To want to bang my head against a wall. Why don't people understand they're voting for a party, not a person?!?!

[mrsw14]

AAAGGGHHHHHH!!! I really could scream, I'm so sick of people saying they can't bring themselves to vote Labour because they don't like Jeremy Corbyn. Oh ok, so condemn us to 5 more years of Tory hell instead because you don't like 1 bloke you've never met
It's the PARTY that would be running the country, not one man and god knows what will happen in the future, the leader of the party can change!
Sorry, it just infuriates me that people can't see the bigger picture

Of course Dianne Abbott can be trusted to run MI5 or as she calls it MI9

I think it was nearer MI10

You might be right there my maths is crap too.

Do t you think they are pretty clued up on what is happening in the rest of society? Most of us are pretty restricted in our experience of the world. We tend to gather in groups of 'people like us'. Teachers Nurses and Police officers see all kinds of people, and generally are invested in a better overall society.

No actually, I think that they vote for their own narrow self interest mainly. I worked in the NHS and in a University during the period when the first of the new EU ascension states joined. The chief wage earner in my house works in construction and he saw his wages and the conditions he worked in literally collapse overnight. Now considering that the people who work in those industries would be out on the barricades if they faced even a tenth of the drop in wages and conditions he did (and he like most people who were affected wasn't brilliantly paid in the first place) you might have expected them to show some concern for the private sector workers who were taking a good kicking. Were they? No. They were too busy crowing about how marvellous it was that they could get a cheap plumber or a cleaner for a pittance or an au pair who would practically work for a packet of crisps and a pot noodle weekly.

I think if nurses were madly concerned about society as a whole rather than their own bottom line, more of them would admit that the NHS is actually overfunded and that an awful lot of money is wasted on people who sit in shiny offices pushing around pieces of paper and never actually seeing a patient or adding any value to the experience of patients or their outcomes. But they won't because that's their bosses and if they play their cards right they'll have one of those jobs too one day. I was lucky enough to have one of those jobs myself in the dying days of Gordon Brown's administration where I was paid £36,000pa to basically sit round and play Candy Crush all day between the odd bit of typing because I had nothing to do. I actually voted Labour that time in the hope that would continue. (Because I will admit I vote with self interest) but I'm bloody well not voting for someone else to do that while my families income gets battered because nobody works in the public sector anymore. And if it was bad under Brown I dread to think what it would be like under Corbyn.

Bill has the construction industry picked up a bit since Brexit vote? Friends of ours in the same position as you seem to feel it has. West Midlands area?

But you are voting for a person. God knows most politicians are not shining examples of character and morality but at least you know what they stand for. JC is so bloody wishy-washy his stance on the EU for e.g. I can't respect a person like that or someone who can't put his country first and get behind a party leader who is actually electable before the tories destroy everything that's good about this country.

They are voting for a person, the people we vote for make up the parties. There are good and bad people in all parties. You vote the person that is most sympathetic to issues that are important to you.

When I vote it's very simple. Anti war under any circumstance is mandatory. After that, who's toughest on violent crime and supportive of public services. You don't get everything you want in a candidate but people have to vote for who most benefits the values they hold dearest.

I'd vote for corbyn on his anti war stance alone if I was in Britain but there are a lot of labour candidates that I wouldn't touch and a few tory ones I would.

Each to their own. That's democracy.

The construction industry seems to be fine and it's not been dropping off since the Brexit vote for sure.

But for people who work in the industry wages and conditions haven't picked up at all. Currently what they're hearing is that if you won't work extra hours for no pay or work bank holidays for an extra hours pay only and they're expected never to have a single days holiday or sickness in the entire contract or they're out. Basically because Romanians will do that and allow themselves to be exploited everybody else has to as well or they'll just get a Romanian in instead. Wages are dropping too. London wages are no higher than the rest of the country these days, and that's starting to depress wages outside London as employers are saying they 'won't pay London rates' outside London. But London rates aren't high anymore, they've dropped. So that's putting a lot of pressure on regional wages. It's shit. Can't bear to think what it might have been like if Turkey or something had been let into the EU and we were still a member.

