To ask why people vote Tory?

[Tierne]

It has to be said that life in the UK on low or middle income is much harder than it seemingly is in other western countries of similar wealth. I dont think the Tory party is making this country a nice place to live in at all. But they keep getting voted in.

So if you vote Tory:
Why do you vote for them?
Would you ever change your vote and for what reason?
Do you feel uncomfortable at how Tory policies batter the most vulnerable in our society? For example making it impossible for people to get on the housing ladder, high rents and low tenant protections, no energy bill caps, etc?

NB: I dont want this to turn into a Tory bashing thread. I'd just like to hear how Tory supporters feel about their party.

I take self part of self interest as personal interest or for my family

The economy is broader than that

Some people may be lazy. And some people actually do their research. And for me, having done my research and deciding that labour is no longer for me, I left them and joined the Tory party. Because none of the other parties are a credible option at the moment as far as I'm concerned.

It’s the “shy Tory” effect. People know how unpleasant the left will be if they reveal their intention to vote for the Conservatives, so they just keep quiet about it.

They then do cast their vote for the Tories, who then win again.

Any intelligent Labour supporters must surely despair at the sort of things that their fellow travelers come out with. They know that the route to forming a government is to convince voters to switch to Labour, yet have to watch as rather than engage other supporters just insult and sneer.

Well no. It’d benefit the economy if I gave all of my wage to families who are on low incomes in porter towns, but that would clearly not benefit me or my family.

That's clearly not the same as choosing who you vote for. Voting 'for the economy' is not altruistic, you don't do it because you think everyone else deserves it. You do it because you believe that growing the economy benefits you (as well as those around you). It's the same thing. People vote in ways they think will improve their lives.

These ways differ for all. That's it.

I didn’t say it was altruistic but yes I do think it’s separate to what we’d think of as self interest

The self part being the key meaning

Neither are bad, they are just different.

The economy is broader than my family’s benefit. Apart from the pandemic I haven’t been that impacted by the state - probably why I’ve been a voter who has switched

I’m looking for a broader impact than just personal

I vote Tory. I suppose I fit the brief for ‘uneducated’ as I have not been to university. I have been a single mum on benefits, a carer and a home educating mum. I retired early and now spend most of my time working for charities. I imagine I am scum because I believe in philanthropy.

It’s analogous. There are things that would be better for the economy but worse for me, my family, and others like me.

I’m not sure what you mean by “deserves” here. We have a redistributive taxation and benefits system in the UK, but I don’t think that it’s based on a concept of what people “deserve.” The worst antisocial lazy scrote in the world likely “deserves” nothing but we don’t reduce their benefits because of this.

Higher earners don’t “deserve” to have high tax rates to take their money and redistribute it, but we do it anyway.

We could argue this back and forth all day. Regardless, you're not voting for the economy to benefit others instead of or in spite of your own interest. It is in your interest too, because clearly a 'better' economy benefits the whole country.

People vote in ways they think will make their lives better.

Or, because they can't see past a single issue, as has been demonstrated on this thread.

No. A better economy benefits the country on aggregate, that’s not the same as benefitting every person or every demographic.

Of course, most Labour voters who claim to want to help “the economy” actually want it to benefit them at the expense of someone else. It’s the same with their incessant calls to “tax the rich”, that’s pretty much never about the economy, it’s nearly always about hurting people that they don’t like.

I really wish this kind of thing was taught at school. To make a kind of cost/benefit approach to how to cast your vote (on all kinds of things - pizza or chinese takeaway? weigh up the pros and cons).

This was taught in my school. I thought that was the way most people decided how to vote.

Because Brown was unstable and Milliband can't eat a bacon sandwich and jezhemy cromblyn wanted to do crazy Commie stuff like nationalise energy and starmer drank a beer during lockdown so he's just as bad and the Tories have better clothes and stuff

Well that and the Labour party having been found to be racist to the core by the EHRC.

'Racist to the core' no, I don't think it did, though that's how the media and the centrists like to play it possibly for political reasons...

www.versobooks.com/books/3922-how-the-ehrc-got-it-so-wrong

Good to see the Forde report and the criticisms therein has been so easily overlooked.

The EHRC report stands alone. You can pretend otherwise all you want, but you don’t get to tell a Jewish lady that the party riven by antisemitism isn’t antisemitic.

For God’s sake, the leader’s position on the mural alone was damning.

Agree, entirely.

Under Boris there was a choice.

You could either vote Conservative which I rated as 3/10.

Or vote Labour which I rate 2/10.

Economically there was no distinction, both were/ proposed high tax and big state spending.

Culturally though Labour have just got it all wrong.

So while the Tories weren't great, they were the lesser of 2 evils. I was a lifelong Tory voter until 2019 but I could never vote Tory whilst Boris was in charge.

Hoping Liz Truss is a 7/10+. The early signs are promising.

@FarFromHome2, how do you feel about the the legistlation passed by the Tories that allows the government to strip some UK nationals of their citizenship without telling them? It particularly impacts Jewish citizens, as well as black, brown and NI British nationals.

Well no. It’d benefit the economy if I gave all of my wage to families who are on low incomes in porter towns, but that would clearly not benefit me or my family.

that is clearly a bizarre thing to do because then society would have to look after you.

Some people vote against their own best interests for no other reason than they think that their hard earned money that goes into taxation may benefit someone they don't approve of (immigrants? single mothers? catholic schools? who knows). They would rather stop someone else have something than vote to have something for themselves. That is up to them.

It all depends on your personal outlook, and you can't ignore that this is influenced by your own circumstances and upbringing/start in life, one way or antother. It's like people in the States honestly beliving that anyone could be president (as opposed to not just anyone can be queen). And boils down to are you more Ayn Rand or Jeremy Bentham.

Another thought I have had is, how come its always Tory voters being asked to justify share their reasons for their political choice? Please don't answer that it's because Labour aren't in power because that's a cop out.

Sadly no, it would not «benefit the economy » at all* *if you did that. No new wealth or income would be created, no additional consumption or production. It would simply be them spending your money instead of you. You, meanwhile, would ultimately become destitute and would presumably fall back on the state yourself, which someone else would have to pay for through their taxes.

The central argument of old school economic conservatives is that relying on transfers like this is unsustainable. The government can redistribute all it likes but it would be just shuffling the same limited supply of coins around the board (in fact a dwindling supply as some are lost in the process through administrative costs, fraud and expatriation, and there is less incentive for anyone to create new wealth if they know it will only be taken away by the state). You might achieve slightly greater equality but everyone would end up poorer. Those Conservatives believe that it is more desirable to focus on growing the collective pot (ie the wider economy) so that everyone’s share gets bigger.

Any intelligent Labour supporters must surely despair at the sort of things that their fellow travelers come out with. They know that the route to forming a government is to convince voters to switch to Labour, yet have to watch as rather than engage other supporters just insult and sneer.

Thank you for saying that. I couldn’t agree more. As a lifelong Labour voter married to a Tory the art of rational political debate has been honed to a fine art in this house. It hasn’t stopped him from calling me a “pinko, Commie slimeball” as a term of endearment but after 24 years I don’t suppose he’ll change now! 😂

What does that have to do with the price of fish, and what manner of thinking makes you believe that my ethnicity affects me more than others?

Oh, hang on, you think that being Jewish makes me less British than you?

I will say, Blossom, although I always see you doing the rounds on the Tory threads, I've never seen you get personal.

This.