I honestly don't understand why anyone who cares about anyone other than themselves would vote Tory.

[ilovetofu]

https://amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/apr/27/doctor-nhs-vote-labour-austerity-conservatives?CMP=sharebtntw&twitterimpression=true&fbclid=IwAR2JhAMh9bEiRfeALJeTzeP8ogAByuwaitNpshoQ8oEQfYLvlTc7tvJ50

🤷‍♀️

@Deathgrip

So, how are voters reacting to all of Labour’s whining? Let’s find out, using strictly quantifiable methods!

Well, there have been 5 polls tonight, showing Tory leads over Labour ranging from healthy to earth-shattering:

BMG: +8
Comres: +8
Deltapoll: +15
Opinium: +16
YouGov: +17

Average: +12.8

That’s after the floods, the A&E figures, and oh, the free broadband from the Free Stuff Party.
Enjoy this perfectly “quantifiable” post!

Oh ffs anyone voting Tory is selfish and/or weird.

You’re saying that Labour shouldn’t have an opportunity to run the country because of how things played out almost half a century ago

Given Jeremy Corbyn was around at that time then yes people should do the comparison.

Myothercarisalsoshit

My family are an immigrant family who came to this country with just the clothes they stood up in.

There was 8 adults and 2 children living in a 2 bed 1 boxroom council house.

They worked hugely hard taking on all sorts of jobs to be able to buy a house and start their own business.

I am sorry that you think I am making this up but it is how we lived.

Oh ffs anyone voting Tory is selfish and/or weird.

Anyone voting labout just wants to kick the can of a shit economy down a generation.

As long as we are dead our kids can pick up the tab, we can become the next Boomer generation.

It's why the Keynesian economics model is ridiculed. I am hoping for a Labour win this GE just so some people realise the shit show they vote for, it is a 180 in a unicorn economic situation if you vote for brexit labour.

It's just a different side of uneducated

Polls? Really?

Thanks Labour have cut the tory lead significantly in the last week, while Lib Dems and Brexit Party have lost points too. The way they public are reacting to Labour’s campaigning is that an increasing number are supporting them.

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/general-election-2019-labour-conservatives-gap-vote-poll-corbyn-johnson-a9205616.html

But it’s all irrelevant really since the last decade has shown that polls are rarely accurate - and the fact you think that opinion polls are quantifiable evidence of anything is bizarre.

Anyone voting labout just wants to kick the can of a shit economy down a generation.

Are you honestly trying to paint the tories as the responsible vote for those worrying about the future?

The basis of the global financial crisis was the policies of Thatcher and Reagan. The CEO pay gap, the tax dodging corporations, the fact that 26 people in the world own as much wealth as the poorest 3.6 billion people, zero hours contracts, 55% of homeless families in the U.K. being in employment... these are all the direct result of that period of government.

If you’re concerned about the next generation, why would you vote for a party that’s destroying the NHS and education, workers rights, reduce the welfare safety net, etc?

In almost a decade, what have the tories done to make sure things are good for the next generation?

Thanks Labour have cut the tory lead significantly in the last week

Oh dear - you can’t count and nor can the Independent. Even in the best poll for Labour, the Tory lead was “cut” to 8 points from ... 8 points! They must have had Diane Abbott doing the maths!

@Oliversmumsarmy: you were lucky. Yes, you and your family worked hard, but so have a lot of other people. There have been times when sheer hard work made it possible for some people with no assets to succeed, and for social mobility to increase, but there have also been times and circumstances where all the hard work in the world won't help. Many poor people now work very, very hard - some are doing two or three waged jobs and still can't afford to pay their rent and feed their children. Because the people with wealth and power (often inherited wealth and power) don't want to pay workers enough.

You know YouGov is owned by a tory MP right??

Haven't rtft but what is considered by people to be best for them is not always (often) what's best for the country. ie Labour's flight of fancy spending plans. If I was voting for what was best for me and my family I'd definitely be voting Labour.

Well it really depends which poll you want to believe doesn’t it, since they’re all so vastly different... unsurprising when some have a funding bias, and demonstrating the unreliability of polls, as I said earlier.

Britain Elects collects British Polling Council Data, so presents an average of poll results.

britainelects.com/polling/westminster/

Tories had a 12.9 point lead one week ago (see screenshot), now reduced to a 9.5 point lead. Labour have gained 4 points in the last two weeks, the tories have gained 2 points.

If the last GE is anything to go by, the Labour gains will pick up after a period of fair representation and the manifesto release.

They must have had Diane Abbott doing the maths!

