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?

[MaryBerrysChutney]

With a joyful heart. Happy?

[Moomin8]

The girl from Syria was only 15 by the time she was radicalised. It doesn't make any of it ok but she was a child, let's not forget that.

Labour has been shambollic. But for me it's about the lesser of two evils. And it's simply ridiculous to think that the conservatives care about racism or terrorism. They don't care about anyone's suffering in the slightest.

[Moomin8]

I think it’s that living in a bubble thing @Moomin8. People genuinely have no idea what it’s like to live outside their normal. For all the social media etc, we really all just huddle with those like ourselves.

Yes my parents were examples of such people. My whole family were (some still are) Tory voters with the 'I'm alright jack' mentality. Luckily I grew up with a view that they were wrong. Never once voted conservative.

Strangely enough, my parents don't vote Tory any more though because I have a disabled child. It's rather sad that people are generally so devoid of empathy that they have to be personally affected bu unfortunate circumstances before they will stop being selfish arseholes.

[GiveHerHellFromUs]

@5zeds I don't know that that's necessarily the case. I grew in a council house on an estate where I'd say 80% of people didn't work and claimed benefits of some description.

I think that somehow clouds your judgment, when you see your parents working their arses off for peanuts and you're no better off than kids who go home from school and there parents are there, who get to spend all of the school holidays with their parents etc.

I think our benefit system is incredible for people who genuinely need it, but when you see the injustice for those who actually work hard for very little, it's hard to continue to support a similar system.

In the same vein, my brother and SIL are doctors. Sister and other SIL are teachers. Step sister works in social housing.
For me it's not a case of not seeing what goes on outside, its a case of seeing what happens and knowing that throwing money at broken systems just doesn't work.

I work in the private sector. I earn ok money - not as much as the UK average.
I don't want SML extended to 12 months. I want the free childcare that will enable me to work and ensure my child has the best chance.
I also think it's absurd that parents who don't work are also entitled to free childcare once their kids hit 2. Childcare is bloody expensive. Why should I have to pay half my monthly salary for the same thing other people get for free, even though they'd be perfectly capable of looking after their child themselves?

I don't have a problem with paying more taxes if I'm paying into a system that actually works.

[curlykaren]

@Redcherries the tax bill caused by hard brexit will be greater than that caused by labour's spending plans. How come your not worried about that? Not to mention the disruption to supply chains, labour markets etc.

[GiveHerHellFromUs]

The girl from Syria was only 15 by the time she was radicalised. It doesn't make any of it ok but she was a child, let's not forget that.

Yes she was 15 and she was a child. So why are people insisting 16 year olds should get a vote?

[Moomin8]

I think our benefit system is incredible for people who genuinely need it, but when you see the injustice for those who actually work hard for very little, it's hard to continue to support a similar system.

It's not incredible, FYI. The current has left a lot of people with incredibly shit circumstances and no money for months at a time. Disabled people who are genuinely in need of support have had their money stripped away from them. Some have been declared fit for work and died the next week.

Let's not pretend the conservatives actually encourage social mobility either. They do all they can to actively prevent it. They don't give a fuck about 'those who work hard for very little'

[merrymouse]

The Tories don't seem to have minded using the DUP, a party with connections to Ulster to prop up their minority government.

The DUP may have some bat shit crazy views, but they are elected MPs in the UK parliament.

I don't think Corbyn's problem is so much that he is a terrorist sympathiser as that his instinct is to be anti West and anti America, and he doesn't have the intelligence or curiosity to make good judgements about the company he keeps, so ends up on Press TV and Russia Today just because they are also anti West and anti America. That is sadly unremarkable in a bank bench MP, but a worrying prospect for a PM.

There are also many reasons to vote against Johnson, but that really sums up the problem with Corbyn. If after 9 years of Tory government and with a leader like Johnson, people still can't bring themselves to vote Labour, that is really the party leader's responsibility.

[Dissimilitude]

The right needs the left to force change, to allow systems to evolve and rebalance for current challenges, to prevent calcification of institutions and social structures in forms that are inappropriate given what we face today.

The left needs the right to stop it ripping everything up at once, declaring up is down and black is white, keeping change to levels society can cope with, and preventing the left from jettisoning everything that works because of the false belief that there's a perfect social structure out there to find.

What's hard about this? You'll always have right-of-centre parties for this reason - you'll always have both instincts, the instinct to change and the instinct to preserve, and you'll always need both. It's baked into human nature.

An unchecked "progressive" party is a terrifying thought. That thirst for change, combined with an uncritical and ideological mind and a pious self-image is a recipe for eventual overreach, instability and disaster.

[LMG101]

I think people need to read the manifestos, ignore the right-wing press and try to understand that the UK is now one of the most unequal stagnating countries in Europe, with violent crime exploding and cuts to all public services making safety and health compromised. Over the past 10 years the richest people in this country have doubled their wealth, whilst the majority are worse off, and for millions of people life is a real struggle from one pay check to the next. The Conservatives do not care about ordinary people, and under Tony Blair 'New' Labour became the ToryLite party. Now the Labour party is back to focusing on what is best for the majority and will end austerity and invest in public services and people. It will work better for the economy and it will be better for schools, NHS, police. And Labour will finally go after all those corporations that need to be paying tax. And they are committed to a Green New Deal, investing in new energy infrastructure to de-carbonise our energy, which is so important for future generations. The Torys won't even debate that because they are in the pockets of the fossil fuel companies and the investment banks.

