Why are the Welsh voting conservative??

[nonsense123]

I understand why most people vote it seems rational to me as a country to vote for Brexit and the conservatives particularly with Corbyn leading the Labour Party. What I am confused by is why is one of the poorest parts of Europe - Wales voting for a party that believes in entrepreneurship and less state intervention when Wales is so reliant on money from Europe and state institutions. Interested in any Welsh mums voting for Conservative party and the rational. (Not remotely about judgement or argument just totally curious).

My area is staunch labour. I blame the older generation for that. People with long memories still harping on about Thatcher 30 plus years later, you could pin a red rosette on a pig here and it would still probably win.

Im not a Tory by the way, I'm trying to explain what people are like around here. At the last election I voted for Plaid Cymru because our local MP is sodding useless, but he still got back in.

I agree with everything disastrous said.

People can vote for whatever they want.

That said the Tories have done a great job of deflecting attention from budget cuts - cuts start at Westminster and cascade down into the Welsh Assembly, then local councils, and then they materialise as less public services. People have NO idea how local government funding has been decimated in the last decade, with people's expectations and statutory requirements rising - soon it will be financially impossible to run anything but schools and social services.

So it seems that many hold the idea that cuts to public services = local and devolved government must be to blame, and the people who are responsible for the cuts are apparently the ones to sort the mess out Well done Tories!

Some places in the Valleys and some seaside places in the North are amongst the most deprived in Wales and in the UK - hard to imagine and understand if you haven't been there. It is hard to believe they can get worse but I think that's what's coming.

I will be voting Tory because I feel that to vote for Labour in Wales means that I'm happy to settle for continuing decline. Healthcare is poor, education is worse. I'm extremely lucky that we are financially secure enough to pay for a private education for my DD after years of wrestling with inadequacies in the state system.
My DD also has a life changing medical condition due to outrageous negligence in a local hospital. This hospital is locally notorious and as an HCP myself, I'm mystified as to why the Welsh Government have never actively sought to make changes. If they have, they've not been visible in their drive to improve the situation and it's certainly not reassuring us locally. Again, I'm extremely privileged to be able to access private healthcare in England, as without this, my DD's situation would have been a whole lot worse.
Also, our local MP is a Tory, as is our Assembly Member. They're both excellent and fight hard for their constituents. I would be concerned that a Labour MP would just collude with the apparent complacency that's reigning in Cardiff Bay. Labour have got too comfortable and things need to be shaken up in order to see improvements in Wales.
Oh and before I'm accused of being a "typical Tory" due to my comments about private school and private healthcare, I can assure you I'm not. I do what I have to do because I'm desperate and many of my friends are either doing the same or complaining that they wish they could afford to.
Some serious changes are needed in Wales and the Welsh Conservatives seem to be the viable alternative.

I guess that Welsh people don't fancy the prospect of Corbyn, McDonnell, Abbott and Thornberry at the top of the politics tree any more than English people do.

There are problems in Wales but I don't suppose everyone there feels poor or sees deprivation all around. Certainly, when I visited Cardiff and Pembrokeshire over the Easter holidays there wasn't much evidence of people sitting round waiting for their dole. Quite the opposite in fact.

I suspect that some people used to vote Labour because Grampy would spin in his grave if they didn't. I think this sort of nonsense has gone away and people are starting to question the status quo and the complacency of Labour in Wales.

I'm neither Labour nor Conservative - have voted for both over 2.5 decades of voting. Also voted Lib Dem when I lived in Vinxe Cable's constituency because I liked him. It's good to be open-minded. Stops the politicians feeling too comfortable.

Am I right in thinking health and education are devolved in Wales? So voting in a Tory MP actually won't make a blind bit of difference in how the NHS and schools are run. Except possibly to make it worse by reducing the funding. If the people of Wales wanted to change the NHS and education, maybe changing the vote from Labour at the next devolved parliament would make more sense. And it's not a straight decision between Labour and Tory as there are other parties, Plaid, LibDem, independents.

I'm not sure what I'll vote still I'm born and bred North Wales (we really don't exist according to Cardiff) But our area seems to be a Conservative stronghold, must be all the rich English retired folk who buy all the retirement homes and bungalows around here. No locals could afford them, 300 odd thousand for an apartment with a sea view and two beds.

Thee was a man from Wales on the news the other day who at 89 years old has voted Labour all his life.

This GE for the first time ever he will be voting Tory.

He said that JC has ruined Labour.

When on my PC I'll see if there is a clip of it.

