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...

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

Yes it was due to austerity, but you frame your question as if austerity was the only option out of the financial mess but it wasn't. It was however the course of action that would disproportionally affect the poorest in society which is largely why people believe they are nasty.

A society and therefore a government is judged by many on how they treat the poorest and most disadvantaged, not by how they treat those who will be fine regardless (if a little less well off).

There are lots of other reasons but for me this is the crux of the matter.

Simply put, they stand for individualism, and I cannot see how any society can function in a survival of the fittest culture. Society only works when we collectively support each other. A party who is fundamentally opposed to sharing responsibility in supporting the most vulnerable has a moral problem at its core.
Their track record over the past decade speaks for itself - create opportunities for the wealthy, demonise and penalise the vulnerable. The spin they put on their actions to justify them sickens me.

The welfare reforms they have introduced have been nothing short of catastrophic for those on low incomes and/or have a disability or long term illness.

These changes have not saved any money, in fact administration costs have vastly increased. The cost to the economy, the pressure on other services dealing with vulnerable people and the human cost has been enormous.

If you support these policies you are basically supporting an ideology of punishing the poorest and most vulnerable. They do not save money and help no one. Unless, of course you own shares in the companies who deliver disability assessments.

When a parent dies, from the 40s until 2017, the national insurance contributions that the dead parent had paid were used to help the family until the youngest child left school.
Since 2017, the government just keeps the national insurance contributions that the dead parent paid.
(Probably wanted to squander it on Brexit.)

i dont think they are evil there are things the goverment should do and things the goverment should not do and one of those things is child benefit you should not get money for making an expensive only have children if you can afford them.

Oh should say you get a bit for first 18 months, but nowhere near what my dh paid in. If he'd lived to old age he'd have benefited for years from the NI contributions in the form of state pension

I truly believe if any party wanted to help reduce the country’s deficit, then they would start by ensuring all big companies paid an appropriate amount of tax: amazon, Starbucks, google. Millions of pounds is lost every year just for this reason.

Under the Tory party, no strides have been made towards this and instead, cuts have been made across the board in other public services. Social services are on the brink of crumbling due to lack of funding, as a result, more pressure is put on an already overstretched NHS. This in turn has a knock on effect of other services such as policing. Education has taken a huge hit, expected to do far more with less money.

As other posters have said, how have the Tory party helped the lower-earning population? Why in this day in age do we have people accessing food banks? Even working people

Not wanting to stir the pot but on top of that, it was the Tory party - namely David Cameron - who called a referendum on the EU. After kickstarting that, he then shamefully left the race completely. We now have a prime minister leading the Tory party and running the country who no one actually voted for. I accept that the party were voted for under the last general election (sadly) but not Boris Johnson. When Gordon Brown became an unelected prime minister, Boris Johnson himself said how unethical that was. But now ...?

For me, they’re not a party who represent ethical policies. They’re not a party who have the best interest of all its citizens. They’re not a party who see the value in investing in the front line and therefore the future of the country.

Ok so from what I can gather, the welfare reform has been a major contributor to this view? Just to play devils advocate, here’s another perspective...

A few years ago I was supporting a man with chronic alcohol issues. Would literally drink from morning until he passed out, was in and out of hospital with alcohol related issues, frequent DV between him and his (male) partner. I once did a budget plan with him and it transpired that he was being paid more in benefits than my full time wages (not minimum wage and over £1000 in disposable income). Rent was fully covered by HB as was Council Tax. He ended up killing his partner in an alcohol fuelled fight. Did 8 years for manslaughter.

Is this right? To keep giving him all this cash to piss up the wall and enable his chaotic lifestyle? Shouldn’t there be an element of taking some personal responsibility for yourself? Of course I am not talking about people with progressive illnesses / disabilities. I know this is an extreme example but I saw a lot of this going on to a lesser extent i.e. people not changing their behaviour because it was just too easy to carry on unchallenged and remain “incapacitated”.

Please don’t misunderstand me, I agree the 5 week wait for UC is shambolic and the assessment providers...well, I watched the film “I, Daniel Blake” and believe this is very representative of what some people were / are going through. But surely we can all agree that something needed to change?

