To be finished with voting Tory

[Viviennemary]

I've voted Tory in the last couple of elections. Didn't like Corbyn and thought Keir Stammer was a bit feeble. But after that smug performance by Sunak I am totally not going to vote Tory for a very long time. We are now in a position not to be affected too much by recent rises. Not always been that way of course. I wonder if others are feeling the same. But the lack of any sort of help for less well off people makes me absolutely sick. And all decided by a multi millionaire.

@Rosehugger

But the lack of any sort of help for less well off people makes me absolutely sick. And all decided by a multi millionaire

YANBU to not vote Conservative any longer but YABU to have not realised this sooner. Same old Tory. They've always been like this.

Not completely. They (or many of them) are worse now.

I wouldn't have voted Tory under Heath or Macmillan; I didn't under Major. But I think all of these had more sense and compassion than this lot.

A lot of the rot set in under Thatcher. IDS's influence made things worse. Then Boris kicking out those Tories in 2019 who showed any independence over Brexit.

@ComtesseDeSpair

It left me wondering why the blatant assault of the poor in this country for the last decade wasn't enough to change his vote.

Honestly, I think it was New Labour’s tax credit regime that drove a lot of people to eventually vote for a party promising benefit cuts. It had become financially advantageous for too many people to work as little as possible. Employers were turning full-time roles into part-time roles of tax credit threshold hours, because candidates wanting a full-time role were scarce when they knew they’d be financially better off working the minimum number of hours to qualify them for the maximum amount of tax credits instead. And many people saw it as unfair and taking the piss – particularly when you then remember that as well, somebody could claim to be “self employed” and owning a “business” they were “employed” at for the tax credit threshold number of hours, yet declare their earnings as £50 a week, get themselves topped up with tax credits to a full time salary, and do this for years. For a long time, many people didn’t see Tory benefit cuts as “an assault on the poor”, but putting right that wrong.

And now more and more people are realising that it’s gone too far in the other direction.

Those of us paying attention realised it went too far about ten years ago.

Those realising it now might ask themselves where their attention was back then.

Labour is much worse and has not won an election since 2005. It wants to take more money from people through higher taxes and wants to eradicate women in a sense and cannot even define what a woman is. It is woke central.

Of course the other thing that hasn't really been discussed is the corruption and incompetence.

Cruelty and not giving a crap about people on low and even middle incomes is one reason not to vote for them.

But the blatant approach to simply enriching themselves and their mates. Providing peerages for large donors. Corruptly diverting tens of billions of pounds to contracts with their mates, or fraudulent Covid loans that they have no interest in recouping.

@Xenia

Labour is much worse and has not won an election since 2005. It wants to take more money from people through higher taxes and wants to eradicate women in a sense and cannot even define what a woman is. It is woke central.

"wants to eradicate women"

Oh bugger off with that absolute nonsense. Not only is it a lie, it is precisely the sort of self-serving culture war lie designed to allow a party that has made life worse for millions and millions of people with the support of useful idiots pleading 'but toilets'.

Well you would say that, TeaKlaxon. Last time I saw you, you were arguing that trans women are women but cis women (as you like to call them) are cis women. Which leads to the question of what a woman is.

Of course you're going to deny that women are being eradicated because for some reason, you want to do this. And you'll also deny that it's an issue that women have any right to be concerned about, hence your attempt to oversimplify and reduce it down to nothing but bogs.

And you've got a right to argue all this; free speech, innit.

But many women are concerned about this. So if your priority really is winning them back to Labour, then it's probably better that you compromise on this issue rather than attempting to disprove everyone else with that heady mix of logical absurdity, Newspeak and doublethink.

You're accusing them of not caring enough about poverty to abandon themselves to your brave new world. But, for all your insistence that the issue is no more important than "toilets", you're not giving up on it for the greater good either, are you?

"wants to eradicate women"

Oh bugger off with that absolute nonsense. Not only is it a lie, it is precisely the sort of self-serving culture war lie designed to allow a party that has made life worse for millions and millions of people with the support of useful idiots pleading 'but toilets'.