Rubbish. The "bigger picture" is that the Labour party have chosen Corbyn as their leader. He therefore obviously represents the party members' views the best and embodies their lurch to the left. In a General Election we're also indirectly voting for the Prime Minister - so it's perfectly sensible to say you don't think Corbyn will make a good PM for whatever reason. He is putting himself out there as the potential LEADER of the UK - the labour party don't troop around altogether, he is the figurehead.

Scream about it if you want, but the longer it takes the dyed in hte wool Labour supporters to see why Corbyn puts so many people off voting Labour, the longer before Labour are back in power.

It gets you to chose which policies you agree with before you realise which party they belong to. Then at the end it presents you with a pie chart breaking down which parties your chosen policies correspond to and so suggesting who you should vote for.

Ony accurate to a point. It might tell me that I agree with almost everything the SNP says but there is no way on earth I would ever vote for them as I disagree with their main aim of independence. There is no "weighting" on these sorts of quizzes - we're far far more likely to vote based on education, health or the economy than on a party's stance on diversity or third world aid.

Technically you are voting for a person, your MP. Unless they've suddenly started offering cats or robots as candidates.

It's more nuanced than just voting for a party. We have a representative democracy, which means each constituency votes for an MP to represent them. So they do vote for both a party (the policies in the manifesto) and the MP. Obviously for some people that is rolled up into one and the same- they will vote for x party however good or bad the local MP for that party is. But not everywhere

Not so long ago our area had a really good MP and many people voted for them, even if they were not so keen on the party overall, because the MP did a good job and local people liked and believed in them.

Add to that, the leader of the party sets the tone and direction of the party in large part. Therefore, their views are an important consideration when voting (accepting that their views may be moderated by the views of the parliamentary party and, if I'm being cynical, political expediency- and I don't exclude St Jeremy from that).

Not only that, the leader of whichever party wins the GE will become the next Prime Minister (although leaders can, of course, change- but you surely have to assume that the current leader will be the PM for a period of time at least). As a result, his/her leadership skills are very important.

Lets face it, if you think the leader of whichever party is doing a terrible job of it (e.g. party is in disarray with infighting, the leader is appointing others into posts they are not suited to, or surrounding themselves with cronies etc), then I think most people would take that into consideration when casting their vote, wouldn't they? Having those sorts of concerns about a leader would certainly make me hesitate to vote for a party, even if I largely liked their policies. Why? Because I need to believe the party will actually be able to run the country competently and implement the policies set out in the manifesto. If the leader is useless, surrounded by those equally bad, then that would be unlikely- however much I likes their ideas.

This is just awful...

1. Starting a thread to complain about people misunderstanding how our system operates... while completely misunderstanding how the system operates (great post above by the way about the changed roles of legislative and executive branches of government);

1. Blaming the media;

1. Citing your own unbiased source as... someone that knows Jeremy ;

1. and finally... Accusing people of not voting for Labour because they 'don't like one man'. The responses here have been very very clear that it is not a like or dislike of him that is persuasive, but in fact a lack of faith that he is able to discharge his responsibilities as head of the executive branch of the government. This is in fact pretty central to what we are voting for!

By way of disclosure, I have never voted Tory, and in the last GE in which I voted, it was Labour.

So, re nurses, teachers, policemen... Actually I didn't assume they will all vote labour at all. I think people in public services see a wider world than, for example, my DH. He is very clever, has an excellent grasp of economics. He only knows people who work in his office. He has no understanding of the life of people different from him. He thinks gendered violence doesn't happen on public transport in our area because he hasn't seen it. Nurses, teachers and policemen see the lives of other people up close and personal, including the builders, the disabled, the unemployed. I have no idea how they will vote, because they will all make their own choices, but they are canaries in the mine in that they see poverty, bigotry etc before the rest of us.

