To despair that people still vote Tory given their track record and outright dishonesty?

[flashbac]

I don't get it. Its depressing. We deserve better than this surely? Why give them the green light? What kind of society do we want? One where liars get our approval?

Don't forget the PFI the hospitals and schools built during labours last term, the crippling debt that education and the NHS now have to pay for

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/politics/2019/sep/12/nhs-hospital-trusts-to-pay-out-further-55bn-under-pfi-scheme

This isn't going to get better.

[quote littlebillie]"Fell for the Tory bullshit that austerity was needed because of the household expenditure model they put out so simpletons could enact hostile policies on the vulnerable? Good job"

I think you have probably forgotten so much what happened, the reduced regulation of borrowing and with banks which nearly brought the country to its knees. Introduction of university tuition fees, Cash for honours investigations and the gradual u turn on benefits which Blair was doing in 2002.

The majority of our tax goes on social care and health. Perhaps look at the spending yourself and see what should go

www.gov.uk/government/publications/how-public-spending-was-calculated-in-your-tax-summary/how-public-spending-was-calculated-in-your-tax-summary[/quote]
@10:50JustAnotherPoster00 Your option D is not a separate option as it is funded by A, B or C. So which choice do you choose to fund it? Do you want us to borrow the money and pay interest on it for the next 20 years which will reduce our spending on the future?

The constant berating of peoples' choices of whom to vote for and accusations about them being responsible, due to that choice, for child poverty, murdering pensioners and burning witches at the stake isn't really a vote winner, is it?

But still Labour and its collection of champagne socialist lurches from left wing to very left wing/unstable psuedo communist.

All across northern Europe, ordinary people vote for slightly left of centre parties and realise that limitless benefits with no means testing isn't sustainable for any country. This is the niche the Conservative party, and only the Conservative party, fill in the UK by default because there is no other party to fill it.

Telling law abiding clever, hard working and relatively highly taxed people that they are stupid, misguided and evil is ridiculous. What is the definition of stupid? Making the same mistake over and over again.

By any measure, the UK has a generous benefits system. Its the middle who are squeezed.

I don't even get the impression that the last two Labour leaders wanted the bother of being PM, being leader of the Opposition suits them quite well, thank you. Labour doesn't really represent working class, ambitious people very well any more, nor small to medium sized business owners, nor rural Britain.

Stop berating people sanctimoneously, modernise and actually represent what the core voters want better, rather than playing the wokedown Olympics endlessly on media, and you might just have a party worth electing again one say.

And for God's sake, elect a female leader, we only number half the population! So many remaining heavily unionised sectors in this UK are make dominated and give the jobs for the boys lot the sort of salaries and working conditions many women can only dream of. Go to any other country in Europe and you will see plenty of women refuse collectors, roads maintenance people, heating engineers, etc..

@SinkGirl I don't think the Conservatives have been particularly great on the economy and have massively overspent however the opposition parties all wanted to spend more.

@10:50JustAnotherPoster00 Your option D is not a separate option as it is funded by A, B or C. So which choice do you choose to fund it? Do you want us to borrow the money and pay interest on it for the next 20 years which will reduce our spending on the future?

Try reading some John Maynard Keynes and get back to me

By any measure, the UK has a generous benefits system

Please explain to me how keeping disabled people near to destitution is generous Im all ears

I think looking at the vote returns today on the BBC, I'm starting to think the women's (adult human female) vote is more important than parties think. Some parties have spent the last few years purposely eroding the rights and protections of women, they are getting what they deserve

I agree with @JustAnotherPoster00 - I posted before about how the benefits system had worked really well for me but I think disabled people have been treated disgustingly by this government.

The system works well for some, but not others. It works well if you need it as a temporary crutch, particularly if you have children (I also think the system is crap for single people). And it works well in topping up for those able to work. UC isn't always a nightmare and I agree that it can be generous but not to all.

Labour need to end ties with Momentum. Let them set up an alternative party. They may have a chance at being elected again if they take action now.

@JustAnotherPoster00

By any measure, the UK has a generous benefits system

Please explain to me how keeping disabled people near to destitution is generous Im all ears

Here we go. Destitution. Really? In the way that disabled people in Eastern Europe or Malawi or the US experience? Really?

When as a higher rate taxpayer, I can afford to get someone in to tile my bathroom for me instead of doing it myself, or holiday in a hotel and not a youth hostel to save money, I might be more inclined towards tax and spend parties.

[quote JustAnotherPoster00]**@10:50JustAnotherPoster00 Your option D is not a separate option as it is funded by A, B or C. So which choice do you choose to fund it? Do you want us to borrow the money and pay interest on it for the next 20 years which will reduce our spending on the future?

Try reading some John Maynard Keynes and get back to me[/quote]
I have read Keynes and it only takes into account the short term implications of stimulus spending. The Austrian school of economics looks at the long term implications. So please answer my question. How do you want to fund the infrastructure spending? I presume you want to either borrow the money or print it which will have negative consequences for the economy in the future.

Here we go. Destitution. Really? In the way that disabled people in Eastern Europe or Malawi or the US experience? Really?

Cool story bro

Yes you have to borrow first which the Tories did at an alarming rate but they used it to benefit the already rich, it funds itself, profit, rents, government bonds all cycled back in I'm not sure how youre not seeing it tbh

Well, we've had around 30 years out of around 40 years with a Tory government yet people still think the Tories will change things for the better. Tragic really.