[merrymouse]

I think people need to read the manifestos, ignore the right-wing press and try to understand that the UK is now one of the most unequal stagnating countries in Europe, with violent crime exploding and cuts to all public services making safety and health compromised.

Maybe with a different leader, Labour wouldn't find it so difficult to communicate and people wouldn't have to read the manifesto?

With the best will in the world, most voters are not going to read manifestos.

[GiveHerHellFromUs]

@Moomin8 sorry I may have mis-worded that. I agree that the current benefit system is shite. I meant more the idea of the benefit system.

To a degree, I'm more Labour than Tory on this specific point.
If there was a way to ensure only those in genuine need could benefit from the system, I would 100% support them getting a monetary amount generous enough to give them a decent quality of life. Obviously this would differ on a case by case basis so would be almost impossible to implement.
If society was such that you could trust that only people who couldn't work (or needed short term support after being made redundant for example) and that anyone who did work could afford to also have a decent quality of life without a government top up, I would genuinely consider voting for Labour on the basis of that alone.

Unfortunately as it stands, it can't and won't ever happen and so we have to consider all other policies too.

[GiveHerHellFromUs]

@RunningAwaywiththeCircus we have one, it's called AIBU

[Moomin8]

If society was such that you could trust that only people who couldn't work (or needed short term support after being made redundant for example) and that anyone who did work could afford to also have a decent quality of life without a government top up, I would genuinely consider voting for Labour on the basis of that alone.

Why aren't you more concerned about things like tax evasion?

I personally don't know anyone who actively chooses not to work.

The fraud rate for disability allowance was very low before the Tories got in in 2010. The DWP themselves admitted this.

[GiveHerHellFromUs]

I am concerned about tax evasion but it's not shoved in your face growing up (see my earlier post).

I know a LOT of people who choose not to work.
The fraud rate for people who have been caught is low. You can't report on the people you haven't caught.

[5zeds]

Can we lobby MN for a virtue-signaling section where are the Labour voters and Momentum bots can gather in their echo chamber and congratulate each other?

IS it virtue signalling to vote Labour? Are you saying you think it’s the right thing to do but are doing something less worthy by voting for the Tories?

Wow

[LMG101]

@merrymouse Daily Mail - owned by a billionaire (Viscount Rothermere) does not want to pay taxes, off-shore assets - pro-Tory.
Telegraph - owned by Barclay brothers multi-billionaires, off-shore assets, don't want to pay taxes - pro-Tory.
The Times, The Sun, Sky network - owned by billionaire Murdoch, does not want to pay taxes, off-shore assets - pro-Tory.
Daily Express, Daily Star -owned by Reach Media group, off-shore assets, does not want to pay taxes pro-Tory
Laura Kuenssberg -BBC political news editor, pro-Tory, repeatedly breaches bias regulations
Facebook - owned by multi-billionaire, now employs Sir Nick Clegg former Deputy Prime Minister under Tory/Lib Dem coalition as head of global affairs, allows fake political ads, does not want to pay taxes, off-shore assets.
Not possible to debate politics fairly in a country where the media are owned by billionaires who do not want to pay taxes and so attack the party that is going to make them pay taxes and do not give fair coverage

[DdraigGoch]

OK OP, I'll bite.

I genuinely believe that free markets are the way to allow everyone to prosper in the world. Protectionism creates cartels run by the powerful few. Free trade has a very good record at pulling countries out of poverty (global poverty is a fraction of what it was 50 years ago).

[DdraigGoch]

@Moomin8
Ffs. Women give birth, that takes years off your life.
Why is the life expectancy of women higher than for men then? Pretty sure that asbestosis, silicosis, getting shot by the Taliban and stabbed by a rival gang in London all take more than a few years off one's life. All are more likely to happen to men.

I wonder why so many women insist that they are just as good as men yet also consider themselves too weak and feeble to work past 60.

I do sympathise with those who've been caught in the middle of a necessary change (though it had been planned as far in advance as 1995) but you will get nowhere if you try and defend a system which was rooted in 1940s values. The reason for the 65/60 discrepancy was solely that the married couple's rate was only payable once both partners were eligible and women were usually younger than their husband's.

Incidentally, EU equality laws mandated equalisation by April 2020. That's why it was accelerated.

[DdraigGoch]

@LMG101 you forgot the Guardian which is offshored in the Caymans Islands.

[reginafelangee]

1. I am Scottish and the best way to ensure that we don't have to suffer another independence referendum is with a Tory govt.
2. Corbyn is dangerous.
3. Brexit does need to get done. We can't go on like this.

PS For context. I'm a first time Tory voter. Have always been Labour before. And voted remain.

[Moomin8]

I am concerned about tax evasion but it's not shoved in your face growing up (see my earlier post).

Yes, you sound a lot like my dp. He grew up on a council estate and it's like he thinks if you don't vote Tory you can't be aspirational.

@GiveHerHellFromUs have you ever actually needed to claim disability benefits?

If you had, I can tell you first hand that they have NEVER been easy to claim. In the case of DLA You have to more than prove your eligibility. You need letters in support of claim from consultant. Very detailed information . It's very difficult to make a fraudulent claim. The assessors looked for reasons not to give the awards.

Since PIP came in, assessors tell actual lies about genuine claimants to stop them getting what they are rightly entitled to. Most people who get turned down have their decisions overturned on appeal. It's a cynically shameful system designed to break a persons resolve and make them give up before they get the award.

[Moomin8]

As far as I am concerned, this government has shown that they are at war with disabled people.