How do people keep voting in the tories?

[chaosmaker]

I'd love it if tory voters could say why they vote the way they do given that there's ample evidence for how utterly incompetent they are (11 years). Especially in the last election. With that not-fit-for-purpose idiot in charge - edited by MNHQ
I also keep writing to my MP saying that if they are going to pretend we have democracy then they need to scrap FPTP.

AIBU that we should allow people with no sense to vote or
AINBU am I right in that people should have to factor history and rare sense into their decision making?

@XingMing I want to succeed. I just don't think paying for strong public services has anything to do with personal success. You succeed because you get a good education, work hard, take every opportunity, save, invest. Not because of anything the government does.

Singapore has 85% public housing and 92% home ownership but that has absolutely nothing to do with whether Richard Dyson can buy his million pound condo or my parents' ownership of their detached house. Every country has private healthcare but civilized countries have excellent public healthcare systems. The Tories want to defund public services.

I feel like people who vote Tory because they think that's what rich people do are a bit pathetic.like putting lipstick on a pig.

[quote onlychildhamster]@XingMing I want to succeed. I just don't think paying for strong public services has anything to do with personal success. You succeed because you get a good education, work hard, take every opportunity, save, invest. Not because of anything the government does.

Singapore has 85% public housing and 92% home ownership but that has absolutely nothing to do with whether Richard Dyson can buy his million pound condo or my parents' ownership of their detached house. Every country has private healthcare but civilized countries have excellent public healthcare systems. The Tories want to defund public services.

I feel like people who vote Tory because they think that's what rich people do are a bit pathetic.like putting lipstick on a pig.[/quote]
I don't have any problem paying tax for public services. I am, having just been treated for breast cancer, very very grateful to the doctors and nurses who have looked after me so kindly and respectfully. Unlike you, I don't think the Tories want to defund public services: trim them back perhaps, manage their finances tighter, for certain see my post about hot water above but I too have spent time in Singapore, and most people would concede that the two societies are not directly comparable.

@XingMing what about austerity? Not giving tfl the monies it needs so we may need to cut services- how does that even make economic sense when London is responsible for 25% of tax revenue and city workers need the tube to get to work? I could go on but the list is too long.

Also we now have a PM who doesn't even keep his own rules which undermines the pandemic management. That has cost lives.

@onlychildhamster, there has to be an appetite to make the most of any opportunities available and it's not reaching for white working class boys. Last time I read the racial breakdown statistics, the UK was roughly 85% Anglo/white British it looks different if you are in a major metropolitan area and I am not but that suggests half of 85% of the population is not getting a fair shake.

Austerity, as inflicted by the Cameron-Clegg coalition was a response to a worldwide financial crisis to which the UK was more exposed than any country except the USA. But it was exacerbated by the Blair/Brown fondness for papering over the cracks with PFI to deliver jam today, for which we are still only halfway paying the immense interest charges. Pre-pandemic, it had pretty much run its course and the trends were improving... and COVID struck.

@XingMing well if you are the child of an asylum seeker who used to be a doctor in his home country but is now a Uber driver, that is quite different from someone who is from a regular white working class background. A lot of children of immigrants might speak English as a second language but their parents value education and they often have the support of an extended family network and that gives them advantages over the child of a white single working class mum.

My DH's sister used to tutor in north London and some of her tutees came from such immigrant families, they made sure their kids had tuition even if they had little money. You can't really force people to change their priorities

Even a lefty like me would concede it is hard to change people's outlook, the best thing to do for these kids is to ensure they have a warm meal so they are not hungry at school, give grants so they can go to university without family support, sponsor vocational education. But the Tories are doing precisely none of this

And I would be the last person to deny them the opportunity. In the 1970s I went to school with a few girls who were refugees from Idi Amin's Uganda, of Asian extraction, surgeons and accountants for example, who had fled persecution in 1972. Their parents did everything in their power to give their children the very best education they could. And now, they are respected professionals in their own right and the backbone of the NHS; their children are as well educated and privileged as my DC. Hat doffed to them.

But all the discussion of refugee and immigrant success is obscuring the failing elements of 85% of the native population. And that is dangerous to social stability.

Many of us oldies remember the horrors of a Union -led 'LAbour' government in the 60s

Many of us remember the horrors of the Tories under Thatcher.

But back to the here and now. OP is asking why anybody would vote for the proven liar that is Johnson. Why vote for a man who had no policy beyond 'get Brexit done'. Why put your trust in an untrustworthy philandering shagaholic who had no history of following the rules, or showing empathy for others. Maybe they wanted Parliament illegally shut down. Maybe they fantasised about a party of law breakers leading the country. Maybe they thought he was a great example of masculinity. Perhaps they fancied a racist PM. Who knows? Insanity voting for him and insanity is what we have got now - a prolific liar of a PM who thinks he is unaccountable to anybody for anything he does.