No they don't Pickle. Normally they see patients on pretty much a conveyer belt and don't discover much about their personal lives unless there are severe problems or they're very elderly. I don't know what you think nurses do all day but it's certainly not sitting down having a chat to their patients about their economic situation. Policemen come into contact with a pretty limited section of society and aren't there to talk about their problems either. Teachers are there to teach, most parents don't discuss their finances with them.

Although I suspect what you're doing is that very left wing thing of assuming that because what might be called 'the underclass' have heavy and intensive contact with public services they are either representative of the public at large or they're the only people worth paying attention too. Which is really symptomatic of why the left has lost touch with so much of the electorate. There are plenty of working class people who won't see a nurse or a police officer from one year to the next and only see teachers at the gate or parents evening. Why on earth would anybody expect them to spilling their guts to them? Why would they expect them care? Of course some people in the public sector vote other ways. But in my experience in the main they vote for the party likeliest to give them the best pay rises regardless of how their policies affect other people.

BillSykesDog I totally disagree with your explanations of nursing, policing and teaching. There are lots of types of nurses - community / District, midwife, mental health, practice (Dr surgery) etc who may well know huge amounts about their patients rather than acute care where they may only see a snapshot of a few hours of a life. Even so, they'll see the people who are hungry, malnourished, suffering because of the cuts etc.

Police are like glorified social workers a lot of the time. I can't tell you how many times I was told someone's life story, but it's a daily thing for front line officers. Crime doesn't just affect one section of society, nor does mental health. I met millionaires and homeless university graduates with heroin habits. They are exactly there to discuss the problems affecting that person. So many people ring the police for help because they don't know where else to turn.

As for teachers, what about the ones feeding children out of their own money because they come in hungry every day? You think they don't notice the dirty or smelly kids? The ones with parents who have lost jobs, are going through hard times etc - the parents will often tell the teacher exactly what is going on so they can be part of that child's support network.

Anyway, this isn't relevant to the politics of how rubbish Labour and Corbyn have become, but I think you're grossly underestimating how in depth each of those roles are in seeing, understanding and supporting communities and individuals.

"in my experience in the main they vote for the party likeliest to give them the best pay rises regardless of how their policies affect other people."

This is not true of police officers or soldiers to my knowledge, so I think voting in the national interest is not so uncommon among people on the public payroll.

Although... I expect some people take those jobs^ because they're prepared to put the interests of society or country before their own personal safety, so it might not be such a stretch to vote the same way.

@mangomay that's right, literally the only thing wrong with Jeremy Corbyn is that he doesn't eat meat.

And you've just done it again vivienne. That's the left all over. You're assuming that people who are right at the very bottom are the only ones who are important or who should be noticed and whose interests should be represented. That's Labour all over and why it is losing so many votes. Labour was set up to represent the working classes. Labour' middle class supporters assume that the sort of people who have intensive involvement with community services or the police etc, etc, etc are the working classes. They're not. Most working class people have similar amounts of contact with public services to middle class people (if not less). They're not sat around waiting for a paternalistic state to tell them that they shouldn't be nicking things or battering their children. And they don't need public sector professionals to patronise them by speaking for them when they're perfectly capable of doing it themselves.

Honestly, the drivel that comes from the left is so patronising. 'Shut up and stop worrying your little heads about politics and let the clever people do it for you. You just concentrate on trying not to get drunk and beat up your kids so you have time to fill in a benefits claim form.' It's pathetic.

I am aware you vote for a party. The main issue is that the party is a total shambles right now under his leadership.

100%

Some friends, staying with us last year, had heard Corbyn speak at a public meeting making it quite clear he was in favour of remaining in the EU

He is absolutely not in favor of staying in the EU. If he was, he wouldn't have ordered the three line whip.

pickle I have worked in the private sector all my working life. I have clients from all walks of life and due to the nature of my job, I am privileged to know lots about all of my clients, of their hardships and their successes. Some of my clients have nothing, some are very wealthy.