Because Labour are an actual crock of shit lately that never tell you WHAT they're going to do, and all about the attack and putting down of opposite parties.
I'm from the North and mining communities, born and bred, always voted Labour but haven't been lately.)

Because Labour in Wales is useless?

Wales is voting Tory, because racism. They see the Conservative party as the one most likely to get rid of those evil Poles.

Wow this is making scary reading. I'm Welsh living living in Wales. I can't believe people are voting Tory because of education and health. If we return the Tories they will carry on with dismantling the NHS. Yes health and education are devolved and the Assembly is Labour led, but they can't spend money that isn't there and that's controlled by the Tory government. I will be voting Labour because of the NHS and education.

Wales is voting Tory, because racism. They see the Conservative party as the one most likely to get rid of those evil Poles.

Please don't tell me you actually believe that

Local council cuts = necessary due to the huge reduction in centralised government funding given to councils. This doesn't matter which party is in charge of the council - it is the government making these cuts.
Councils are legally obliged to provide certain services, so to cope with the black holes in their budgets they have to make sweeping cuts to everything else - libraries; meals on wheels; youth groups; arts funding; heritage; housing; bus services; public health schemes; children's services......
Just google axe central council funding or similar.

The plan is to completely remove central government funding over the next few years, at a time when costs for local authorities are rising. This will, without doubt, affect poorer areas and those with older populations the most.

Luckily for the government, the local council gets the blame for the cuts, not them. Genius!

hang on, so assembly has been labour under a Tory government.. Presumably squeezed to fuck by that Tory government, but labour are getting the blame? I see the point of trying to be aligned with the party in power, however blaming Labour for poor regional performance under an aggressively cutting Tory government is kind of naive...

Tres it's my view that it is substantially different in Wales and not just the old mining areas. The same can be said for the ironworks areas and slate mining in the north. English coalfields have not suffered in the same way because of their being relatively far less isolated. Transport links are better and most are fairly close to major cities: Nottingham, Newcastle to name the most obvious.

Wales has only Cardiff - quite literally. The north is to all intent and purpose a different country and it's true that pretty much any investment of note in Wales has been in Cardiff.

But transport links even to the South Wales valleys are pretty dire. Commuting by bus or rail into Cardiff from, say, Merthyr is no picnic. Of course there are people who do it but relatively few I think, because it is a long, slow commute with precious few buses or trains running.

And, well, this is Wales. It's just not really on Westminster 's radar. They're not going to waste too much energy chucking good money after bad. It's only the Welsh after all.

We have a significant Polish community in our Welsh town. Our kids are all growing up alongside each other without any problems and are fully integrated. The adults work in and even run local businesses and are valued members of the community and the church that I attend. That is an outrageous comment to make. As I have said upthread, I'll be voting Tory but absolutely nothing to do with removing Polish people. They are very welcome and I really hope that people don't believe that rubbish. I accept some morons think like that and that by law of averages some will be Tory voters but by no means do I or any of my Tory voting friends and family think that. In some Welsh towns there is an almost pathological hatred of anything English however! I'm Welsh born and bred but always struggle with the anti-English sentiment when it rears its head.

hang on, so assembly has been labour under a Tory government.

No not just under a Tory government
.

I don't live in Wales but am on the border and follow one of the local newspapers on Facebook.

The resentment against labour is palpable from most of the commenters.

I do believe the racism/outsiders thing. Some towns 'feel' swamped..But as some areas in Wales are poor it's the usual 'taking our jobs' crap.

And publicly getting on private resentments/a feeling that it's nagative or sad aren't contradictions in many people's minds.

I teach in a Valley town and without the Poles, Portuguese and Filipino communities, my school would have closed down I am sure. I don`t think who ever is in government now can undo what happened in the 80s but I have no answers sadly.

I'll get slated for this, but another thing that annoys me if this insistence on bilingualism in Wales. Everything single official document you ever get from the local authority or the NHS is always in both English and Welsh, so you get two copies of everything even of you don't request it. Its a fucking waste of money that could be put to better use elsewhere. Fact is very few people in Wales speak Welsh fluently.

So we have Wales, and by all accounts things are pretty bad. No jobs, education shite, healthcare worse, and some of the most deprived areas in the U.K.

And people aren't thinking maybe people want something different? No. It must be all about getting the Eastern Europeans out

(IME some parts of Wales are more likely to want the English out!)

Oh and to add. We have a large Polish community here and they work really bloody hard. The whingers who complain about them in my experience are the kind of people who've never done a proper days work in their lives.

Yep, that's why they voted Brexit.