Well it can’t have been Hammond, or there’d be a claim of a 20bn point lead...

Haven't rtft but what is considered by people to be best for them is not always (often) what's best for the country. ie Labour's flight of fancy spending plans. If I was voting for what was best for me and my family I'd definitely be voting Labour.

Can you honestly look back at the impact of the last decade and tell me that tory polices have been best for the country?

Which policy exactly?

Bedroom tax?
Benefits freezes?
Sanctions?
Rise in food banks?
Rise in poverty?
Rise in working homelessness?
Thousands of disabled children without a school place?
Brexit?
120k deaths attributed to health and social cuts?
Cuts to police force?
Rising crime numbers?
LAs running a £3bn deficit?

Please point to the part that’s been best for the country.

Oliversmumsarmy: you were lucky. Yes, you and your family worked hard, but so have a lot of other people

Pmsl

When I was going to bed on the sofa in the freezing cold living room with a pillow with no pillowcase and what ever blankets and coats could be found to keep me warm.

When we had to shred newspaper and make a papier-mâché gloop to be stuck between the single skin brickwork to stop being able to see outside and to stop the wind whistling in when the pointing between the bricks crumbled

When the police knocked the door down (on a semi regular basis) at 5am and dragged the male members of the family off because someone 5 streets away had been burgled and it was obviously one of the immigrant families

When the only time myself and my cousin were taken to a pantomime we were jeered because we were on the bus with the poor children who were going to see it for free

When no one would give my family work because of where we were from.

When the only food on the table had to be rationed among 10 people

And a hell of a lot more day to day ways we had to live to put food on the table and try and get us out of the slum we lived in

Remember we didn’t have any form of help in terms of benefits.

If my family didn’t work, we didn’t eat and we didn’t have a roof over our heads.

There was non of this going through the courts and having months to sit around doing nothing if you couldn’t afford your rent and the landlord (the council) had to go through the proper channels in order to get you out.

They just sent in bailiffs to put your furniture and stuff in the streets and strong arm you out of the house if you got a couple of months behind in your rent.

Remembering it happening to a family up the road.

So if you think we were lucky then everyone else must have lived a completely blessed life.

I don’t think I ever thought of myself as having a particularly lucky childhood and still don’t.

If you say that people who live in extreme poverty are lucky then why are we helping these “lucky” people by giving them benefits or access to food banks?

We should just tell them how lucky they are and leave them to it

oliversmumsarmy you’re either misinterpreting or misrepresenting the post you’re responding to.

No one is saying you were lucky to be in poverty. They were saying that you were lucky to live in an era where your parents working hard meant they could afford to house you. When it was possible to work your way up from nothing and succeed. The current climate is a very different prospect to even a couple of decades ago.

Under this government, more and more children are being forced into the sort of poverty you describe, despite the existence of a welfare safety net. The majority of homeless families have at least one adult working. Working hard isn’t enough now. Racially motivated hate crimes have risen too. I cannot understand how you can support a party making choices that end up with others in that situation when it’s avoidable and when you know what it’s like.

I was brought up by a single mum who had to leave school at 16 to work to support her mother. She worked for a bank as a clerk. She divorced when I was a baby as my father was abusive to all of us. Her single wage in a junior role enabled her to buy a small house with a mortgage, for around three times her annual salary. She had a job for life - she literally worked for the same company until she retired. She had stability. Her wage was enough to support herself and us - we didn’t have much but we had enough.

Had my mum been a young single mother now, she would likely have been on an unstable contract with very low pay, reliant on in work benefits because her salary wouldn’t cover rent and bills. Just because your parents were able to improve their lives through hard work doesn’t mean anyone in dire straits now can do the same.

There was non of this going through the courts and having months to sit around doing nothing if you couldn’t afford your rent and the landlord (the council) had to go through the proper channels in order to get you out.

Why do you think this change in law has become necessary? Because such a large proportion of the population cannot afford rent, because it’s risen so massively as a proportion of wages. Councils are encourage tenants to stay where they are until they are formally evicted because they have nowhere to put them, because such a large proportion of council housing stock was sold and not replaced.

This government‘s housing department handed back over £800m earmarked for building affordable housing, saying it wasn’t needed - instead that money went towards Help To Buy, to help better off people buy their first home.

This government have created this situation.

Deathgrip you didn’t read my post.

It wasn’t just my parents. This wasn’t just mum dad and a couple of children having the ability to work to save enough to buy a house.

This was 4 “families” under one roof.

You aren’t comparing like with like.