Widowed Parents Allowance (funded by dead parents NI contributions is what was scrapped)

On top of that, they want to raise the state pension age to 73. 73? After paying in for a lifetime, many won’t live to see their pension. Fair enough if people decide continue to work but no one should be forced to work until then. Imagine a 73 year old teacher? A 73 year old carer? A 73 year old firefighter? It is just inconceivable.

Well obviously it’s evil not to take everything the rich have earned and give it away to those who haven’t. Duh!

'Evil' is an incredibly subjective term and you're never going to get concensus on what, exactly, it means. There is, of course, a religious aspect to it as well. However, having just Googled definitions across a variety of well respected online dictionaries, it most commonly seems to be described as 'profoundly immoral and wicked', 'extremely unpleasant', 'causing harm', 'morally reprehensible', 'something that brings sorrow, distress or calamity', and so on.

Based on all of that, and combined with the policy examples given up thread, then yes, I'd say Tory party policies are evil. There are some particularly well known and repugnant individuals in the party I'd not hesitate to describe as individually evil too, but logically it's hard to forgive any Tory MP who continues to support their inhumanity, their near total lack of compassion and their spiteful divide and rule tactics. To be honest I'm increasingly having real trouble viewing their voters with any respect... each vote they receive effectively says what they're doing is 'okay'. That's state sanctioned deaths and misery.

That depends if you believe there is such a thing as "the deserving poor" and "the undeserving poor", or whether you just have a class of society who need help. Sounds like you believe in the former and are happy to be judge, jury and executioner.

Let's go back further, to the Thatcher years, to her destruction of manufacturing and decimation of communities up and down the country who have never recovered. To her hatred of the unions and determination to smash them.

The amount of money the tories squander is disgusting. Billions on making the economy worse via Brexit.
£100 million just on advertising No Deal Brexit.
They should be called the reckless squanderer party really.
At least labour spent on investing in public services, helping those in need and then bailing out the banks after the Global Economic crisis.

I don’t use language like that. But my objection to The Conservative Party can be summed up by a quotation from Margaret Thatcher “There is no such thing as society”

My brother sounds a lot like your drunken man (except he's not killed someone yet). In the absence of anything approaching a decent mental health care system, or anything but the most basic support in moving from hard drugs onto methadone, he receives quite a lot of benefit and is basically left to it. Without the support he needs hes going nowhere but an early grave (w benefits), or the street/prison/an early grave without them. Talk of "personal responsibility " is frankly laughable for someone who is as fucked up as he is, with as little agency as he has.

He gets the benefits, not out of kindness, but because it's the cheap option. Psychiatric support and social support and proper drug support is expensive and not available to people like him.

@LittleAndOften

...or whether you just have a class of society who need help

But that doesn’t necessarily mean throwing money at the issue.

They aren’t, they are great.

I don’t think they’re “nasty” or “evil”.

I do think they attract a certain type of voter, which isn’t the type of person I would choose to associate with.

Their policies do nothing but make the most vulnerable in society suffer. I question how anyone could vote for a party with that rhetoric.

Since 2017, the government just keeps the national insurance contributions that the dead parent paid
Sorry should have said, the Tories steal the NI contributions that the dead parent paid from the bereaved family.

I don’t use language like that. But my objection to The Conservative Party can be summed up by a quotation from Margaret Thatcher “There is no such thing as society” full context of what she said was absolutely correct but dosnt stop the left distorting as usual and the idea the last 3 tory pms share the same ideology is farcical

they are casting their problems at society. And, you know, there's no such thing as society. There are individual men and women and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look after themselves first. It is our duty to look after ourselves and then, also, to look after our neighbours."

Out of curiosity, and not wanting any argument or confrontation, I’d be really interested to hear your side of things. In your view, what makes the Tory Party great?

@Ringdonna

On top of that, they want to raise the state pension age to 73. 73? After paying in for a lifetime, many won’t live to see their pension. Fair enough if people decide continue to work but no one should be forced to work until then. Imagine a 73 year old teacher? A 73 year old carer? A 73 year old firefighter? It is just inconceivable.
how are they forcing people to work until that age you can retire earlier if you saved the money

I thought the point of threads like this was for people to bang on about how much worse Jeremy Corbyn would be ?

Maybe the OP needs to get the thread deleted and start again

Meanwhile Mumsnetters, do keep up - any mention of Tory evil needs to be deflected with some completely unrelated comment about Corbyn.

Let's try again ....