AIBU to not understand why "normal" people vote Tory?

[olddogsnewtricks]

OK, so I'll probably get flamed for this but am genuinely interested! All the people I know who vote Tory are pretty well off so use private schools and healthcare. As a family we need the NHS and we need a good education system - and I can't see them getting any better under the Tories. Are these just not priorities for Tory voters or do they really believe they will improve even with a Conservative government?

I hate the way people sneer at carers - shame on those of you that have.

My severely disabled dd is about to get a residential placement in a school that will cost the LA at least £200k a year. It was a lot cheaper for them when I took care of her at home (she'll be 16 this year and is now just too big and strong for me to be able to cope with her outbursts and I'm a lone parent too.) which of course I wanted to do, but I could not have had a career at the same time.

What I'm saying is, if you want a more center government and Corbyn isn't ticking that box for you, what is the sense in voting tory which will enable a far larger right wing majority?

This is like suicide, surely? If May wins this coming election we will NOT be leaning towards the center.

I try to tolerate all views, unless they're blatantly fascist, but this idea above is really not making sense to me at all.

The Tories are about giving their richest chums huge tax breaks. They say that they can't put money into public services because we don't have it. In reality they just don't want to spend it there because it's not part of what underpins their ideology.

This is not an answer to the question of funding things yet seems representative of the argument when questions about how Labour will fund their policies are asked. I would merrily skip to the polling station to vote for Labour and their very well meaning policies if they could just lay out actual numbers that add up, rather than answering those questions by simply saying how awful Tories are. I want to side with Labour but at the moment their policies come across as wonderful fantasies as opposed to workable, achievable and affordable strategies.

I would also add that some things should transcend politics and suggesting that carers are being 'paid to stay at home' is nasty and unnecessary. Carers already save our NHS millions (as they also did under a Labour and a coalition government) and their sacrifices should be recognised and adequately rewarded by any government.

lottieandmia Im a carer too for DH Our surgery is a Virgin Care one.

Ignore the over privileged cunts. They are the same overprivileged cunts who expect care WORKERS to wipe their elderly relatives arse for minimum wage while moaning at them because they have to claim tax credits.

But if care workers were paid what they were really worth the OPC would be moaning again about paying higher care home fees.

Lower income ppl will never be in the right as far as OPC are concerned.

They get paid more.................OPC moan.
They have to claim tax credits................OPC moan.

How was it possible for the richest few to quadruple their wealth during the last term?

Remember how it was pointed out to the Tories that the tax credit cuts were not reasonable when set out alongside plans to give those well off tax breaks.

I think sometimes the strongest drivers are negative ones, usually of feeling let down. So i meet people who can't vote lib dem because of the coalition or student fees. The most vehement anti Tory I know was a former voter of theirs who is a police officer!

I myself am currently totally over the Labour Party.

I have learned through life that there are many kind hearted Tory voters. They just tend to have had a background that's totally different to mine. Think of the Tory MP who ran to help PC Keith Palmer shot at Westminster.

Op you are SNP, you probably know that Tasmina Ahmed Sheik was Conservative Party candidate at one point.

I agree Helena. I remember very similar nasty comments about carers around the time if the last election. I think it's the same people.

I certainly don't think all Tory MPs are bad. Ours has really helped me. If i email him, he replies every time within 48 hours. He got on the phone to children's services and sorted out Social services apparent inability to sort out a suitable transport arrangement for my daughter that did not result in her being injured. He also questioned the LA at my request about whether they were continuing to use Baker Small against parents fighting SEN tribunals for their disabled children. I'm very grateful to him because he does seem genuinely engaged. I never got a reply when we had a Labour MP!

But with all that said, I feel that the Conservatives in the cabinet are intent on stripping everything away from vulnerable people. And even just the 'average' person.

I certainly dont think all Tories are bad either. When DH and i met back in 1992 we were both care workers.

We met Tony Newton at a party. He respected people in these jobs and he showed it...........going out of his way to do so many times.

Although I'm Tory leaning, I have to agree that carers are undervalued and should receive substantially more support financially. There's an issue of how it can be paid for, but I believe it should be more of a priority than it is.

Notice how the Tories trot out the 'theres no money left' trope constantly yet there seems to be enough money to cut inheritence tax, to cut corporation tax, trident is a blank cheque, the multi national corps barely pay tax, but give poor people money 'oh no no no, no money left sorry'

Soon some of us wont have the energy to doff our caps as you walk past us in the gutter

There's something I don't quite understand regarding those who 'want' a more left/center government, yet will vote tory to stop Corbyn leading the country badly.

I don't grasp this way of thinking, because if you look at it as May wanting this election to get a larger majority into parliament, then isn't it unwise to vote tory, tactically speaking?

