To not understand how you can vote Tory after watching this

[Kimonolady]

Not trying to be goady. Not trying to start a fight.
This video truly shocked me to the core and I actually found it hard to finish.
If you're planning on voting Conservative - has this video given you pause for thought? Is there a way you can explain your choice in light of it? Genuinely curious.
Video is at the top of the page (article worth reading too.)
www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/may/30/disabled-readers-austerity-disability-cuts

That video is real people.

Real Mners have suffered under Tories.

Yet all their supporters can come up with on here are twatty eye rolls.

Says a lot.

And over £56 billion being spent on HS2. Will Labour halt that?

The way money is distributed in this country is completely arse about face, in many ways.

People actually voted for Brexit believing that this would happen. Political parties need to be held accountable for these things.

Not so very different from the apocalyptic post-Brexit budget that George Osborne promised but never materialised, and definitely influenced my decision to vote 'Remain'... neither side was blameless.

Are you forever to be at risk of losing your home if you have a spare room because you can't afford to buy your own home?

Well, those millions of us with a mortgage are at risk of losing our homes if we can't afford the mortgage. If I couldn't afford my mortgage repayments and I have more rooms than I needed, I certainly wouldn't expect the state to bail me out. I'd downsize and/or move to an area that I can afford. It's this sense of entitlement from some of those in social housing that angers me... they then use extreme cases where the system has failed an individual to justify their entitlement, without having the sense to realise they are part of the problem! If they accepted that social housing should be provided to those who need it, to the degree to which they need it (I.e. no spare bedrooms) and with no entitlement regarding area (I'd love to live in central London but ended up moving 30 miles out as I couldn't afford it), then the Council would be better placed to help this poor individual.

Stop throwing stones from your glass houses and recognise how Labour's social policies contribute to this kind of situation. A similar documentary could almost certainly have been made in 2009!

Two Nation Tories. The upper crust, and everybody else.

Coconutella - yes. I think those who abuse it - and there are a lot more than the stats show - have a lot to answer for. A few years ago I was helping my friend who had moved abroad for work and whose tenant just stopped paying the £100 top up when his housing benefit got reduced. Just wouldn't accept that this meant he could no longer afford the flat.

He and his wife moved here about 4 years ago. They had 6 kids, a couple of whom were over working age, but none of the family worked. I met them with an interpreter (who objected at first because I was a woman and "we all know women are far too emotional for these things!!!!" ) who explained that they couldn't go back to the council because THEY MIGHT GET MOVED SOMEWHERE OUTSIDE ZONE 1. Seriously. The attitude was absolutely unbelievable. Most people can't afford to live in zone 1, ffs.

After much wriggling and spouting garbage about debt and the stain on the soul, they came clean. They wanted my friend (who was struggling to pay the mortgage and service charge) to write off the arrears because otherwise the council would refuse to rehome them. In the end they coughed up most of the arrears and the council did rehome them. But the sense of entitlement to live wherever they wanted, at the taxpayers' expense, when none of them worked, really stayed with me. They quite literally thought of it as their free money.

That kind of person, quite capable of working, diminishes the pot for the deserving. I have several other friends with family who see it the same way; my own cousins do. Where does this sense of entitlement come from? Nobody is entitled automatically to a free flat and free money. The system is there to support when in need, like the people in the video.

And I do think labour policies contributed to this attitude. The resulting deficit after years of labour led to the Tory cuts - and now it's gone too far the other way

Honestly the sad truth is voting Corbyn isn't going to eradicate suffering - he's offering a lot of dangerous change that I do not think he has the skills to implement.

My main dislike of the current labour top team doesn't have much to do with their personalities although I do not like their stalinist tactics, and everything to do with their tuition fees bribe - why didn't they spend that huge amount of money in more targeted ways? the min wage hike, too fast ramping up of corporation tax AND lack of future affordabiliy of any of their policies.

kimono in my seat it's between the SNP, cons and lab and I believe the lab vote will fall so the unionist vote is for the Scottish Conservative party. The local Tory candidate has spent a lot of his life doing charity work around the world - definitely not a heartless killer.

If the lib dems were in with a chance in my seat I'd vote for them but they aren't - I'm sure there are plenty of non heartless bastards trying to figure out their 'anyone but Corbyn or indyref2' vote.

Two out of the three people interviewed were in the south east where housing is notoriously pressured.

Here, under a conservative constituency, it's a bit different.

Funny isn't it how the corbynistas will say, "people who don't like LVT can just move" - but at the same time be outraged at the idea that someone else might have to move.

Nobody should HAVE to move (apart from the genuinely workshy!). Are the lib dem policies closest to that? I thought so but now I think they have their beady eyes on LVT too!

So the lady in question has been offered a suitable property but it's not in an area she fancies. It shouldn't be a choice.

Choice comes with paying yourself, something of an alien concept to many.

So people who cant pay for themselves as they are disabled should have no choice and be some underclass?

Clearly.compassion is an alien concept to many too.

So people who cant pay for themselves as they are disabled should have no choice and be some underclass?

Unless we ensure everyone is equally wealthy, there will always be some with more money, and therefore more choice, than others. those that buy their homes have the choice allowed by their budgets... for most people that can be limiting and by necessity we live in houses we can afford in the areas we afford.... we don't feel entitled to live in a house that exceeds our needs in any area of our choosing.

Well, no, the opposite to be honest monkey as I have no choice about where I live - it has to be somewhere affordable - the people in question were given a home, albeit an unsuitable one but I think that's more a "south east" thing than a "disabled" thing.

