimal in their response just as the Tories may or may not be optimal in their current response...neither of them 'fucked up the economy'.