To think if you vote Tory now…

[Joanna1988124]

You’re effectively propping up this absolute shit show of a government and have no empathy.

I’ll be honest, I’ve voted conservative before as a middle class family their (taxation) policies have suited me more than Labour. I honestly feel ashamed of this and I wish I could’ve seen that the conservatives agenda of ‘levelling up’ is BS.

Regardless of your personal situation, enough is enough now right? People are reliant on food banks, they’re choosing between heating and eating. Austerity has been a total nightmare for society causing the rich to get richer and the poor to get poorer.

@mrshoho

Thatcher's policies, although a long time ago, very much still reverberate today. The RTB scheme took millions of social housing stock into private hands. The receipts of these sales ended up in Central government funds instead of being given to LAs to subsidise and improve local housing.

RTB is a red herring as the problem is that successive Labour and Conservative governments have consistently failed to build more housing to replace stock sold.

It really begs the question as to why Labour dithered until 2009 to introduce changes regarding housing. This was completed in 2012 since then councils do get a proportion of money from RTB.

So, no, it's not as straightforward as just Thatcher's policies in isolation. The truth is both Labour and the Conservatives have failed in this area.

It does not detract from the argument, then, that it's more ludicrous to bring up Thatcher than Blair.

It depends whether you believe that the RTB scheme was ever a sustainable long term policy. I absolutely believe that both Thatcher and Blair's policies are relevant.

@mrshoho

It depends whether you believe that the RTB scheme was ever a sustainable long term policy. I absolutely believe that both Thatcher and Blair's policies are relevant.

Of course they are. And RTB is a major cause of the current housing crisis. Thatcher takes the blame for introducing it and not allowing the properties lost through it to be replaced. Blair and successive governments take the blame for not reversing it and not replenishing the stock of social housing.

Thatcher also completely changed the landscape of the UK economy by decimating its manufacturing base and programme of mine closures, privatisation of basic services and contracting out public services. Her shadow is a very long one.

@mrshoho

It depends whether you believe that the RTB scheme was ever a sustainable long term policy. I absolutely believe that both Thatcher and Blair's policies are relevant.

Fair enough if you truly believe both are relevant to mention. The previous commenter was implying otherwise which is why their point was cancelled out with the Thatcher example. Precisely the point here.

Be interesting to see how voting goes on May 5th

Though not to be relied on for the next GE

I think a shift to the left but not a substantial shift

consistently failed to build more housing to replace stock sold.

Gosh no no no. My heart breaks at the amount of new houses being built. It's awful. We can't just keep building all over the countryside.

is that sarcasm @Brieandcamembert? I can't tell but hope it is. Where are people supposed to live in that case? Would you rather a return to the inner city overcrowded slums? When so much of our social housing stock was sold off where did you think people were going to live?

@Brieandcamembert

consistently failed to build more housing to replace stock sold.

Gosh no no no. My heart breaks at the amount of new houses being built. It's awful. We can't just keep building all over the countryside.

Where are people supposed to live then?

Not sarcasm at all. I feel so sad when I see these big sprawling estates being built.

Housing stock being sold off is an illogical arguement as it doesn't matter who owns a house the same number exist.

So many factors to address. There are a lot of houses that sit empty that we need to redevelop.

We need to address the social issues around so many people having multiple families thus requiring more homes.

Social housing should be flats (not high rise, the ones 3 stories or so) with a communal playground, recreation area and allotment area.

Council and housing association properties should be time limited i.e. when your kids leave home you get moved into a 1 bed apartment. Not keep your 3 bed semi.

@Brieandcamembert. That’s what social housing is like here in Copenhagen— all are bigger than Uk that I’ve seen plus some nice 3 bed town houses with lounges on 1st floor. They have actually pulled down quite a bit of retail in secondary areas to do this and sites of any size that come available are rarely offered first to the private housebuilders, so we see very few new large sprawling private estates .

I don't agree at all with @Brieandcamembert I think we should have lovely, well made, affordable council housing that anyone can rent. It shouldn't be - you're on benefits you get a shit house in a shit area with shit neighbours. If you look at social housing before RTB it wasn't housing ghettos, normal WC people with jobs and trades lived in them. Now we have an underclass (don't shoot me for saying it, you know it's true) and social housing looks like social housing. The LAs (that still have council stock, quite a few tendered or sold those contracts out long ago) would have more revenue and people would have secure housing. If you look at Europe most long term rent, in a home that is theirs that they are not forced to move from.

I think new towns should be built with infrastructure to complete it rather than pilling houses on any available land and using their infrastructure. Yes it would cost more but the outcome would be less crowding and more community.

If you put people in ghettos their children will grow up acting that way. There won't be hope for them, we'll end up like america with more violence and crime. Put people in nice houses with nice neighbours and nice communities their children will grow up nice. Put them in shit hole areas they will grow up acting like shits.

Tories always do this. Part of the reason we are so they rely on the middle/upper class to vote them in. The working class got really fooled, turkeys voted for Christmas. Everyone who voted for them is accountable.