If your views are more center ground, how will allowing a house with a vast tory majority make sense? I would definitely vote labour just to stop the country becoming MORE right wing at this point, not necessarily because I favour Corbyn

^this

Labour have no hope of winning. I'm looking at my local constituency and voting for the candidate who has the most chance of reducing the Tory majority. I just cannot see Jc as pm but want to protect against a worst case scenario of a Tory landslide.

I would rather a coalition.

JustAnother-except nobody has actually said that, have they? My questions, and those of others, are simply about how the calculations will possibly add up. The proposed changes Labour want to make are simply not adequately costed which makes them sound completely unfeasible. If JC could outline them with real figures which balance, he may be taken more seriously. Pledging to scrap tuition fees at university is a very dangerous promise-it can't possibly be followed through in its entirety without huge swathes of cash from an as yet unknown source-which I would have thought Labour would have learned from the LibDems. Always better to promise less and deliver more. The one thing about political debate I find tiresome is that whenever somebody says 'great idea but how will we pay for it?' the auto response is 'you're kicking the poor people.'

I'm a lifelong Tory and can see where they are going wrong today in certain areas, e.g. Foreign aid, disability benefits, however, I truly believe we don't have an alternative party capable of securing a brexit deal that will benefit us. So again I will vote Tory in June as it's so important we get brexit right. Btw, I voted brexit as the 8mill we currently pay to the EU will go a long way to shoring up the NHS.

Any tax cutting the Tories do is based on an understanding that if tax is levied correctly, you end up collecting MORE TAX - it was also the Tories who took the lowest earners out of tax obligations completely.

Labour are always clueless on money. If we really have to live the fuckfest that Brexit will be, I don't see anyone but the Tories being competent to allow us to survive it. (I don't see why we're doing Brexit on a non legally binding referendum, but there you are).

Nick Clegg was/is a hugely competent politician who was vilified by his party members simply for going into coalition with the Tories at a time of international crisis. Tim Farron is quite old Labour, if people like that kind of thing.

I'm actually not represented this time round as a centre right Remainer, so might sit it out.

Sitting it out= voting Tory

Effectively

I feel sorry for the Labour party, because despite being a very different party now they are probably going to lose votes because of things Blair did ten years ago. I've seen on this thread people blaming Labour for starting the NHS sell off and academies for example. It's not like the Tories have reversed those policies is it, quite the opposite!

What the Tories are doing (making the rich richer, plunging more children into poverty, increasing debt despite "austerity", as well as fucking up the education system and NHS) is happening NOW.

I don't even have children in school but there's no way I could vote for a govt who is destroying schools and taking advantage of young people with zero hours contracts the way this one is and I'm frankly amazed anyone with young children would be willing to.

uer and the baker are right. Although the Tories have not been able to reduce the deficit anything like as quickly as I would have preferred they do cost their figures and the tax burden on the rich in the UK has never been higher actually although Labour supporters don't like to trot that out, obviously.

I put the exact figures up here the other day but roughtly 70% in the UK of what we take in goes on welfare, old age pensions, schools and the NHS. The other elements like MP pay, foreign aid, defence are tiny in comparison and in total only 30%. So that 70% is where most of the taxation monies are going. We have a lot of tax now including very high VAT, council tax, insurance premium tax, petrol taxes, inheritance tax and particularly stamp duties for people lucky enough to buy even a small flat (although I accept the Tories did reduce stamp duty with the new scheme in England based on slices of income but it is still far too high). Even flying abroad (again for those lucky enough to do it) sometimes 50% of what you pay goes to the state in taxes never mind any corporation tax on the profit generated from the flight.

It would be good to see Labour's costed plans in detail with graphs eg showing deficit reduction plans and then once that is handled national debt reduction plans.

I also struggle with the whole, "i pulled myself up by my bootstraps from a creep beginning and made something of myself" argument to vote Tory.

Surely the Tories are making this harder and harder to do? Social mobility and the wage gap between poor and rich are both at their worst for a long time.

Many jobs require graduates nowadays, even though their degrees aren't relevant to the job, yet university is more expensive than ever.

Things like zero hours contracts and out of control rental market make it really difficult to manage your income, or save up.

(And to his credit Gordon Brown by the way did pay the last tranche (£60m ish) of our national debt owed to the Americans and Canadians by the UK from WWII)

Any tax cutting the Tories do is based on an understanding that if tax is levied correctly, you end up collecting MORE TAX - it was also the Tories who took the lowest earners out of tax obligations completely.

Well done for falling for it, this is what happens when tax code is written by business and then 'marketed' by politicians and the media.

I think its often the less well off who voteTories and support Brexit. In my view they are voting against their own interests and being scammed. I am well off and would never vote for the Tory party. I have private health insurance and can look after myself, but when I vote I vote for the type of society I want to live in and that is not the Tory hell we are currently living in.

I feel sorry for the Labour party, because despite being a very different party now they are probably going to lose votes because of things Blair did ten years ago.

They are going to lose significant number of votes due to their leader.

Yep. Corbyn should understand that he needs to step down for the good of the party. And take the awful Diane Abbot with him please.