I’m a Labour supporter and I voted Labour again in all of the votes (we had three here.)

But Labour are all over the place. I can’t blame people for voting Tory at the moment. It makes me very sad. Politics is currently rubbish.

@flashbac

Well, we've had around 30 years out of around 40 years with a Tory government yet people still think the Tories will change things for the better. Tragic really.

We don't think they will change things for the better. We are just trying to slow the decline.

@flashbac

Well, we've had around 30 years out of around 40 years with a Tory government yet people still think the Tories will change things for the better. Tragic really.

I think more along the lines of them stopping things from getting quickly worse, as opposed to slowly worse.

None of them are great, but the political parties in the UK currently seem to be so woke, so invested in minority interests and in providing poor public services which are not tolerated elsewhere, that theres no real reasonable choice. As I said before, you can't keep insulting ordinary working class people of being evil for not voting for a political party and thinking its going to win you votes.

The Conservatives clearly have moved into the middle ground clearly dominated by Labour, and unless Labour or another party address the reasons for that, theres no real alternative.

I do actually find all of the parties here left of centre, and I did used to live in a country which the British regard as socialist, which is nothing of the kind and where far greater self responsibility is expected.

@CirclesWithinCircles The Conservatives clearly have moved into the middle ground clearly dominated by Labour, and unless Labour or another party address the reasons for that, theres no real alternative.

It's nothing new. Elections have been won & lost in the centre ground throughout living memory. Remember "Mondeo Man" of the 1990's? That was all about winning the votes of the politically central worker and exactly what won Tony Blair the 1997 election. Since then, successive Labour leaders and senior politicians seem to have a collective loss of memory and are deluded to think that they have to obsess about minority issues to win. They're completely off target.

@Theworldisfullofgs

Where I live my MP is terrible. Well known to be terrible, ineffective if you meet with him and a bit dim. Does literally nothing about the pressing matters in his constituency, including education funding, flooding, transport and economic development I live in a Tory safe seat and he comfortably gets in every time. Nothing will ever change here because his seat is never at risk. Very depressing.

If you change Tory to Labour here, my post would have been identical. In fact I though until I got to the Tory bit you were talking about my MP. Even our local councillors also Labour sort of admitted to being despairing of him when I spoke to them on the doorstep recently!!

Sadly a safe Labour seat so we're stuck until he either retires or his local Labour party deselect him.

I do actually find all of the parties here left of centre, and I did used to live in a country which the British regard as socialist, which is nothing of the kind and where far greater self responsibility is expected..

I think the opposite. New Labour seemed centre-right to me, especially in the later years.

Anyway, all three of the main parties have made big mistakes over the last few years. Labour and the Lib Dems have been punished for their errors, yet no cock up or scandal seems to affect the Teflon Tories. People will forgive them anything and I’ve no idea why! You can’t even say that they mean well.

I hate the idea of a one-party Tory state, but apparently many people would be quite happy with that.

Generous benefits system? I work but I'm disabled. If I claimed benefits, I'd get approx £322 per month to live on - for all bills (gas, electricity, water, phone, internet, TV license), food, toiletries, clothing, transport, anything that breaks, lightbulbs, appliances and so on. I think I would have to pay 25% of my council tax, so I would get a reduction there as a kind of second thing.

It's so little to live on. £322? For everything?

I don't see how that is generous.

Maybe it's a generous system if you have children, I don't know. But for anyone who is single and making a claim it doesn't appear to be.

Don't forget the PFI the hospitals and schools built during labours last term, the crippling debt that education and the NHS now have to pay for

This and people think its just the Tory's privatising the NHS Labour were at it too.

Labour doesn't really stand for anything anymore, at least Corbyn and I don't like him did.

Of course I don't trust starmer after his tenure at CPS he failed Rotherham in the CSE.

@StrawberryLipstickStateOfMind

I hate them too, I could never vote for them, they are an absolute shower of shite and the worst government in living memory, my mum in her 60s says the same.

So what does that say about the opposition? That an incompetent government full of liars looks a better option? We have had years of the tories now, wtf have labour been doing in that time? Labour have been absolutely fucking useless since Corbyn, I had hopes for Starmer but other than being reasonable at PMQs (which you'd expect from a lawyer), what has he done? I have no idea what labour's policies actually are. I don't know what they stand for anymore and I don't think Starmer and the idiots who surround him do either.

I've always voted labour but until they can tell me what a woman is they won't be getting a vote from me. I totally understand women on here who will vote Tory because ironically they seem to be the only party who have any concept of women's rights, who thought anyone would ever write that sentence?! I can't vote Tory myself but I get it.

I'm furious at labour, they have been so crap for so long that a fucking clown like Boris has appeared to be a better option to many people. Labour are a huge reason as to why we have such a crap government. We have no opposition, I won't vote for anyone right now and I feel completely politically homeless.

You said it for me.

Labour would have locked down earlier, every time they called for it.wouls have saved thousands and thousands of lives. It was a shit show. Anyone with any brains so it coming in January. Tories did F all.
Probably wouldn't have done eat out to help out. May have listened to companies offering help with ventilators and ppe rather than seeing it as a way to make money for their mates. Utterly corrupt. I'm amazed you asked this question. It was all there at the time

Labour would have locked down earlier, every time they called for it.wouls have saved thousands and thousands of lives

Being a party in power is different to calling for things. Now one knows how labour would perform.