Six figure household income, typical Tory target here and hell would freeze over before I’d vote for them.

It's gone way past Tory/Labour leftie/eighties now. You either believe in a fair society or you don't. The flag shagging, bungalow bigot blue collar idiots voted for them and nearly nothing can dislodge them now. Too many favours for mates will keep them there. I honestly believe Boris could give the Queen a knee trembler and get away with it.

Eighties = righty

@Itisasecret

Tories always do this. Part of the reason we are so they rely on the middle/upper class to vote them in. The working class got really fooled, turkeys voted for Christmas. Everyone who voted for them is accountable.

Six figure household income, typical Tory target here and hell would freeze over before I’d vote for them.

This is very much an England centric view when that's not the entirety of the UK itself. It'd be one thing if England was sovereign, but its not.

The UK is sovereign.

People in Scotland vote Conservative largely based on the Constitutional debate. That IS perfectly reasonable, acceptable and democratic.

An all or nothing view really does not help the UK. Neither does demonising others.

@Itisasecret

Tories always do this. Part of the reason we are so they rely on the middle/upper class to vote them in. The working class got really fooled, turkeys voted for Christmas. Everyone who voted for them is accountable.

Six figure household income, typical Tory target here and hell would freeze over before I’d vote for them.

And your comment about the working class being "fooled" is what's known as false consciousness.

I'm far away from being on six figures, but I've had more money in my pocket under the Conservatives than I did under Labour. And I also would vote Conservative based on the Constitutional debate which Labour is also a no-no for.

And your comment about the working class being "fooled" is what's known as false consciousness

And your point is? Marx and Engels were entirely correct in this instance.

@Blossomtoes

And your comment about the working class being "fooled" is what's known as false consciousness

And your point is? Marx and Engels were entirely correct in this instance.

Right.....please demonstrate with empirical evidence then that the working classes are the victims of false consciousness.

Bear in mind that Marxist theory of false consciousness is part of a group of logical fallacies.

You appear to be under the impression that you’re setting essay questions or teaching a recalcitrant pupil @DownNative. Here’s some news, this is a discussion not a lesson. I’m happy to engage when you stop this nonsense.

@Blossomtoes

You appear to be under the impression that you’re setting essay questions or teaching a recalcitrant pupil *@DownNative*. Here’s some news, this is a discussion not a lesson. I’m happy to engage when you stop this nonsense.

In a discussion, any claim you make IS going to be faced with "Well, what evidence have you got?".

Especially if you will persist in making sweeping statements.

It's very telling you chose to deflect there instead of trying to support your own claim that Marx was somehow right.

Marxism has long since lost credibility as can be seen in the real world.

So, I'm not surprised you simply cannot support your claim.

@Narcoanonymoose

Oh yeah the pile on by m/c lefty feminists in their little bubble. Not a shit given about how poor w/c women have suffered under tory policies...

Precisely this.

If you think labour are falling short when it comes to womens rights then absolutely address this. When the time is right, and the tories are out. Stopping the damage they are doing to the most disadvantaged in our society needs to take priority over your principles. No other party is going to see the tories off, right now that’s all that matters, the rest can be addressed later.

@HRTQueen

Well we had Labour taken back to the left and it don’t go down well with voters

Also returned to being the party intrenched in ideology it’s past politics it’s doesn’t apply any longer to kee banging on about being the party for the working class

The Tories have realised they are the party for both sides at present

Labour need to work out where they stand and further to the left will not get them in power

I disagree that Labour were taken back to the left. To a left maybe.

But Momentum leftism is not traditional British leftism, no matter what they would like to believe. As I said, look how they sneered at people who were Leavers and EU skeptics. Not just sneering either, but really not even understanding how it was a leftist position, and looking down consistently on the people they claim to represent.

@Blossomtoes

And your comment about the working class being "fooled" is what's known as false consciousness

And your point is? Marx and Engels were entirely correct in this instance.

False conciousness is a double aged sword, rhetorically.

Isn't it funny that Labour has now become a party dominated by middle and even upper middle class, university educated, urban people, and somehow the working classes increasingly are abandoning them because they don't recognize that the policies these people come up with are what's really good for them?

So who is it that is suffering from false consciousness?

Isn't it funny that Labour has now become a party dominated by middle and even upper middle class, university educated, urban people, and somehow the working classes increasingly are abandoning them because they don't recognize that the policies these people come up with are what's really good for them?

The “working class” started to abandon the left 40 years ago when the Tories pretended to share their toys with them. Home ownership through RTB, the offer to buy shares in nationalised industries, all those “aspirational” goodies in exchange for their votes.

Ironically it’s the university educated children of those new middle class people who are now turning left.

Yes, I remember the campaign socialists under Blair as we used to call them. They seemed to be the richer people at work who could afford to vote labour as they had loads of spare money to spend on extra tax. They were not the traditional labour working class vote.
I did my local council vote today (postal) and voted Conservative. One of my student sons did his - one green and 2 liberal democrat (we get 3 votes).