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 now live in a small town in the home counties, a world away from the big Northern city I grew up in. From my own obervations, I would say people here overwhelming vote Tory, for the following reasons:

-The longstanding local MP is a 'good bloke', he is very visible in the community, attends scout events, school assemblies, packs shopping in Tesco, knocks on doors. He takes up causes on behalf of his constituents. Therefore there is implacable loyalty to him personally. He is charming and affable. He is respectable, married with grown-up children, never puts a foot wrong or gets involved in anything controversial. People see that as 'normal'.

-People don't like benefit 'scroungers'.They believe in hard work. Employment is plentiful here - there is no reason not to work. People associate the Labour Party with scroungers.

IME it's these things that are overriding and people do not bother too much with reading policies.

I think it's often to do with wanting to do stuff yourself rather than have the collective organise it for you.
People have different priorities.

Piglet I am sure it is true that you may have found your individual experience of the NHS unchanged. But overall, especially in mental health services (I have worked in NHS mental health services for 30 years, under Tory rule, then Labour, then Tory again) the Tories have caused terrible problems.

Why are people so thick as to not remember the pigs arse Labour made of the NHS.

£12billion wasted on a computer system that had to be scrapped.

In 1999 ‘New Labour’ marked the start of a transition of the NHS fromapublic sector providerto include the private sector under the disguise of choice and competition.

The last Labour Government laid the groundwork for everything that the Tories are now doing to the NHS. Market structures, foundation trusts, GP consortia and the introduction of private corporations into commissioning were all products of an ill considered Labour vision of “public service reforms.

But yeah lets all blame the tories.

I think a lot of people just can't visualise ever being in a position where they have to rely on the state - either through disability or just sheer bad luck - so it's easy just to label those who can't work as scroungers and wasters or having brought it on themselves. About ten years ago there was a real shift in the public psyche. People on benefits were demonised in various television shows about benefits and articles in the right wing press sought out real scroungers and held them up to be representative of everyone on benefits. This led to the the rise of the Tories and all the disability cuts that came in and a general feeling that 'why should I pay taxes for them to be wasted on these people.'

I have a long-term, serious disability and have had it since my teens. Before that I was Oxbridge material with everything going for me, overnight my life was completely destroyed. For years I tried to work conventionally and just made myself iller and iller. I am lucky in that I was protected from poverty, firstly by my family and then by my husband. We eventually set up a business together so I work from home which I can manage, but if we split up, I'll be honest, life would probably not be worth living for me as I am ill anyway and have no way to support myself on my own - my supportive family are now dead so I have no safety net. This is what vulnerability looks like. When you vote for a party that, at its core, doesn't believe in the state, this is what you are voting for.

Because of the alternative
I've always voted labour, but i wont be next time

Inheritance tax is one of the fairest ways to redistribute wealth from rich to poor
Depends on what you mean by fair. If you have studied and worked hard all your life, never claimed job seekers allowance, paid tax on all your earnings which you use to buy a house so you can pass it on to your children. Only to find when you die a Labour government takes the proceeds from your house and gives them to people who haven't studied and worked hard all their lives, haven't paid a penny of tax and have claimed JSA for many years. I dont call that fair.

I can only say that from my own experience, with regard to mental health services in the NHS, Labour was better. Not that they were perfect, far from it. But suicide rates were down, services worked better, staff felt more valued and less like a cog in the wheel. And better community facilities, disability benefits and more money spent on things like day centres and community projects were much better for mental health. Now, austerity is literally killing the mentally ill.

Fuck yes, Labour was much better for my husband's MH services.

We have struggled so much more under the Tories.

I voted tory because the labour privatised more of the NHS than anyone else has done. SNP - education in Scotland has got worse under the SNP govt. NHS has got worse under SNP - policing in Scotland has got worse under SNP... Labour and the Education system - again labour spent a huge amount of money (PFI) on education - now its all to be paid back - unfortunately labour spent all the money and left none for anyone else...

YABU.

It may come as a shock, OP, but different people - many of them "normal" - have different concerns and values from you.

I've always voted Labour but I won't this time. The level of chaos in the party is absolutely staggering. I don't know if I will vote Tory yet.

I wish it were possible to have a discussion on MN on this that didn't descend into a slanging match and a dance-off for the professionally offended.

I'd be genuinely interested to hear why other people here (dare I presume, largely women and mums?) vote Tory. I'd like to hear what they see is valuable in the way that they operate that goes beyond the logic that they're better than the other crowd.