I have clients who are builders, unemployed, far too many who are disabled. I also have clients who are teachers, paramedics, nurses, doctors, solicitors, dog groomers, retail assistants, call centre workers, accountants, retired people and indeed children...I could go on.

I'm not going to tell you what I do because it is utterly irrelevant. I and many others: supermarket workers; bank staff; taxi drivers; solicitors; accountants; the list truly is endless, work with people from all walks of life. Each of us is capable of taking a view on the situation and who or what is to "blame" and what the best political solution looks like. We won't all agree.

The opinions of teachers, nurses and police officers are of course as valid as anyone else's but to assert that they enjoy some special insight into the population that the rest of us don't, is simply naive.

I think that both BillSykesDogs and VivienneWestwoodsKnickers (there's a sentence you'll never say in real life!) have written excellent posts, both of which are accurate on some level and that's kind of the point, all of us experience even our own, vastly similar jobs, differently to our colleagues by virtue of demographics, geography and sector/specialty. We will also bring our own education or lack of it, personal experiences, morals and values to it. It's all part of life's rich tapestry and what makes life so interesting and thoroughly unpredictable!

That's why that whilst the OP is frustrated that people won't vote Labour regardless of who is at the helm, I'm positively thrilled that people won't vote Labour precisely because of who is at the helm! My vote this GE will be an easy one, that doesn't please me, that frustrates me. I believe that a government with an overwhelming majority is not good for any democracy. I would prefer one with a majority; good, strong MPs and a strong opposition to question, challenge and hold them to account. The chances of that happening with Corbyn leading the Labour Party is slim to none.

I see the discussion has moved on a bit since I started my post..

In my view, this is one of the ways the LP has gone wrong - this view that the "masses" just don't know what's in their best interests, and need to be educated and told how to think by their betters. People have become fed up with this. This has led to Trump, Brexit, Macron, Le Pen, the rise of Theresa May, the rise of the SNP, Tory vote rising in Scotland, the rise and rapid decline of UKIP.
There is no longer the traditional working class in this country. Heavy industry and jobs like mining are gone. Union power has gone. People are thinking for themselves more not just following traditional voting patterns. There is a huge amount of information about politics on all media especially. On the other hand if you rely on the same sources then you can build a little echo chamber for yourself.
Jeremy, Diane, and John McD are dinosaurs harking back to the days of Derek Hatton.
I apologise for the cliche but people are fed of metropolitan liberal left wing people e.g. Lady Nugee(aka Emily Thornbury) lecturing and patronising them. Insinuating that they're too thick to vote. That is what Hillary Clinton didn't understand when she called some voters 'deplorables'.

I agree with Vivienne - yes, many careers involve mixing with a range of people, but front line public service staff are more likely to see the effects of certain policies first.
In particular I think they see the effects of cuts to those services, at at a time when the public still enjoy the impression that everything is "ticking over". There's a lag effect:
Budget cuts announced.
Cuts implemented.
Staff notice the effect, and (at least initially) absorb much of it themselves - see medical staff working more hours than they are paid, because they wont abandon patients when their shift ends. This is only sustainable for so long.
Then, regular users of the services start to notice.
Then it hits the news etc, and is called a "crisis". But these things are generally a long time coming.
I think a good example would be the lag effect between prison service cuts, and headlines like this:
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-38596034

inews.co.uk/explainers/iq/toxic-cocktail-cuts-prisons-faced-last-five-years/

And then, when the crisis hits, large sums of money have to be spent fixing the problem, and reversing the cuts to staff etc. Excessive austerity is a false economy, for this reason.

Most of us have still not really seen the full impact of the cuts which occurred over the past couple of years - let alone the ones still to come.

• That said, I am sure that there is a wide range of political opinion among nurses, teachers, etc. It is still worth listening to their insights on what is happening within their working environment.