But Labour has got itself into this culture war by constantly banging the "trans women are women" drum and dismissing anyone concerned about single sex spaces as a transphobic bigot.

I was really looking forward to being able to vote Labour now Corbyn is gone but now I just can't.

And to be quite honest, I'm not sure that a party which chooses to focus on such a niche issue when there are far more important things to worry about, such as the fallout from Brexit, Covid, the war in Ukraine and the rising cost of living, is really competent to govern.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think the Tories are competent to govern either, and unfortunately one of the two will always be in charge.

But since I vote in a safe seat where my vote makes absolutely no difference anyway, I have the luxury of deciding that none of these fuckers deserve my vote, and spoiling my ballot paper.

The only thing that could possibly persuade me to vote Labour or Lib Dem now would be if they made an electoral pact to change the voting system to proportional representation and then hold another general election. And even then I would only be lending them my vote for one specific reason, in the hope that one day I might be able to cast a meaningful vote for a non batshit party.

@Xenia

Labour is much worse and has not won an election since 2005. It wants to take more money from people through higher taxes and wants to eradicate women in a sense and cannot even define what a woman is. It is woke central.

Well, this is complete bollocks, however you can see already this is exactly what the tories are going to use for the next election -'the fight against woke' 😴

This of course ignores that they've presided over the lowest rates of rape convictions ever (1%?)

They voted against making misogyny a hate crime.

The violations of women's safe spaces is happening now, on their watch

The deliberate misrepresentation of crime stats (TF crimes being listed as female crimes) also happening now, under their leadership.

Not forgetting their most punitive policies affect women and children disproportionately; I'm really not sure why women are believing, after 12 years of Tory rule that they give a shit about them?are we really just voting on soundbites and ignoring the evidence?

Though, sure, Boris knows women don't have penises, thank god - how would he ever fuck them over if he couldn't identify them?

They voted against making misogyny a hate crime.

Plenty of feminists did not support making misogyny a hate crime because the proposed reforms would have allowed anyone to identify as a woman and therefore identify as being the victim of misogyny.

I'm quite sure the first conviction would have been of a woman, against a trans woman, for not believing that the trans woman is a woman, or similar.

Though, sure, Boris knows women don't have penises, thank god - how would he ever fuck them over if he couldn't identify them?

The flip side to that is that you can't protect a group of people if you can't identify them.

@babyjellyfish

They voted against making misogyny a hate crime.

Plenty of feminists did not support making misogyny a hate crime because the proposed reforms would have allowed anyone to identify as a woman and therefore identify as being the victim of misogyny.

I'm quite sure the first conviction would have been of a woman, against a trans woman, for not believing that the trans woman is a woman, or similar.

Perhaps, but do you really think that's why Tory MPs voted against it? To benefit women?

@babyjellyfish

Though, sure, Boris knows women don't have penises, thank god - how would he ever fuck them over if he couldn't identify them?

The flip side to that is that you can't protect a group of people if you can't identify them.

This is it.

What good is it if the oppressor can identify the people to victimise, but the liberator can't?

Ffs, Labour voters don’t exactly make a good sale do we? “Come and join us, we’ll berate you for your previous choices for 7 pages, it’ll be great”

Why am I not surprised that OP votes Tory??

All we need is Janiie rocking up to tell us how wonderful Boris is

I should clarify, I strongly believe transwomen are transwomen, not women. I am 100% GC.

I just don't believe a few soundbites from Tory MPs negates the mountain of evidence which shows they don't give a fuck about women.

Well, I actually believe transwomen are men, however I wasn't sure if that would get me deleted so I thought I'd put it in a separate post.

Yanbu to vote whoever you want

Perhaps, but do you really think that's why Tory MPs voted against it? To benefit women?

No. But the fact that some Tory MPs might have voted against it for different reasons doesn't mean it would have been a good law.

@DrSbaitso

Well you would say that, TeaKlaxon. Last time I saw you, you were arguing that trans women are women but cis women (as you like to call them) are cis women. Which leads to the question of what a woman is.

