To think that Conservatives don't actually care about 'red wall' voters beyond getting their vote

[Tuesdaysintheazores]

But people who live there and are going to be voting Conservative obviously do feel that they are the best people to represent them. Very interested to hear from people who live in red wall areas. AIBU?

YABU = Conservatives actually do care about these people now

YANBU = Conservatives just trying to get the votes and seats

@BaileysforBreakfast

Democracy in this country is broken. We need proportional representation so that people can vote for smaller parties if they want. It shouldn't be a case of "don't like Labour, therefore voting Tory." We have all been convinced that votes for smaller parties or independents are 'wasted', so end up with the same old, same old. Instead of accepting that, we should be fighting against it. First past the post is a travesty.

I agree. In fact, if we'd had PR, there is really good chance than Brexit wouldn't have happened, just to take a recent example.

I am bemused that the OP as a Londoner thinks the Tories don’t do anything for her.

I would say Londoners benefited a lot from the right and centrist governments we have had since 1979. Bizarrely they don’t vote them in. 😂

The left not only doesn’t connect but it doesn’t want to connect. The sheer vitriol aimed at those who don’t vote the way they should is shocking. These are the hearts and minds that need to be won not insulted.

@Tanith

It’s so depressing to see people still using national party politics for local elections.

Forget whatever it is that the national parties are doing for now. This isn’t a general election and you’re not voting for them.

You’re voting for the people who are responsible for your local spending and services, for the people who oversee planning and housing, bin collections, schools and services.

Are you happy with your current council? Is it doing a good job? If it is are, then vote the councillors back in. Why get rid of a perfectly good council?

I may say that mine is not. It’s a corrupt, inept, failing council seeped in cronyism that has brought it to the brink of bankruptcy.
It has allowed the building of expensive estates that no-one wanted on former greenbelt land by changing its status.
It’s allowed our roads to fall into disrepair.
Ofsted has failed its children’s services many times.

Why would I vote for a continuation?

I agree. My local Tory Councillor proclaims she will "continue to fight for a fairer deal from Central government". Great, so a Tory will fight another gang of Tories.
What the fuck is the point of a political party that shafts even it's own elected representatives?

Genuine question for those who avoid voting Labour because of their (non) definition of woman: do you really think Tories are on women's side?

YANBU, but I don't think the other parties care about their voters any more than the Tories do. The way things are atm, I think I shall have no other option but to spoil my ballot paper tbh.

Genuine question for those who avoid voting Labour because of their (non) definition of woman: do you really think Tories are on women's side?

I don't think any of them are. But I think the Tories might actually know what one is. That on its own isn't enough to make me vote for them though.

When my previously hard core Labour voting family are now all voting conservative ( they are ' boomers with lovely homes, cars , pensions and all the trappings of your average ' Tory' , you know you've lost a lot of who would have voted Labour decades ago.
To be fair to my own dh, he always voted for them as a penniless apprentice so he is even more loyal. We argue about it , but his parents were also 'working class tories ' who adored mrs thatcher and Tory values. At least his ' old school ' with his voting record.
Labour fought hard in the past so people could have decent pensions and opportunities and in return they prefer the conservatives. I'm sure this is the case countrywide as property prices in the past have given them a great standard of living and a decent pension. Things my own kids probably won't have.
I don't hate Tory voters of course , but I dislike how they have became the 'people's party ' when really they are a wolf in sheep's clothing.
It's sad how average people have turned their backs on the other parties.
PR is always mooted when the party you voted for don't get into power ! It'll never happen for this reason ( did Blair and Brown want this in the late 90s?) ..

@letsgetbackto2019

Genuine question for those who avoid voting Labour because of their (non) definition of woman: do you really think Tories are on women's side?

I've heard from lots of women who have asked their local MPs or wannabe MPs from various parties about this.