In central London I don't believe that being offered a suitable property in another area is unreasonable at all...

And tucked away in Alex's story is the fact that an accessible house has been offered, but declined as not in the preferred borough of Islington. So the story is not relevant because it's based on the fact that Alex is in a home totally unsuitable for his disabilities, but the bit that puts that arguement to bed is hidden away three quarters of the way down the story.

caroline I agree, the right to buy was ridiculous, but all of a sudden, all those needy tenants, managed to buy them? Doesnt that even register? I only know of Kathy Burke who gave her flat back, and quite possibly, simply because of the public spotlight. She defended her right to stay for years.

I agree that social housing should be for those who actually need it, of course it should. However, you must not understand the issue at all surrounding council houses and Right to Buy. The reason those 'needy tennants' suddenly could afford to buy them was the housing was sold to them at huge discounts- bigger depending on how many years they had lived there, and that was to get rid of a social burden- ie council houses that were costing the government/councils millions to update and repair. Thatcher transferred that problem to the tennants by sellng them the house really cheaply with all the problems. They could not have afforded to buy if they had been offered them at full market value.

At the time - I grew up in a council house- you could not sell them on as no one wanted to buy them. There was a stigma attached to living on a council estate. People had aspirations to 'move up' not move to a council estate.

Now, however, many of them- particularly the 40s and 50s ones- are attractive to buyers because they are well-built, bigger than starter new builds, often had decent gardens and some of the stigma has disappeared as house prices have rocketed.

They are still cheaper than privately built housing usually. This has led to them becoming a good choice for those who can not afford something in a better area or who buy them as a starter or because you get more house for your money. Some ex-council estates have become 'gentrified' as they have become almost wholly owner occupied.

The plan has been a success in Mrs Thatcher's vision. The councils/government lost the financial burden of them, and the councils never replaced them. Social housing has become a private industry on the whole and we are back to millions living in private rentals lining the pockets of wealthy Buy to Let landlords who no doubt vote Tory. Many of those people- at the lower rent end of the market- live in badly maintained, slummy properties owned by rogue landlords who don't care a jot for their tennants. This is why council housing was built in the first place - it was actually affecting the health of people,housing standards were so low.

My parents moved from a rented downstairs flat - a landlord who owned whole streets of them- with an outside toilet and no bathroom or heating or hot water, riddled with damp and awful old windows, into a council house with a garden, heating, hot water, a bathroom and toilet, no damp, windows that fitted. The flats were slum cleared by the council as the only way of getting rid of them because the landlords would not upgrade them.

Those council houses now are bought by teachers, nurses etc - public sector workers on the first step of the property ladder. At the time they would never have considered houses like that but they can't afford anything else now as first properties. Meanwhile, the people they were built for are back to renting cheaply from private rogue landlords who make a fortune from their rents.

Full circle.

I think it's harsh lulu to generalise all private landlords as rogues. I own my home, but prior to that I rented lots of properties from private landlords, and have to say I never had a problem. No doubt there are rogue landlords, just as there are rogue tenants, but it's a myth to group them all as rich buy to let landlords. A lot of landlord are just people who might have inherited a property or bought a property as a way to get income from an investment, but doesn't necessarily make them cash wealthy.

"The plan has been a success in Mrs Thatcher's vision." No it hasnt Lulu, for various reasons, one of which is tenants buying under the right to buy, then renting them out immediately to housing benefit tenants. Or local councils sidelining monies raised, elsewhere.

Scotland has now scrapped the RTB, England must follow, and Im a Tory voter. The intention of RTB was a good one, I remember council estates in the 1980s and 90s really picking up. Pride was taken in front gardens. Hanging baskets appeared. The estates themselves became far more pleasant places to live. Thousands of families, were given a foothold out of the state dependant existance they never thought theyd escape.

But then came the abuse of the system, and councils suddenly had to find rental bills for the very tenants theyd given a leg up to.

Reduced market value sales, is not neccesarily a bad thing, when we know it costs say £100k to build a £300k property and as you rightky say, those properties have been poorly maintained for decades? If you build on swathes of council owned land, as was the intention, in larger numbers not less, the cost to build reduces. So why did it go so wrong? We could debate all day.

But RTB must now be scrapped. Will that takes us back to the council estates we knew of the 70s? Yep.

I read on here loads of stories about PIP assessments and how awful they were. Terrible, extreme examples, no doubt, like Trip advisor reviews you only hear the bad stories.

Then one of my students went for their PIP assessment. It was just like everybody had said. Interviewed by a person with no understanding of their condition, boxes ticked saying that they could do things that they actually couldn't, and eventually a decrease in their payment which then had to go to an appeal.

It's a systemic failure, and these things come from the top.

Garden you could also argue that disabled people need their social networks more than others and should not be required to move out of their home areas.

I think these awful cases can be made to support pretty much any political point which is why i think they are bad campaigning. I stil remember the battle of Jennifer's Ear from 1992.

Those against the Tories will focus their attention on the genuine disabled people whose lifestyle has suffered from the reforms.

Those supporting the Tories will focus on those who play the system, see themselves as vulnerable rather than lazy and will want tougher sanctions to reduce reliance on benefits.

Others will still be trying to get a realistic idea of the number of people who fit in either category rather than those portrayed in media propaganda. Those are the ones who don't care much about either party but just wish either would stop treating them like fools.

I just wish the masses were less gullible and stopped believing all they read and hear from the press which only cares about making money from sensationalism.