Of course you're going to deny that women are being eradicated because for some reason, you want to do this. And you'll also deny that it's an issue that women have any right to be concerned about, hence your attempt to oversimplify and reduce it down to nothing but bogs.

And you've got a right to argue all this; free speech, innit.

But many women are concerned about this. So if your priority really is winning them back to Labour, then it's probably better that you compromise on this issue rather than attempting to disprove everyone else with that heady mix of logical absurdity, Newspeak and doublethink.

You're accusing them of not caring enough about poverty to abandon themselves to your brave new world. But, for all your insistence that the issue is no more important than "toilets", you're not giving up on it for the greater good either, are you?

Umm, no. Your first sentence is not correct.

I have never argued that 'trans women are women but cis women are cis women'. I believe both trans women and cis women are women. And in most contexts, the adjectives trans and cis are unnecessary and its enough to just refer to both groups as women. In some cases, the adjectives might be needed.

But that is all a diversion from the main point here - which is that the Tories have spent 12 years making women's lives massively worse. Poverty among women is up. the 62-fold increase in people using food banks? Disproportionately more likely to be women. Gutting local authority budgets meaning social care cuts, cuts to support for kids with SEN etc - mainly hitting women.

And that's before the fact that they're literally presiding over the worse tension in a generation in a part of the UK that experienced a thirty year civil war.

Sorry, but anyone still voting for this because of trans issues is either actively supportive of their cruelty, corruption and incompetence - or is an idiot.

Democracy isn't ideal but we have free speech. I realised that when looking into life in Russia under Putin

I believe both trans women and cis women are women.

Why?

What do they have in common?

There is no such thing as cis women we are women

@babyjellyfish

"wants to eradicate women"

Oh bugger off with that absolute nonsense. Not only is it a lie, it is precisely the sort of self-serving culture war lie designed to allow a party that has made life worse for millions and millions of people with the support of useful idiots pleading 'but toilets'.

But Labour has got itself into this culture war by constantly banging the "trans women are women" drum and dismissing anyone concerned about single sex spaces as a transphobic bigot.

I was really looking forward to being able to vote Labour now Corbyn is gone but now I just can't.

And to be quite honest, I'm not sure that a party which chooses to focus on such a niche issue when there are far more important things to worry about, such as the fallout from Brexit, Covid, the war in Ukraine and the rising cost of living, is really competent to govern.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think the Tories are competent to govern either, and unfortunately one of the two will always be in charge.

But since I vote in a safe seat where my vote makes absolutely no difference anyway, I have the luxury of deciding that none of these fuckers deserve my vote, and spoiling my ballot paper.

The only thing that could possibly persuade me to vote Labour or Lib Dem now would be if they made an electoral pact to change the voting system to proportional representation and then hold another general election. And even then I would only be lending them my vote for one specific reason, in the hope that one day I might be able to cast a meaningful vote for a non batshit party.

It's simply wrong to claim Labour have focused on this issue.

Many of us who support trans people would have preferred they focus a LOT more on improving lives of trans people.

When they are asked about their priorities, when they're doing election launches or broadcasts, when they're making their pitch to voters, when they release their manifesto, when they make conference speeches...trans rights is never, ever high on that agenda.

It's simply not true to claim they are 'choos[ing] to focus on such a niche issue'.

The focus is entirely by media (and transphobes within the party like Rosie Duffield) who constantly ask stupid questions. Jeez, I wonder why a right wing media might be desperate to get Labour talking about culture war issues rather than the massive cock up the Tories have made of the country or their massive corruption.

And everyone who buys into it is a useful idiot and has only themselves to blame when they can't afford to heat their home.

@babyjellyfish

I believe both trans women and cis women are women.

Why?

What do they have in common?

Not relevant to this thread.

Labour in an echo chamber of people with the same views does not listen to those with a different view point eg on the trans issue. I want English law left as it is as do the Tories. Labour wants to change it. That is one issue. For me trusting Labour with lowering taxes is something I will never do. They seem anti just about everything I want from free speech to a small state.