Most of the ones who seem aware of the significance of the issue and keen to do something about it are Tories. Some from other parties are aware but basically admit their party can't make any promises about it.People like Tandy say they'd like to see male prisoners who identify as women in women's prisons.

Then you have those from the other parties that accuse the person asking of being a bigot and tell them not to vote for them.

As far as actual political action, it's pretty one-sided too.

So who is on women's side?

@SmokedDuck that's interesting. In my country of origin, right wing parties are the ones banging about the "traditional family ", so no homosexuals, no trans but also women at home to take care of husband and children which sounds quite the opposite of feminism. I might agree that Tories as U.K. version are well willing to scrap the idea of women as angels of the hearth in order to send them to work and boost the economy

I'm a working class background 'northerner' and live in the north again, albeit after years of working all over the world in professional roles, in all sorts of cultures.

I think Labour simply don't 'get' large swathes of The North anymore. In many cases the core values up here are a million miles from the more middle class end of Labour politics now. Yet, for so many years, they were THE ONLY party for hardworking people who just wanted to earn a living and appreciated having someone to stand up for their values and understand them.

But things like gender activism, open immigration policies and promoting the idea of a benefit system that would see a lot of low paid people as well off on benefits as these hard workers for their day's toil, simply do not sit well with them.

I know many, many previously lifelong Labour voters - entire families of them even - who, putting it mildly, are completely turned off by Labour now. I know someone very well for whom the icing on the cake of them switching from Labour was as innocuous as Emily Thornbury's mocking of the white van and England flags outside someone's house when the football World Cup was on years ago.

People up here are not all 'thick'; they don't think that BJ and co' are out to do them a favour, but many will simply not vote for Labour in its current guise. Many just haven't really moved on, politically, in the way that people might have elsewhere.

The Tories have found a market up here, it seems.

So families are using food banks, homeless are on every corner, schools claiming they are struggling to provide a decent education due to cuts from central government, prisons falling apart, nhs on its last legs but people can't vote labour because labour can't define what a woman is ? Agree that labour's stance on women is questionable but that can be changed and millions of women and their families are already badly being affected by the above issues as well. Which is the more important battle to fight first ?

@Onetoomuch, while you maybe right
I don't think the vast majority of people ever see homeless people unless in a big city, they are not visible in the housing estates most people live in. People see waste and mismanagement in NHS and education too much management not enough teachers and nurses, too much beaurocracy and form filling that gets in the way of the job, my friends that are teachers complain about it constantly
again most people think prisons are for punishment so will not be unduly concerned about overcrowding or at least it will be well down their list of priorities > People want jobs not better benefits nobody aspires to benefits ( very very few are scroungers) they aspire to be self sufficient and not needing benefits

@TeacupDrama that may well the case but doesn't make for a happy functioning society.
Only when things affect them personally will people care. Like dps aunt and uncle in the S/E, well off pensioners, always out and about, 4-5 hols a year, voted leave. Never had it so good. What may well frustrate them is the loss of freedom of movement or poor service in cafes/restaurants now that there are fewer workers from the EU. funnily enough I think if I lived in the S/E, in a naice affluent home counties town, not much visible poverty, I'd probably assume the rest of the UK was the same and vote tory too.

What do you think @Onetoomuch ?

You could fight battles the voters want you to fight, or the ones you think/know are the most important but that the voters don't care as much about.

One might get you elected, the other definitely won't.

@Onetoomuch

So families are using food banks, homeless are on every corner, schools claiming they are struggling to provide a decent education due to cuts from central government, prisons falling apart, nhs on its last legs but people can't vote labour because labour can't define what a woman is ? Agree that labour's stance on women is questionable but that can be changed and millions of women and their families are already badly being affected by the above issues as well. Which is the more important battle to fight first ?

Fortunately most voters realise that the country is not in a position to spend any more money on those issues. If anything we will have to cut back further.

Fortunately most voters realise that the country is not in a position to spend any more money on those issues. If anything we will have to cut back further.

