To wonder why if the tories are so unpopular, they always get in?

[maggiethemagpie]

Are there a lot of secret Tory voters who won't admit it? They have won most elections since the second world war, so they must be doing something right (in terms of appealing to the electorate to continuously vote for them) yet I see a lot of Tory bashing threads on here and I don't know anyone in my own life who'd admit to voting Tory.

I'm not particularly a leftie, I'm a centrist if anything and believe a balance of left and right leaning politics is optimal, but it seems like it is very 'right on' to admit to a socialist view and wanting to do more for society's vulnerable or poor, but to admit to admiring conservative views is not acceptable. You hear of 'Tory Scum' but never 'Labour Scum'.

So who are all these people voting for the conservatives? Because they always seem to get in, and the Blair years when they did not, people say Blair was a red Tory anyway!

Or are people just afraid to admit what their political views are if it does not sound socially acceptable?

I would not change the system though - stable government is essential

Interesting - stable Government or a coalition that 'holds back the worse excesses of a party'.

I think most European countries have a different system to FPTP.

That's why nobody ever thinks people vote for the "other" side

I have no idea which way my family votes. Politics in our family tend to end up with a few people shouting down others and it can get heated - and I don't like those discussions.

Grandma used to read the Daily Express and read This England. I wouldn't be surprised if she was a Conservative.

I suspect that these fred is related to this fred:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/2677094-So-what-on-earth-do-people-with-mild-disabilities-do

And I suspect Dad knows I don't vote Conservative given my disdain for the Daily Mail when I'm at his house.

But he was one of those older people who voted Remain - and I do wonder what he makes of the coverage in the DM at the moment.

I voted Labour at the last election, though it was a useless vote as I live in a Tory stronghold.

However the ridiculous level of vitriol on display here against the Tories after the GE almost made me wish I'd voted the other way. I don't know that MN is as left-leaning as some people think, but certainly the Labour voters shout the loudest.

Maybe people lie to opinion pollsters because they don't like being asked about something that should be private, but rather than decline to answer,
they lie to serve them right for asking.

I've never been asked except on the day of the least GE - I declined to answer - but to me it's always fun to see the pollsters getting it wildly wrong yet again.

Round here, the vast majority (>80% vote Conservative. Labour is a fringe party and shares the remaining 20% pretty evenly with the lib dems and UKIP and Greens. You would be regarded as some sort of eccentric if you came out in favour of labour, but I doubt anyone would take real offence. I am a swing voter and have voted for all the main parties in various elections over the years. Personally it makes no sense whatsoever to me to be for one party and follow them blindly regardless of the economical/ political context of the day. I have friends of all political persuasions.

When I worked in academia, it was very right-on left wing and people were amazingly arrogant in their belief that labour (or possibly Green post Blair) was the only way to vote. One colleague admitted that she was voting Conservative in 2010 and people made comments like 'wow, I can't believe it, I thought she was intelligent'. So if you're in a bubble like that, there definitely will be 'shy Tories'. I also voted for them and even though I could more than have defended my choice, I just didn't see the point of getting into a debate with a load of tribal voters who would never be convinced they were anything other than correct. There's a bit of an overlap between academia and the most vocal posters on Mumsnet in terms of politics.

Because Tory voters stick to what they know, the same happened in the interwar period (despite the brief labour victory).

soren you could argue that proportional representation doesn't work in some countries - Italy with a new government every 18 months, Belgium which didn't have a government for almost 2 years because no coalition could be agreed. On the whole though I vastly prefer the proportional model because it does encourage a diversity of political parties and options instead of the same old stale routine.

You don't hear the term 'Labour scum' because most Tory voters are actually rather nice people

They are being investigated for election fraud up and down the country.

Their fraudulent behaviour may have swung the last election for them.

I would consider myself a liberal. In the area we moved in to, the two strongest parties far and away are the tories and UKIP. No other party is close.

I voted Conservative as a strategic vote. They are the least worst choice of the two.

I think there's an aspirational edge to voting Tory in some working class communities. I'm in Essex/East London and you definitely see an element of this in people in skilled manual jobs like plumbers etc... Like they've risen above being working class by voting conservative.

Are they Lumpy? I've not heard about this.

Like attracts like. Your friends tend to be people who share your way of thinking.

I am not sure that is always true, I have always, always voted Labour yet most of the people in my 'social circle' tend to be conservative voters or, at best, Lib Dems. I am not sure if it is because of where I live (a very Right Wing part of the country) or if I just don't 'fit' the image of a Socialist .

My own parents (paid up members of the Conservative Party, aged 80+) used to say 'you will change your mind as you get older' - but even they have stopped saying that now that I am approaching 60 .

The only tories I know are my husband's relatives. They own a couple of houses and are concerned with things like capital gains, income tax thresholds, too much of their taxes going on benefits, etc. I think it's hard to admit to others these are the things that politically motivate you rather than the NHS and education standards.

The most stable, and effective post-war govt in the UK was the 2010-15 coalition govt.

I have been told by both Tory and Labour voters that the other lot vote only out of self interest. So Labour voters are supposedly voting to get themselves higher wages and Tory lower taxes etc.

I've also had vitriol from both sides- from Tory voters it tends to be more along the lines of "you'll ruin the country if you let that lot of spendthrifts get in".

I suspect a lot of it is older non-social-media-savvy voters and there is an added element of people who are "shy" either just due to being private people or due to not wanting to own up to appearing to vote through mainly self interest.

I don't think members of the Conservative party can count themselves as "small c conservatives". If you're a member you'll have to own up. I'm "small c conservative" on a few issues (religion for example) and I'm not a member of any political party and I do occasionally switch allegiance but I'm generally a Labour voter. I'd never join the Tories or vote Tory unless it was to prevent someone like the BNP getting in.

I agree with the comment about some working class voting Tory in some sort of aspirational context. Also know some who vote it as their late parents were staunch tories.

I wonder how people can still vote tory after the disability cuts etc. Back to the nasty party now.

Have recently been watching The Mill and can imagine the current tories would love us to go back to those times. Can imagine Hunt etc stomping around like the greg son's.

I think you have a point there PNGirl. It can boil down to, do you want to pay more tax for better public services or less tax for fewer (massive oversimplification I know) and many people would rather just keep as much of the money they've earned as they can.

I think that in evolutionary terms there is a survival advantage both in protecting your resources for yourself/family and sharing with the herd and this leads to the dilemma between left and right which makes up our political persuasion. IMVHO.

"You don't hear the term 'Labour scum' because most Tory voters are actually rather nice people"

Oh yes you do hear it, and worse!

Have you never seen the Young Conservatives in full flow?!

Depends on your crowd. I'm a centre lefty, def not a Corbyn supporter but all my friends are Tory's as are my family so I tend to keep quiet about not being a Tory.

Because your FPP system is obsolete and utterly banjaxed.

You need proportional representation especially if you have more than two parties.

Only 36% of people who actually voted did so for the conservative party.
The other 64% voted for someone else. Predominantly (but not exclusively - think UKIP) left wing. But because that vote was split between a number of smaller parties, Labour, Lib Dem, SNP and Green, none of these opposition parties were ever going to get enough votes to take power from the Conservaties. The Lib Dems predictably lost almost all of their voters after the coalition, leaving the opposition so divided that it seemed very unlikely we'd get anything else. Until brexit happened and it all hit the fan.

I am a floating voter but voted conservative in 2010 and 2015. I won't vote for her in 2020 though because she campaigned to leave the EU and I wanted to remain and she is a rubbish mp anyway. I will vote lib dem next and voted for them prior to 2010 except for 1997 when I voted for Blair. Labour would never get in round here.