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?

You all keep saying Corbyn. But what exactly is it about him that 'made' you vote conservatives?

Right wing scare mongering.

I could never vote for people like Corbyn, Abbot, Dodds or Starmer. I lived through many Labour leaders and believe me it was worse. Gordon Brown made benefits so high few wanted to work as would get less etc. Blair and his relentless warmongering.

@Beckert

OnlyAFleshWound

Thank you x

@TooBigForMyBoots

That sounds terrifying *@OnlyAFleshWound*. WTF were they doing outside a school?

In theory, campaigning for Labour (this was in the run up to the 2019 election).

In reality, intimidating and mocking the parents and children at a school with many Jewish families, in a very Jewish area.

They were angry that Luciana Berger (who was driven out of labour by antisemites and was standing as the Lib Dem candidate) had visited the previous week (and was welcomed)

Their behaviour was so appalling that I took it up with the local Labour candidate, Ross Houston, who apologised and "disowned " them.

@toobigformyboots

That was just one thing though. I've never been subjected to such a sustained online and offline campaign of racial hatred. It was genuinely traumatic for me and many. Many others.

@caringcarer

I could never vote for people like Corbyn, Abbot, Dodds or Starmer. I lived through many Labour leaders and believe me it was worse. Gordon Brown made benefits so high few wanted to work as would get less etc. Blair and his relentless warmongering.

This is just nonsense. Benefits weren't high under Brown. Blair was a warmonger bt hardly relentless - he just cooked up some lies and borrowed some more in order to be the US' poodle - but it wasn't relentless and it came towards the end of his term. You clearly don't like Labour but you can't justify it with fake facts.

I live in Scotland and vote Tory as a tactical vote against the SNP 😂😂

Tactic isn't working is it! Johnson is the biggest recruiter for the SNP. Great

@elodie77

You all keep saying Corbyn. But what exactly is it about him that 'made' you vote conservatives?

Right wing scare mongering.

Yet another variant on "people are thick for voting differently from me"

Of course it’s anti Semitic - the first pressumption that a British Jew was naturalised or dual nationality is a nice way of saying “you aren’t British”. It’s not difficult to understand, I am a British Jew, I am fully British- my husband is British through naturalisation, he was not born British and if he committed a terrorist attack could be stripped of being British.

I know that you are fully British @OnlyFoolsnMothers, it's our government that has decided to pass legistlation that applies to you (and me) that doesn't apply to other British people. They don't even have to tell you that they are stripping you of your citizenship. Any future government will have these powers.

I didn't do this. You're shooting the messenger.

Yet another variant on "people are thick for voting differently from me"

"I believed all the lies by the Brexit campaign, everything is now worse in this country, the handling of the Covid-19 pandemic by the Govt has been a complete mess and the PM and his cabinet are lying, incompetent fools who cause scandal after scandal but don't call me thick for voting them into office!"

@elodie77

Because labour no longer represents or cares about those people and the difficulties they face in life anymore.

Go on, expand, Beckert. What difficulties does Labour not care about and please give examples of how the Conservatives care about said difficulties?

I suspect you read too many Tory fanzines which appears to be where a lot of people on MN get their 'information' and opinions from.

Fucks sake. And you expect me to engage with you with that attitude? You sum up exactly what's wrong with the Labour party and why you lost life long labour voters. Like myself. The Labour party is barely recognisable today from what it did actually stand for once. You're your own worst enemies. And you can't even see it. Which is why Brexit happened. And why labour is unlikely to get in again for many many years. Well done you 👍

Brexit happened because David Cameron gambled the wellbeing of the UK to get UKIP voters to vote Tory. He then ran a shambolic campaign. He lost. The UK lost.

David Cameron resigned as PM.

@OnlyAFleshWound

I'm Jewish *@toobigformyboots*

It was less the policies and more the gangs of antisemitic corbynites gathering outside my kids' school, the racist graffiti all over our local area, the gaslighting, mocking and abuse of Jews within the CLP, and the constant promotion and celebration of the most blatant and virulent antisemitism ever seen in this country.

Also I'm fucking sick of being gaslit about it by Corbyn supporters AND I'm going out now so please don't bother telling me I'm lying or mistaken about my actual life.

So sorry to hear about your experience. Can't imagine if this was my life. This is very sad....

@XingMing

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.

This is the heart of the problem. Aside from the post-war measures and unique social mobility opportunities of the '50s and some particular social policies of the 70s and 80s, successive governments of both parties have categorically failed to tackle the inequalities between the British upper/middle classes and the working class.