And yet we spent 37 BILLION on test and trace. And billions on PPE contracts, often to mates of the government. And all the money we found for eat out to help out. And yet we can't feed our poorest kids??

Ah the austerity ideology that most economists say doesn't work .
@bp300 there's not much else to cut up here. 6 of our 15 libraries shut during the last 'credit crunch', public services are barely existent. A country that's the 6th richest in the world that can't afford basic amenities for it's population... Wow and after 11 years of tory administration too
Ironically they won't be able to blame it on the EU or labour, maybe then the penny will drop with people.

@Onetoomuch

Ah the austerity ideology that most economists say doesn't work . *@bp300* there's not much else to cut up here. 6 of our 15 libraries shut during the last 'credit crunch', public services are barely existent. A country that's the 6th richest in the world that can't afford basic amenities for it's population... Wow and after 11 years of tory administration too Ironically they won't be able to blame it on the EU or labour, maybe then the penny will drop with people.

You are only listening to Keynesian Economists. The Austrian Economists would agree with me. There's plenty to cut. Public sector jobs and pensions would be a good start.

@the80sweregreat

Tory voters are loyal. They can air brush anything away and people think that they are the only party capable of running the country. If there was a general election tomorrow the conservatives would win it and probably gain even more seats than before. It's time the other parties realized this and did something about it rather than hand wringing or trying to score cheap points about wallpaper ( which is important, but not seen as that important by the average Tory voter)

This. Your spot on. The other parties will just not admit its them that are causing people to turn away

They are the only ones - so far - not destroying women’s rights. And honestly it really isn’t about ‘pronouns’. It’s this way of minimising thinking that’s got you stuck in the first place. Blinkered is an understatement.

They are the only ones - so far - not destroying women’s rights

Maybe, but they're certainly destroying the country and the union, and the NHS and the police and public services

What the fuck is the point of a political party that shafts even it's own elected representatives?

By 2020, local authorities will have faced a reduction to core funding from the Government of nearly £16 billion over the preceding decade. That means that councils will have lost 60p out of every £1 the Government had provided to spend on local services in the last eight years.

It is interesting to watch Conservative local councillors tie themselves in knots moaning about the funding decreases that mean they have to make cuts to services, whilst remaining loyal to the political party.

@Tuesdaysintheazores

They are the only ones - so far - not destroying women’s rights

Maybe, but they're certainly destroying the country and the union, and the NHS and the police and public services

Yes I agree. But right now my daughters safe single sex spaces are more important for the future are more important - to me. It’s a hill I’m willing to die on.

It's all very strange at the moment - there's been a seismic shift in UK politics in the last few years and a lot of people I think are still adjusting to it.

At the end of the last Labour government, we basically had 2 main parties both occupying the centre ground.

Then along came Jeremy who moved Labour quite strongly to the left and in doing so energised a bunch of people - mostly the younger gens, who hadn't felt represented before - but also managed to alienate a big chunk of the Labour core vote.

Then Brexit - which united wealthy southern pensioners and northern struggling working class. The former of course were already Tory supporters - the latter while fewer than often made out, were enough combined with the Jeremy effect, to cause the Red Wall to turn Blue.

Now we have Starmer who I initially liked, but I'm not entirely sure what he stands for. I think he would make a great No. 2 in a party, but he lacks something as a leader. Is he a centrist?? I have no idea.

And then there's Boris who has essentially ditched "winged" politics and tends to do everything based on what he things will get more people to like him - populism.

What this appears to have led to is somewhat of a reversal in typical party roles - the Tories used to be the party of business and sound finances, while Labour were the party of the working man. Now we have a VERY business unfriendly Tory government (unless said business donates money to the Tory party), who are on the other hand doing a very good job of appealing to the less well off. Boris for all his faults, is an exceptionally good salesman, and while the NI unionists, farmers and fishermen have all now learned that Boris promises are worth less than hot air, I think it's going to take a while longer for other groups to see it.