To feel increasingly alienated by Tory voters?

[BarmyBrunhilde]

I am in despair as to where our country is at. With the cost of living crisis looming (and already beginning), this winter is going to be brutal and likely life ending for so many in the UK, and the current aspiring leadership of the Tory party seem to be more interested in litigating culture wars and appeasing NIMBY pensioners in the Home countries than actually addressing any of the serious problems in the UK.

I've never been a Tory voter, but I've always been able to get along with people who have different views (provided they aren't racist/homophobic etc). But how anyone could see all the misery and deprivation on the horizon, look at the prospective leaders and frontbenchers with their complete lack of sultions, and continue with supporting them is genuinely beyond me. I find myself slowly being consumed by bitterness and rage against people for their views, and it frightens me. Am I alone in this?

Oh ffs not this again. Creating more division and blame is not making the world a better place, OP.

What if your "taking some responsibility for your life" leads you to a career in care, where you slave away on minimum wage creating huge profits for the like of CareUK? If everyone is as sharp elbowed as you suggest shootfromthehip there would be no one to care for those with frailty, MS,cancer or MND and help them live their lives out as they want and deserve. Working hard and having the respect this work generates in spades doesn't pay the rent or fuel bill. Goodness, in some areas there is no affordable home to be had for rent or purchase. What a horrible uncaring attitude to have.

The housing crisis is as direct result of house prices being so expensive no government really stopped it including Labour. The energy crisis must be addressed absolutely. Can the government step in and mandate private companies who are making huge profits?

Barmy - It's rent that is the biggest problem. If you look at statistics from the 1950s/60s households spent more on food and fuel as a percentage of their income than we do today. (Not sure how this will compare with fuel increases in October), but rent was a lot lower. If rent in the private sector was capped then than would give families more disposable income.

As you say, trans politics are irrelevant to the vast majority of people. The idea people care about toilets or pronouns than being able to heat their homes, pay their rent and feed and clothe their kids is fairly laughable (although I know you wouldn't know it from parts of Mumsnet where it's all some ever seem to think about)

I doubt TWAW will be a priority to most people when choosing who to vote for.

Actually I know a lot of people who vote Tory and I know of people who are fully signed up Tory members. They aren’t evil and the more time I spend on MN, the more I kind of see their point. The perception of wealth in this country is so distorted. That is because of the high cost of living and low wage economy. “High paid” professions, especially tech are very low paid compared to the rest of the world. In combination with the tax burden on lower salaries, it almost makes working hard not worth it.

The answer to everything is “tax people more.” The middle shoulder the greatest tax burden. 90% of tax comes from the highest earning 50% and so it should. The problem you have is with tax threshold freezes that’s including people on “ok” salaries. People can easily clear the equivalent of a higher rate tax payer salary on benefits. It’s only £3144 so if you think rent, council tax, support, grants, etc it is easily done. Then the top 1% pay 25% of all tax. So they should but when you think that apart from finance, many high paying roles are severely underpaid in this country, why should they stay and pay that (clue, many aren’t now).

People expect the same standard of living working in unskilled profession as someone who took years of study and professional experience to become top in their profession.

I have always voted labour and I’m in a unionised profession, where the hell are they? I don’t see any of the shadow cabinet stepping up and calling for support. Where is the leader? Throwing free money at people doesn’t work (as we can now see). People expect more, they need more when prices rise and the people who make a positive net economic contribution get sick of paying for it and leave.

It isn’t a Tory issue, it’s a poor political party issue across the board and allowing the country to become so dependent on state top ups for so long. Up skilling and promoting competitive wages from the lowest earning to the highest earning fields should have been a priority.

I think I would feel more bitter and angry if there was something different to vote for, but there isnt.

I feel I have more in common policy wise with Lord Buckethead than any of the major parties

@ilovesooty But there are plenty of women on here who won't vote Labour because their policies undermine 100 years of hard-won women's rights.

