To ask why people vote Tory?

I didn’t say they do. But until I have a party I want to vote for again, I won’t be voting 🤷‍♀️

Agree...
I'd have thought that COVID would have been the perfect time for Starmer and his party to show their worth by saying not only to the Tory party but the whole country...'Never have we had a situation like this in our times we need to pull together on this one.
But no he bickered day I day out with nothing positive to offer.

So there are many reasons why people vote the way they do, but a lot of people will vote with "what they know" until it immediately adversly affects them. Be it Labour / green / lib dem / tory / bnp there is a level of logic that is clinged onto. I challenge most people to even look up any particular parties' policies. Look at the "New Labour", people didn't vote for Tony Blair because they agreed with the policies, it's because of the high rate of inflation, the housing market etc. of the early nineties. People voted for Maggie, time and time again because it didn't affect them. Essentially voting for a parties' policies doesn't exist. It's gut feel and well they've not screwed up the last 5 years.
You only have to look at Brexit (not the outcome, but the lies that both sides sold) to realise that over 90% of the british public didn't vote with any real understanding of what the impact of Brexit (or not Brexit'ing) would do. (not that Brexit is the reason why we are currently screwed. (It's a part reason at best).

Unfortunately the best outcomes of votes have been either A) Coalitions (Because the loonies on either side can't get their policies in) or B) Wartime. Because a politician won't survive if they don't support the war effort.

This.

I like the Scottish Labour leader but he's not anti- independence enough for me. Plus his kids go to private school!!

Not even sure who the Lib dem leader is at the moment...either in Holyrood or Westminster. I never hear about them anymore.

I genuinely do not know who I will vote for in the next general election.

@Butterflyfluff I think this is more pertinent now than at any time in the past 12 years.

The thread is getting derailed, but with reference to a couple of excellent earlier posts, Truss appointed Nadhim Zahawi as a Minister for Equalities, a male, and dropped Women from his title. Her press office had yo answer questions from journalists asking this morning if women were still included.

That's for those of you still thinking to vote Con on the basis of women's rights views.

I always vote independent. It doesn't matter anyway, I live in a strong Labour area with no hope of people voting anything but.

I personally don't understand why people vote Labour. They come across as nasty and determined to focus on matters that don't matter or don't affect the vast majority. They offer nothing for the working classes, or any other class for that matter. Too busy (in my area) greasing their own palms and spitting nasty words at tories and tory voters, with no real solutions and offering no hope. They come across as wanting to drag everyone down to their level.

It's not a popular opinion on Mumsnet but the vast majority of the population are aspirational, want a strong economy and jobs, and understand that a fit for purpose NHS and public sector depend on those things. Labour are too busy on their knees wondering what a woman is to be trusted with the economy or the country in general. The last Labour government saddled the NHS with unrepayable debts via PFI and made tons of people rich with the BTL boom that helped crash the economy but people are totally blind to the realities.

But British politics are mostly clustered around the centre in any case. Comparing the US is like apples and oranges: their democrats are more akin to small 'c' conservatives. In the UK, Labour hasn't been left wing - really left wing - since the 70s. And as for Blair and his 'New Labour' soundbite, you couldn't even get a Rizzla between New Labour and Old Tory. Both concepts are strongly rooted in the kind of destructive neo-Liberalism that's decimated our economy since Thatcherism and possibly long before that. The boom that shattered in 2008 was nothing more than an inflated debt bubble, followed by a long, slow, steady period of deflation.

Whatever you've voted in the UK for the past 30 years, you got pretty much the same. The public sector, education and health are possibly slightly worse off under the Tories (it was Labour introduced HE tuition fees though), the economy, worse under Labour. As for 'why vote Tory?' question, there are many women would like to give Labour, the Greens and Lib Dems a bloody nose by showing them exactly what they think of the way they've thrown females under the bus. I can sympathize with that view and would have joined them, were it not for the fact that as a lecturer in the Humanities voting Tory is akin to voting myself out of a job.

