To ask why you think the Tory party are nasty / evil?

[MellowBird85]

This is not a loaded question, I am genuinely interested to hear why some people are of this opinion. Fire away...

Ian Duncan Smith

This thread will bring about the worst (and stupidest) of MN.

Obviously, the Tories aren’t evil.

?? really
do you not watch the news. have you not seen how they treat the sick and disabled.

It might be because they never try to make life easier for the less well off, sick and disabled. They introduce improvements like Universal Credit which could be very progressive in redistributing wealth but instead take a punitive approach and make life even more miserable for the poor. They introduced the awful health assessments for the sick and disabled which have seen terminally ill people declared fit for work and those with debilitating mental illness cruelly denied financial help. They have decimated our public services so that youth facilities, libraries and leisure facilities are no longer being provided. Funding for schools and the NHS have been slashed causing massive problems. I'm sure there's a lot more but generally everything they do is geared towards making the affluent more affluent and the poorer members of society worse off. I don't think I've ever seen much in the way of policies that make life easier for the less well off but I might be wrong.

I actually agree with a fair amount of their policies. But agree with a PP, their treatment the most vulnerable members of society is horrible, the UN have said it is a human rights abuse. TM disagreed. I think low taxes and doing the bare minimum for education and health etc is going to be more costly in the long term and disproportionately affects the poor. We are one of the richest countries in the world and we need food banks due to the way benefits work or dont work. That's not right

@Lavendersquare wasn’t all that due to austerity to address the country’s massive deficit though so we didn’t end up like Greece?

They give the appearance of self serving bastards who would Rob their own disabled grandparents to get ahead.

They introduced:
Universal Credit.
All the PIP waiting times etc.
Bedroom tax.
Benefit sanctions scrooge would be proud of.
They make the ordinary working people poor and the poor people destitute.

People understandably have a very visceral reaction to political parties who they see as having damaged their livelihoods, put their families, health, education and lives in jeopardy through cuts, and who generally don't seem to care about the welfare of the average person on the street at all. And who show contempt to the electorate by acting like arrogant, braying arseholes with questionable private lives.

I don't think 'evil' and 'nasty' are very useful, grown-up criticisms, but I can understand why people hate them. I expect there are similarly ruthless, callous people in the other parties too, but in the Tory party it seems to be actual policy to be like that.

@MellowBird85 the austerity agenda was used as an excuse to clobber the less well off with punitive cuts. The budgets of councils were slashed and yet they were still expected to provide statutory services, the only way was to outsource which effectively means handing over to the private sector who pay lower wages with worse conditions. The Tories then sit back and blame those working in low paid jobs for not trying hard enough whilst allowing big business to bank the profits. Everything is always directed at blaming the poor whilst rewarding the owners.

12 years of benefit freeze
Benefits cap
Pip
Atol
UC
The 2 child limit
Bedroom tax
Brexit
Child benefit cut off (should be house hold income based)
Demonising the poor
Boris Johnson
Self id
Margaret Thatcher
The rape clause for 2 child limit
I could go on for hours but these are just some of the reasons why I will never vote tory

This has been the most damaging and divisive Govt I've lived under. Decisions made by this Govt have directly lead to the deaths of disabled and poor people. Homelessness is the highest its been for years. Poverty is on the rise. People have less job and housing security.
I consider that evil.

While we've been struggling under austerity, millions of pounds has been wasted on projects that never happened - the garden bridge, the ferry company that had no ferries.
The money didn't just disappear into thin air, it was paid to people who have not been made accountable.

''The case for cuts was a lie. Why does Britain still believe it?
The austerity delusion''
www.theguardian.com/business/ng-interactive/2015/apr/29/the-austerity-delusion

Tory MPs laughed and cheered as Osborne announced his austerity measures, knowing that they would decimate public services. They loved it.

Their austerity measures have been linked to the deaths of 120,000 people.

They put themselves, their friends and their party above the country. Every single time. Outside of those 3, they dont give a fuck and / or actively try to attack them

wasn’t all that due to austerity to address the country’s massive deficit though so we didn’t end up like Greece?

Our deficit has increased, not decreased under this Tory government and austerity. Our situation is nothing like Greece.

Cuts to provision of;
Disability benefits and services
Mental health services (but that was under labour too)
Fire and police services
Bedroom tax
Universal credit
NHS including stealth privatisation

Magic money tree appearing in order to get DUP into bed with them

Appalling behaviour of MPs in parliament (and out)

Absolutely inadequate response to rise in threats of and actual violence against women MPs

Persecution of junior doctors by Hunt

Gove and his impact on education.

God awful/deliberately destabilising/illegal behaviour, decision making and general handling of Brexit from referendum to date.

Because they’re all stick and no carrot. Take the bedroom tax, for example. Ok, in principle freeing up under occupied social housing is a good thing, but there aren’t enough smaller homes available so in practice what you’re doing is punishing people for something outside of their control - never mind the lack of exemptions for people with, for instance, disabilities that mean they need a room to store things like wheelchairs, hoists or other equipment.

Or the changes to disability benefits - again, a policy enacted with no consideration for the people affected. Some disabilities are not going to get better. My neighbour has a number of progressive, lifelong conditions which are not going to get better - they’re going to get worse until they kill him. In recognition of this he had been awarded lifetime DLA, but had to reapply and had that application rejected, leaving him with nothing at all to live on for several months until they successfully appealed - in itself a process made as unpleasant as possible, during which my neighbours were treated with rudeness and contempt. My brother is in the same boat of having to reapply. He isn’t going to get better either, but is being put through loads of stress, and for what? It feels like a punishment for having the temerity to be unwell and to not have conveniently died to save the Exchequer some money.

They have also used language designed to set people against one another - ‘scroungers’ vs ‘hard-working families’. It’s deliberately divisive, and you can see the results everywhere - just read a few threads on here. They’ve split this country down the middle with their bloody referendum as well - not just holding it in the first place but in their handling of the whole situation ever since. Regardless of which side of the debate you sit on, it’s hard to deny that it’s not an awful mess, and the party of government has to take a good share of the responsibility for that.

I disagree that they are ‘evil’ - that’s just childish. And nor do I think the opposition are all sweetness and light and pretty flowers. But the Conservatives have used their time in government to enact policies that have hurt people, and they haven’t flinched from it, or tried to mitigate it. I judge them by their actions, that’s all.

Evil is probably a bit strong. They have to make unpopular decisions as there isn't an endless pot of money to dish out to people, AND take in every waif and stray of the world.

We have finite resources 🤷

Personally, I think the sick and disabled should be taken care of first and rightly so, less for those that are able.

Presumably because it’s people who think they’re entitled to have their needs met by the state (or rather the tax payer) who get irrationally pissed off when a political party expects them to support themselves.

Sorry, that should read it’s hard to deny that it’s an awful mess’.

Partly because of what they say, but mostly because of what they do.

Labour were in power for a long time and if thinks had been so good under them, the Tory's would not be in power
No matter who wins , you can't please everyone and he who shouts loudest gets heard

Pretty much...

Ok Boggles, so in the case of someone like my brother who is not capable of supporting himself and never will be, what would you suggest?

Not so sure why its terrible to get financial support from the state in the form of benefits but fine if it's in the form of tax breaks. I think a lot of people struggle with that one. Or why its terrible to be a single mother on benefits but totally unobjectionable to walk away from your child and not support them financially.

All the wealthy Tories I have ever met genuinely believe their wealth is due to their own work ethic /inherent brilliance and conversely anyone who is poor deserves it. Their piss-poor policies seem to reflect this.