Labour risk throwing it away AGAIN. Talk about sinking a boat for a ha'porth of tar.

TWAW doesn't matter to the Tories. They introduced Self ID and Penny Mordaunt, one of the chief architects of it, very nearly became our next Prime Minister.

TWAW doesn't matter to them because women don't matter to them.🤷‍♀️

Women on here in some cases maybe. I imagine in the real world people will be more concerned with issues like the cost of living.

There was no viable alternative at the last general election. Is that Tory voters fault too, or might Labour take some responsibility for fielding an unelectable leader, followed by now not having any policies that anyone is aware of.

Most people don't care nearly as much about trans issues as being able to heat their homes or pay their mortgage. The single minded obsessiveness about trans politics of a small minority mainly seems to be overrepresented on this site, I rarely come across it in real life .

But what is labour actually offering though? Like a PP said there’s nowhere else to turn.

Lib Dems a wasted vote an no offence but the labour candidates and leaders don’t instill much confidence over and above what the Tories do. Since Corbin labours looked like a joke and I don’t think they’ll recover anytime soon

Agreed.

I doubt TWAW will be a priority to most people when choosing who to vote for.

Not a priority for most maybe, but when people feel politically lost because the two big parties would do pretty much the same thing on the biggest issues and you’re choosing between the least worse option, the smaller issues make more of a difference.

I don't think I even know where to start with that, so I won't bother.

Oops I tell a lie, there IS one Labour policy that I’m aware of - twaw. That’s it as far as I can see. Wonder if they fancy letting us in on any of their other policies..

...the current aspiring leadership of the Tory party seem to be more interested in litigating culture wars and appeasing NIMBY pensioners in the Home countries than actually addressing any of the serious problems in the UK.

Not defending them, but I really don't see this. The noise in the media right now is about the leadership contest. No one's deciding Tories vs another party, unless there's some local election going on, and Truss and Sunak are just playing to conservative members who'll decide between them later this summer. They're talking about all kinds of issues, but because it's a party leadership contest they're going to focus on what the party cares about. Something like (just for example) joining EFTA or nationalising utilities isn't going to come up because it will never be Conservative Party policy.

Get a grip. Do you really think things would be any better under Labour .

Any government would struggle with a world war , pandemic etc etc Inflation is a massive problem and there are no easy answers .

These 'people' who are letting a fringe issued decide who to vote for are a tiny minority that I can see, and IMHO need to get a bit of a grip. Basic living standards like food, shelter and warmth are under threat for tens or even hundreds of thousands this winter - that should be a far higher priority than whether or not buildings have gender toilets.

*gender neutral

Really?? I have to say I had a pretty good idea of what Boris Johnson would be like. He has been worse than I feared, but he had already tried illegally to prorogue Parliament, had lied about Brexit, had landed NZR with an extra jail term for not doing his homework properly, had made incendiary comments about Muslim women looking like bank robbers and letter boxes, had pooh-poohed and laughed down female MPs saying how frightened they were doing their jobs, had removed the whip from the Tories who said that they wanted Parliament to scrutinise his 'oven-ready' deal [yes, the one that he now wants to tear up], had called gay people 'bumboys', had condemned the UK gun laws in the wake of Dunblane as a 'nanny state intervening', had been sacked from two jobs for lying; had agreed to help a friend who wanted to get a journalist beaten up - the list goes on and on. I don't think we can be entirely surprised with what we've got.

My councillors are all ex-UKIP/ex-Brexit party/now Reform people and called the 'new BNP' by others.

It can be alienating at times, but they're also the most visible of the councillors. Every year at election time people ask for the names of who is standing, and a common response is if you didn't know them before election time, can you really expect them to do much after?

I think we have far more problems in the issues of lack of better alternatives that are seen as better than people voting for what they always have.

www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=10158995367953325&set=a.10150391509888325

All governments in Europe have had to deal with the pandemic, the war and inflation. Ours does appear, however, to be world-leading.