Not that it matters how I vote. With our inadequate first past the post system where outcomes are decided by swing constituencies, I'll get a Tory MP no matter which X I cast.

The system - I'd go as far as to say the entire UK constitution - is fucked. It is anachronistic, designed for times that are gone and not coming back, and unfit for the 21st-century world. If we want radical change it's going to take a lot more than another General Election.

That photo of Angela Raynor and Keir taking a knee spoke volumes. Plus Sadiqs handling of the recent met police chief. Labour made this an issue by playing the race card against anyone concerned about immigration from Gordon browns bigoted woman quite to the stuff sprouted from Abbott and Lammy. Like some most Mumsnet users twist everything into a feminist issue and blame misogyny labour have a track record in trying to silence others by claiming xenophobia or racism. Personally I was a kemi fan and she came out top of their early polls for the conservative leadership.

Absolutely.
The voting system in this country is ridiculous.

Although I agree with the sentiment, unfortunately the logic doesn't work, because unless you vote you aren't heard and the politicians / parties all either think that you can't be bothered (your problem) OR "they didn't vote against us"..If there was a tick box for "None of the above" then I would happily vote and tick that box in many of the elections we have. I personally feel that it should be the law that you must vote (postal / online / person) but that your vote could be a protest of note wanting any of them. (A Protest vote if I may use that term).
Now, if we all marked our vote papers to make them invalid then that would be the only way to be heard... but I also don't feel that's a great way of protesting, because the same people will get into power.

Of course the rules of elections should be changed, The whole point of our "representation" by a member of parliment is completely outdated and from a time, (13th Century) where our MP should have been saying our greviences and voting in a manner that we as the people of that land wanted. MPs don't even do that now. They vote for what they want in our name. It's a very poor solution to a system which technology can easily solve.

We had a referendum on proportional representation in 2011.

Rejected. And not just by the skin of your teeth, 68% against electoral reform.

I always vote independent. It doesn't matter anyway, I live in a strong Labour area with no hope of people voting anything but.



I personally don't understand why people vote Labour. They are nasty and determined to focus on matters that don't matter or don't affect the vast majority.
They offer nothing for the working classes, or any other class for that matter. Too busy (in my area) greasing their own palms and spitting nasty words at tories and tory voters, with no real solutions and offering no hope.
They come across as wanting to drag everyone down to their level (well not their level - like the Soviets before them, they want the voters hopeless, dependent on the state and in permanent despair whilst they continue quaffing champagne and laughing that people think they care about them).

It's not a popular opinion on Mumsnet but the vast majority of the population are aspirational, want a strong economy and jobs, and understand that a fit for purpose NHS and public sector depend on those things. Labour are too busy on their knees wondering what a woman is to be trusted with the economy or the country in general.
The last Labour government saddled the NHS with unrepayable debts via PFI and made tons of middle class people rich with the BTL boom that helped crash the economy and left millions unable to get on the ladder but people cannot and will not see what's in front of them. It's the tories fault!

Not that the tories are angels. They've done some mindboggling things over recent years, including crashing the economy again, lockdowns, destroying what was left of the NHS and printing so much money that 2010-2020 austerity will seem like breeze compared to what is coming in terms of inflation, currency collapse and probably economic collapse.

Because the majority of "news" is from right wing press so information is biased and constant sound bites , and social media make it hard to navigate to the truth.

The people I know who vote tory are small c conservative and believe in personal responsibility in a big way. They dont generally think the state runs things well and prefers market forces to run things and for people to chose how they spend their money.

They all actually do charitable things like hearing readers at school, mentoring youth, taking in refugees, add to foodbanks - even run them. They arent heartless.

Yes, god forbid any tax should be due on the land and property values that have ballooned as a result of, er, your hard work.

I think the "no credible alternative" argument infuriating. The Conservatives haven't been credible for years. The are inept, immoral and incompetent. Literally anyone else could give it a go and odds are they wouldn't be as terrible. That's how low the bar is.