I guess they think they are better than the alternative.

What I definitely do not understand is those who are out of work or in low paid (ie min age) jobs voting Tory. I have a friend who is disabled and has the 'everyone else is a scrounger' atittude and voted Tory..in his own words 'to stop the scroungers'. He has recently been turfed off his ESA and DLA (though tbf, he does need them) and suddenly his attitude has changed. Have a few friends in low paid jobs who voted Tory also to 'stop my taxes going on people who can't be arsed to work'. A couple of whom have now lost their jobs and are seeing quite how 'luxurious' benefits are and are struggling like fuck.

So it seems, a lot of people buy the Daily Mail rhetoric of benefits and shit and vote Tory to stop all these rotten people getting any money. Until they find they are one of those in need of help themselves, then they regret it but its too late.

Because they're too young to remember Thatcher?
Because they go along with the I'm alright so nobody else matters?
Because clever Tories are disingenuous, come along as good 'Salt of earth' types whilst flee the country?
Because they promise all sorts to aspiring folk ( but don't actually deliver)?
Because we all dislike paying taxes?

DH and I are average hard working people and we both vote Tory. Where we live is generally a Tory 'safe seat' and in an election our Tory candidate always wins by a huge majority. However no one actually admits to voting Tory, which is strange .......

There's a lot of political ignorance around.

Lots of posts on my Facebook feed about the General Election being about choosing a Prime Minister today. (These are 35+ year olds so should know better)

I think that some people use their vote flippantly (they saw Brexit as a chance to say fuck you to David Cameron rather than voting for/against issues)

Not one of us here hasn't benefited in some way from the last Labour government Don't think I did in any way at all. I seemed to spend a large proportion of my salary equipping my classroom, paying for resources and some textbooks under Labour as the funding for schools in Cornwall was so crap.

I think Cornwall will hopefully stay Tory. They at least have some understanding of rural issues....

I think we're a small-c conservative country, the national character (made, not born btw!) is a bit resistant to change. I believe that for many people voting Labour feels like a risk, there's a kind of better the devil you know instinct... I could be wrong. Also the Tories have got fantastic PR. Poor old Ed wasn't snappy enough. Plus I think the Tories have got that statesmanlike quality nailed, and people seem to trust that (despite their crap job they actually do for this country)

Jeremy Corbin is unelectable - so i''m guessing hoards of normal people will vote Tory on 8 June!

Some people have an inherent bias towards basic competence. Not unreasonable.

But overall, especially in mental health services (I have worked in NHS mental health services for 30 years, under Tory rule, then Labour, then Tory again) the Tories have caused terrible problems.

If labour had never handed over to the Torys, the NHS would have got worse anyway, because in education and the NHS labour handed over a hot mess to the Torys! inefficiency, waste, CHAOS, more chaos, ineffectiveness. Torys do damage control, and that bites! labour do a lot of the damage though you just don't see the consequences under the labour term, but it's often well underway (and even drafted in black and white) before the elections where labour hand over to Tory

scaryteacher I won't list the entire epic rundown of their achievements (105 that I know of) (though it's tempting), but from 1997 - 2010, Labour created over 36,000 more teaching posts in England and 274,000 more support staff and teaching assistants. So maybe not you but perhaps some of your colleagues may have benefited.

In this country nothing seems to rile some people as much as the idea that someone else gets something they don't, or that anyone gets something 'for nothing'. I think a lot of Tory voters genuinely believe that the existence of a welfare state encourages people to be idle.

For some Tory voters, I think it's something else. They want to be people who don't need the NHS, welfare state, etc, and they don't want to believe that they are vulnerable to needing those things themselves. They have to vote for the 'bootstraps' party- if they vote for the parties who say we all might need the state one day and it's essential to fund it properly, it's sort of admitting that they too are vulnerable.

And there will be many others who vote Tory for many different reasons.

Every single person I know who voted Tory are "I'm alright Jack" types with a helping of having zero clue how people with far less than them live.

My own father chortled when the tax credit cuts came in, he sat there wriggling with joy and said "that will show the scrounging fuckers". I replied "like me you mean?" "You don't claim tax credits!" he said. I most certainly do. He didn't even realise and he didn't understand why a single parent of two disabled children - his grandchildren might be reliant on TC.

Excellent post twinkletwins