Success can only be inclusive if every family feels that they have a shot. Outside leafy surburbia and London, in rural coastal areas where school funding per capita is only 65-70% of what's spent in metropolitan areas, but the social issues are no less acute (just less visible) then it is hardly surprising that there is a deepening chasm between political tribes. It's fertile territory for breeding populism, and it worries me.

@XingMing I am not sure how voting tory is going to help those coastal towns. The tories are not serious about levelling up. Certainly their membership (mainly concentrated in the SE) hate it, they view it as marxism/socialism. Boris is going to be out in the matter of months, and they will vote for a PM who will not do levelling up (like Liz Truss) but reduce taxes which will overwhelmingly benefit those in leafy suburbia...After all the bulk of income tax is not paid in London, it comes from the likes of Guildford, Beaconsfield and Reigate.

@XingMing you do remember the state Thatcher left the uk in ? Such was the mess Labour had to invest millions to improve things. And to suggest the tories were turning things round before covid is ludicrous.
Brexit for example which ironically has hit those left behind areas far more than London and the SE.

It worries me that school teachers tell 15 year old girls like my niece that an A level in dance is a qualification. She's currently a stripper in a club in Mallorca, and when her looks go, what next? She can't write English competently and her customer service skills are niche.

@XingMing

Austerity, as inflicted by the Cameron-Clegg coalition was a response to a worldwide financial crisis to which the UK was more exposed than any country except the USA. But it was exacerbated by the Blair/Brown fondness for papering over the cracks with PFI to deliver jam today, for which we are still only halfway paying the immense interest charges. Pre-pandemic, it had pretty much run its course and the trends were improving... and COVID struck.

Austerity was a political choice. Countries like Australia didn't do it and they recovered more quickly. Austerity was yet another opportunity for the Tories to redistribute wealth away from poor and average people to the already wealthy. It was never needed and it was very damaging to anyone not insulated by wealth.

@crosstalk

I still can't forgive the Labour party for taking us into Iraq (RIP Robin Cook).

I am not voting for any party (Labour, Lib-Dems, Greens) who deny women's rights to safety and go along with self-ID.

Pop Quiz - How many Tories voted in favour of Iraq? As a percentage of MPs it was actually higher than Labour - so you get off your high horse about that, it's pathetic and inaccurate.

@XingMing not sure why this is triggering to you. Maybe have a deep think on that one.

@XingMing

It worries me that school teachers tell 15 year old girls like my niece that an A level in dance is a qualification. She's currently a stripper in a club in Mallorca, and when her looks go, what next? She can't write English competently and her customer service skills are niche.

What political party was in power when that happened?

I do remember Thatcher, although I lived in the US under Reagan for her most radical years so I didn't see it close up. But she tore up the book to make way for something different, and it was the huge failure to put something back in that still has repercussions.

I agree, but I still think a centrist One Nation Tory party is a better each way bet than Labour... unless they swallow their revulsion and find a new Blair.

@daimbarsatemydogsbone, mostly Labour since you ask.

Lesser of two evils that's how

@XingMing 'Tories want to trim public services, manage their finances more tightly ' No doubt said by someone who has never ventured beyond the home counties. Come up north and see how that 'trimming' of public services has affected already desperately poor areas. Our council has lost £179 million pounds in funding since 2011. A huge amount. In reality it meant the closure of 5 out of 12 libraries for example, the closure of 3/4 of our Surestart centres and a massive impact on childrens services in general. Now tell me the tories want to level things up they themselves destroyed.

Very unpopular opinion.... I loved Jeremy Corbyn. He was abit of radicalism that I think would have done the uk a world of good

Wrong, @Effibreast. I live in the Celtic fringe. I know what poor coastal and rural areas look like... I grew up in one, and still live in one, although I have lived and worked elsewhere too, including post-industrial cities in the North. £179 million is a lot of funding to lose, and the loss of libraries is always to be mourned... but surely, parents are the first educators for the children they decide to have, and should take responsibility for health, education and well-being. Sadly, it doesn't always work out well, but expecting to delegate the upbringing of a child to a Surestart centre baffles me. I think contraceptives ought to be added to tap water, with the option to conceive after age 30 only

@daimbarsatemydogsbone, going back to your comment about Australia's lack of austerity, you do (of course you do) recall that Australian prosperity was and still is based on digging coal to feed China's energy hungry power stations? Scott Morrison is known as King Coal. The UK's economy hasn't been based on digging coal since Arthur Scargill faced off with Maggie Thatcher in 82/83.

Because they are fuckwits.