Excuses are continually made over education, training, poor expectations, limited perspectives, disastrous role-models, lack of opportunities, the lack of self-belief to take advantage of those opportunities. The working class in many regions have been left to rot, and their acquiescence has been procured by random shots of welfare money and the ubiquity of drugs and alcohol while all the institutions that supported working class communities during the industrial period have fallen away.

It is a crime what has happened, and I do not say that lightly. It was even more offensive when you read narratives about NEETS and how Britain desperately needed plumbers and electricians, when there were hundreds of young Brits unable to properly qualify in a trade because they couldn't find an apprenticeship due to master tradesmen not seeing the benefit to their business in paying a teenager NMW to make cups of tea.

And look! Now they have rebelled, and everyone is shocked.

And you expect me to engage with you with that attitude?

You can't. People always spout the same nonsensical lines ad infinitum but have nothing to back it up.

you lost life long labour voters I'm honoured that you think I have that much influence but I promise it wasn't down to me!

@elodie77

And you expect me to engage with you with that attitude?

You can't. People always spout the same nonsensical lines ad infinitum but have nothing to back it up.

you lost life long labour voters I'm honoured that you think I have that much influence but I promise it wasn't down to me!

This is what PP meant in a nutshell. It is an attitude of misplaced superiority that comes from quite a lot of Labour supporters.

Most people are good people who want to get on with their lives and get on in life. Labour supporters snipe at them because they think differently from them.

@mellongoose what? Yes I disagree that parents stop being responsible when these things happen..... except when they, you know, inconveniently die

[quote helpadvicewhateverneeded]@mellongoose what? Yes I disagree that parents stop being responsible when these things happen..... except when they, you know, inconveniently die[/quote]
I'm not sure how anyone can be responsible for anything when they die. Sort of a moot point! 🙄

Most people are good people who want to get on with their lives and get on in life. Labour supporters snipe at them because they think differently from them.

No, I only speak for myself and I simply get tired of the misinformation, lies and idiocy I read in places like here and in right wing media.

It's all very well to just talk about 'people who think differently from them' but do you really think things are going well under the current government? This is not just about difference of opinion but poor decisions and governance that negatively affects people's lives! Hence the frustration. Don't be so thin-skinned but own your decisions and be prepared to be criticised for them if they affect others.

"Poor decisions".....in your opinion. That is all.

@elodie77

And you expect me to engage with you with that attitude?

You can't. People always spout the same nonsensical lines ad infinitum but have nothing to back it up.

you lost life long labour voters I'm honoured that you think I have that much influence but I promise it wasn't down to me!

Bless. It certainly isn't down to one single labour voter. But as a collective you do really well at failing. It makes me think that really labour voter / supporters don't want really want the change they speak of, but it's much more fun being unpleasant to people who recognise that labour is not fit for purpose. This is not a good thing as it means there is no credible opposition for the Tories to actually make any real changes, they don't need to. Because Labour, who were once a credible opposition, are just dead in the gutter. The Tories don't have to do anything to keep in power. Labour do that for them.

"Poor decisions".....in your opinion. That is all.

Can you honestly say that you don't think this government has made incredibly poor decisions? You seem to live in some sort of parallel universe...'sunlit uplands'?

Beckert you sound like a Daily Mail column - bot.

@caringcarer

I could never vote for people like Corbyn, Abbot, Dodds or Starmer. I lived through many Labour leaders and believe me it was worse. Gordon Brown made benefits so high few wanted to work as would get less etc. Blair and his relentless warmongering.

Yep your a tory alright. Benefits that feed the kids of out of work parents... what an awful thing to do? I expect you were against the min wage too? (like the tories were too) why on earth would you pay people more? what an odd concept.

But in anycase, benefits in this country, whether under Lab or Con are terrible, many times less than working.

Tories supported the Iraq and Afghan wars and carried on the Afghan war for 10 years after they got into power.

I think many people in the current government don't know what they're talking about. And yes some are venal and corrupt (though the biggest buy to let MP was Labour) and IMHO Boris is beyond forgiveness after he ignored Covid, care homes and supplies.

I fell out of love with the Labour Party when the only honest man over Iraq was Robin Cook. Their university fees was ill thought through. And the man who did more to undermine public funding and get hospitals and schools built by private funds was Gordon Brown. You now have wards closed because those hospitals can't afford the payback.

No party has come up with a plan for social care.

But my main issue is with self id and the damage it may do to women. We already have Police Scotland saying a man can rape a woman and self ID as a woman. Lesbians being harrassed by men self Iding as women. Men self iding and beating women at sports.

Since the Greens, Lib Dems and Labour are fully in the self ID camp. A Tory MP Maria Miller started the ball rolling by not consulting women's groups AFAIK but at least the Conservatives have held back from putting it into legislation.

I will be reading all the manifestos but not the rubbish they put through doors promising the world.