How anyone can vote Tory?

[Stella8686]

After seeing some pro labour and pro conservatives posts recently I am genuinely interested to see what makes someone vote conservative

OTHER THAN

1. Hard/ quick Brexit
2. Looking after your own finances
3. Hatred for Labour/ Corbyn

ABIU to not be able to think of any single other reason to vote conservative?

Apart from the past 9 years where it has been ‘managed’ away from the poorest and neediest.

Oh Xenia, do give it a rest. The economy’s been so well managed in the last nine years that the NHS is collapsing, food bank use has rocketed as working families are referred, and the national debt has almost tripled, tell me by what measure the economy’s been improved.

will be voting Tory as best of a bad bunch

couldnt bring myself to vote labour with Corbyn and Diane Abbot on the bench along with John McDonnel who think the IRA were brave

Jo Swinson the more i see her the less I like her and she has got no chance along with greens , brexit etc so they all seem a waste of a vote

@Xenia absolute rubbish. Nothing has been ‘managed better’ by the Tories. Nothing. Everything has been cut to shreds and left us in a God awful mess.

@billysboy I'm in the same predicament.

Gutted to be in this position but Corbyn, McDonnell and Abbott are far too dangerous and incompetent to be let loose with any power.

It's really coming to something when BJ and JRM are the better option.

If you’re going to vote Tory at least stop pretending you don’t have a choice.

I feel the economy has had to be managed after the on slaught of credit crunch and Blairs policies which devastated towns, councils, drained every penny out of them.

Huge errors have also been made by the tory Party. I don't agree with phasing things out, and leaving people high and dry like waspi women, uc claimants, and people who are severely disabled being made to fill out intrusive forms etc. But that also happened under labour.

It needs to stop, it's not tory or Labour its useless government.

Blairs policies which devastated towns, councils, drained every penny out of them

I wish we could nail this once and for all. All the devastation in this country was caused by Tory austerity. It wasn’t Blair or Brown who closed hospital beds, sure start centres and libraries. It was Cameron’s government. It was May who took 20,000 police off the streets. We’re in a fucking mess because of the Tories.

Blair's policies blew All the money www.theguardian.com/politics/2010/may/17/liam-byrne-note-successor
Just before that we had the banking crisis where everything crashed.
For some reason the answer to the banking crisis was quantities easing. (printing money).
After all that austerity was an attempt all those wrongs.

There is money from taxes from the British people . There is no magic money tree. So only so much that can be done with this money. The more generous any party in gov is the more likely they are to get voted back in. There has been weak opposition for years hence Tories getting away with austerity. If any party finds a magic money tree by borrowing, someone will have to repay the loans in the future eg today's young people. So I don't think all the spending that people are demanding is such a good idea.

After all that, austerity was an attempt to right all those wrongs.

Why are we now £1.8 trillion in debt?

When the Tories came to power the UK was 'only' £1 trillion in debt.

What was Austerity for if the debt is greater now?

My God why does everyone fail to grasp this. We were running a massive deficit under labour (spending more than tax revenues) the tories got this overspending down but it takes time. If we are spending more than we are getting in tax debt will always rise. If you wanted debt to be reduced quickly then cuts/tax rises would have to be much greater so we are running a surplus! If anyone says debt has increased under tories without understanding I think I will bloody scream. Unless the poster is saying tax should be increased much more or spending cut much harder!!

See graph below:

They've had 9 years. How much longer does it take?

And perhaps they could start taxing the likes of Amazon and Google and all other tax avoiders. That would help.

@Craft74 sorry but I really don't understand why the deficit has increased under austerity measures and you haven't explained it. Everything has been cut to the bone for 9 years, how much time does it take? Maybe wasting time and money on Brexit and losing massive businesses left right and centre to Europe has been a factor?

'Plenty of threads on here about choosing to claim so they can be a SAHP, working just x hours as it suits there lifestyle etc. '

It's not about suiting their lifestyle FFS it's about leaving your child in a nursery for 37 hours a week to go to work for literally no payoff because nursery is so expensive.

The deficitis thedifference between annual government revenue and spending.

The debtis the total amount owed by the government which has accumulated over many years.

No Labour voters can grasp this. Some Conservative voters can. That's one reason they vote the way they do.

I’m not an anti-Semite therefore a Tory vote seems a good bet. Anyone voting labour, just spare us your hypocrisy in ever accusing anyone else of racism

I feel completely stuck on who to vote for. I have voted Tory in the past, I voted labour last election, because I thought the local labour candidate was the most engaged with the community and understood our concerns (he didnt get in as I live in a staunch tory area). I think BJ and JRM are abysmal and completely out of touch with "normal" people and because they are part of an old boys network they'll be fine whatever shit hits the fan.

However I have no confidence in JC, he promises the moon on a stick and thinks that higher earners will suck it up and hand over half their income to pay for free broadband/uni fees /care etc (I'm on uk average earnings so this is not a personal concern) I feel as pp have said that Labour could and should have done so much better with a different leader. It was a golden opportunity with tory infighting to be an alternative for floating voters.
Both main parties are incredibly extreme and I don't feel I could vote for either. I will probably vote lib dems but dont have much confidence of them getting anywhere.

I think Labours manifesto is so unachievable and costly that people think they will wreck the economy. Which I think they probably would, or at least would have a good go at it. Wanting a strong economy is not just self interest- it’s really in everyone’s interest.

Not that I plan to vote Tory, I don’t. But I certainly understand why people do with the current state of the Labour Party.

@Dusty01 - amazon, etc. Pay lots of tax and the reasons why they don’t pay more are complex. There are no easy or painless ways to raise large amounts of tax revenue. If there were, someone would have done it.

As a pp pointed out, we’ve not even broke even yet. We are still spending more than we raise in taxes and increasing the debt (and interest) year on year. The tories could have cut further or raised taxes but they did not want to do so for political reasons.

VOTE LIB DEM

How can anyone vote Tory?

Pretty easily, it seems:

Britain Elects
@britainelects
Westminster voting intention:

CON: 45% (+3)
LAB: 31% (-2)
LDEM: 11 (-)
BREX: 4% (+1)
GRN: 2% (-1)

via
@Survation
, 05 - 07 Dec
Chgs. w/ 30 Nov

No Labour voters can grasp this

Really? I can. Of course I used to work for an economist so picked up a few things here and there. Like many economists, he was a Labour voter.