If you think we were lucky then why don’t 4 couples and their children who are struggling get together and live in a 2 bed 1 reception place and all work every hour they can putting any money into the middle of the table to save.
And live like that for a number of years so each can buy a house and start a business together.

They too can then be considered so lucky

Deathgrip you didn’t read my post.

I think you’ll find she did. I did too. I’m utterly aghast that someone who has experienced such levels of poverty and deprivation wouldn’t want to ensure that no other child ever has to experience it. If that’s the kind of selfishness and callousness dragging yourself up by your bootstraps produces, it’s a good thing it’s impossible now.

you didn’t read my post.

I did.

You aren’t comparing like with like.

I wasn’t comparing anything at all - I was explaining that my mum’s circumstances would be very different if she were a young single mother now.

If you think we were lucky then why don’t 4 couples and their children who are struggling get together and live in a 2 bed 1 reception place and all work every hour they can putting any money into the middle of the table to save.

Do you think that’s not happening now? Much more severe overcrowding than this is now commonplace in U.K. cities
www.theguardian.com/society/2015/jun/25/overcrowding-housing-raid-26-living-three-bedroom-east-london

The difference is that these people still can’t save money living in these conditions due to the ratio and earnings to rent.

I see you’re still unwilling to answer how you’re willing to support a government inflicting poverty on to millions.

I do not agree with labour's obsession of bringing every industry back to public purse (bus, rail, BT etc) when it is then the public who feel the financial strain of funding it.

I also don't agree with labour's idea of handing out benefits willy nilly. It doesnt encourage people to work and it gets the country into a vast debt.

Corbyn is a terrorist sympathiser. He is also an antisemitic and he cares not for protecting our country with a solid defense system, leaving us open to attack.

He's also an idiot if he reckons promising free wifi to people will get votes in a time of such political uncertainty and Brexit!!!

@deathgrip Thirty years ago I was also advised by local authority to stay in my property until the courts evicted me before they could help me. That is nothing new in England.
Better off working class people bought houses, but there are others who are pensioners who are still renting. I come from a very poor family in Britain, and the idea that my parents could ever buy a house is laughable.
And a bank clerk in the past was seen as a good job. Obviously not comparable to high paid jobs like a surgeon, but it was a decent job. My family would have seen it as something to aspire to.

@Frankola Out of all of that, the one policy I do agree with is free high speed fibre optic broadband. We have some of the slowest internet speeds in Europe, and there are still rural areas where it is almost impossible to get any signal. That affects our business competitiveness. The free market has spectacularly failed to provide what we need. So I see this as an investment in infrastructure, like building roads and ports.

I do not agree with labour's obsession of bringing every industry back to public purse (bus, rail, BT etc) when it is then the public who feel the financial strain of funding it.

I’m not sure you appreciate how this works. A nationalised rail company is funded by the people who use it, with the profits ploughed back to improve and develop it. A privatised rail company is funded by the people who use it, with the profits going into shareholders’ pockets. I know which I prefer. All our public services, especially the NHS, suffer when a profit for shareholders has to be creamed off.

If you click on the link in OP's post, the article is dated April 2017. If you google "cold happy meal for lunch", the parents have responded over the last two days.

@Hardreel, think you’ve posted on the wrong thread.

I don't understand why anyone would vote Tory in this election either. I'd love to know what in nine years of government that they've achieved - something positive would be great, rather than the usual fearmongering of a Corbyn government. They always fight elections on smears and fear, there is never a 'look at these achievements' because there really are none. I can think of gay marriage and that is it. They've presided over ripping this country in two with the ill judged referendum, on that basis alone they should be condemned.

We are one of the minority of families who will be paying significantly more tax under a Labour government, so it's not best for us financially. But I'd rather people like us pay more to stop the serial underfunding of the NHS, properly equip our schools which are at breaking point, ensure child poverty gets better, get rid of utterly cruel sanctions on people who then can't afford to eat - I could go on.

As for the utter crap that is the 'Corbyn is a terrorist sympathiser', he talked to terrorists whilst helping to sort out the GFA. Tories have spoken to terrorists. This is right wing media drivel.

Economically the likes of the FT are now in support of Labour's policies, the Tories are seeking to trash our economy with Brexit and the trickle down economic policy has been shown to be nonsense. Look at the trends of inequality rising, if trickle down worked then poor people would be better off because of the rising bank balances of the seriously rich. And the opposite has happened. Billionaires should be willing to pay a decent amount of tax. How much money does one person need?

Economically the likes of the FT are now in support of Labour's policies

What utter fantasy - no, the FT is nowhere near being in favour of Corbyn’s far-left raids on private enterprise!