So I can only presume anyone who votes Tory only cares about themselves...

For me Labour is the party of the liberal metropolitan elites. I am a rural dweller so much of labours focus is on the inner cities we are often forgotten about and our concerns ignored. I can't vote lib Dems over Brexit reaction and house building and how they did tuition fees an electoral reform in coalition.

Actually I would tax capital gains at ones marginal income tax rate. Unearned growth from asset price inflation should be the first to be hit.

Okay I will bite. I voted tory last time because I am Jewish and jeremy Corbyn and Momentum truly frightened me. I have grandparents and great grandparents who died in the Holocaust and believe me we can read the signs. I was honestly scared. DH and I had an actual plan about what we would do if Corbyn came to power. It involved me taking the Dcs and leaving to go to my home country and DH sorting out the animals and our house and then following. I am genuinely not joking and I was by no means unusual among my community. People dismiss the anit semitism as nonsence but it was not nonsense by any stretch of the imagination.

anything seemed better than that. I have been a Labour voter my entire life until Corbyn. I am not going to say who I might vote for next time but I think labour have not stamped out anit semitism by any stretch, and their record on women's rights currently is fucking woeful.

I am angry with Boris and the Tories. They have let us all down. And I am angry with Kier Starmer and the Labour party for not proivding a viable opposition. They have let us all down.

Freedomfighters · Today 16:26
"KassandraOfSparta name calling does often seem to be a feature of left. They mark themselves out as people not worth listening to."

According to Stewart Lee latest "guardian" rant, it goes
like this:

'Boris Johnson’s “victory tour” is the insane peacock parade of a monster of a man who has ruined everything, trolling the entire country, rubbing the noses of those whose lives he has destroyed in the filth he has wall-spaffed into their faces.

The fact is that Johnson, something of a vile jelly himself if the truth be told, is a massive psychopathic bastard. And if you support him, or voted for him, you must be either evil or ignorant.'

Whoever even dared to vote Tory or God forbid Brexit
for whatever reason can only be one of the two.
Simple.
Take your pick and feel for yourself the gentler
and also the kinder side of politics.

(Personally, I can't vote for any of the available lots.
Voted Labour for years until JC the messiah
entered the stage...)

I've generally found this to be the case too.

@LateSummerLobelia

You mean to say you were okay with being progressive as long as Labour's hate and vitriol was aimed at other people. Once they showed what they thought of your people, that was it.

Newsflash: progressives have always hated Jews more than conservatives.

They vote Tory because they are Fat Cats, or they are 'wannabe' Fat Cats.

On this thread however, none of them will admit that. It will be “no viable alternative” etc, etc.

It’s been like that for decades now. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose…

The wannabe Fat Cats eventually spot the BS and change their vote, but are soon replaced by the next generation who are swayed into ‘wannabes’ by the lies on the Party Political Broadcasts.

I vote Tory. We should be able to without bile and have civilised debates. That there is so much left wing bile means we can’t have proper discussions on this. That is bad for the country.

My two biggest areas of concern are the economy/public finance and defence. The rest follows, I’d trust Tories there over Labour. I would be very happy with a Scandinavian type centralist party, I’d pay more tax for better public services, I don’t just want to throw money at things, Blair/Brown seemed crap at spending money well, so I’d rather they spent less. I think health should be free to use, but I don’t think it has to be run by the state, most similar countries have better, more efficient systems yet the NHS has become a religion that sucks up more and more cash leaving money for nothing else. I don’t want a government influenced so strongly by trade unions, where tube drivers earn double what a new teacher does.

I don’t see the Lib Dems as credible. If they were moved towards where Clegg was and made their peace with Brexit I might just vote for them. I don’t get joy from voting Tory, but I do see them as the least worst option. Others will have different priorities, that’s their call.

I used to be anti PR, now I wonder if it might be the best way to get a centralist government, but endless coalitions don’t bring about structural change, I almost hope Truss ditches focus groups and has a vision, can’t be worse than effectively treading water for the last 20 years.