Page 5 | To ask what people have against Labour?

TheSmallestOneWasMadeline · 2022-10-01T11:21:51+00:00

I have come across lots of people who, even while admitting that the Conservatives are far from ideal, seem to scrunch their nose up and say 'but, ew, Labour' when talking about politics. I have to admit I dont understand what it is that people think is so terrible about them and nobody ever cares to elaborate! I always vote for them as I think their principles align pretty closely with my own even if I don't agree with absolutely e everything they stand for. Could someone please explain what people think is so terrible about them that they would do a worse job at running the country than the Conservatives have done?

AntlerRose · 01/10/2022 18:14

I have generally been a liberal. Im not wedded to any ideology though. Id prefer labour to be in government now.

If i was to pick what i didnt like about labour i think they can lean towards authoritarian/ controlling.

But perhaps any party towards the end of the second term gets like that? Power corrupts.

I also dont get who they represent really. I still have an image of either metroploitan elite or miners striking and basically men.

Id quite like an image of low paid zero contract workers being well represented to spring to mind.

Lozzybear · 01/10/2022 18:14

Because I want the NHS abolished (and replaced with a European co-pay system), I strongly disagree with VAT on school fees, I don’t believe they will protect my rights as a woman, they have a deputy leader who incites hatred against those with different political views, they don’t seem to give a shit about the children performing worst at school (white working class boys), it was because of them I had to be educated at a comprehensive school where being intelligent and working hard was ridiculed (complete opposite to my DS’ experience at a state grammar)…..I could go on and on…

BMW6 · 01/10/2022 18:15

Suetwo · 01/10/2022 18:01

Why don't I like Labour? Because I am sick to death of sneering, bullying, sanctimonious liberal-left idiots dictating to me. Whatever they say in public, deep down most Labour MPs hate white, middle-class NIMBYs like me. (Of course I'm a NIMBY; I worked hard to buy a little house in the country, so excuse me if I don't want a massive housing estate built next door).

A few weeks ago, I got an email from my old university informing me they planned to 'de-colonise' the university library. That's the kind of thing I'm talking about. I mean, it's like something out of Orwell's 1984.

I also can't trust them to be sensible on immigration. Andrew Neather, a speechwriter for Tony Blair, said that behind closed doors Labour planned "to rub the right's nose in diversity and render their arguments out of date." That's a direct quote. And when Labour say 'right', they mean everyone who disagrees with them. Because that's how the left see the world. There is the left, who are correct about everything, and then there's everybody else, who are all right-wing Nazis.

Immigration can obviously be a good thing. But when it happens on a massive scale, as it has done over the last few decades, it changes a country profoundly - which is what the left want. The British left hate their own country. They especially hate England. Orwell pointed that out 80 years ago, and it's just as true today. And when you hate something, you either want to destroy it, or change it.

Your post resonates with me.

And you don't get Conservative voters gathering around the entrance of Labour conferences to spit at attendees and call them Scum. Never.

Why do Labour supporters do this so often at Tory conferences? Do other Labour voters applaud this behaviour or do they stamp on it?

XDownwiththissortofthingX · 01/10/2022 18:16

caringcarer · 01/10/2022 18:07

£19,094.40 that is what those on minimum wage working 40 hours a week get. To make these working people better off than those who don't work or who only work a few hours each week the benefit cap has to be lower than this.

Err no.

Employers need to start paying decent living wages.

The answer to shitty wages and salaries is not to take more away from people who are already in receipt of what the government itself says is the minimum amount of money that people need to live. The fact this is still the prevailing view of right wingers just shows what a number has been done on their brains since the advent of Thatcherism.

"I don't have, therefore it's only right that you should have even less" is an utterly abhorrent mindset.

MintJulia · 01/10/2022 18:16

Penguinsaregreat · 01/10/2022 17:27

I don’t believe the majority of white indigenous people care about either:
Jews
Muslims
Iraq
or anything other than themselves.
people vote for which party they ‘perceive’will make them better off. Perceive being the operative word.
Borris Johnson was/ portrayed the image of being a racist. Whether he actually is is a different matter. He won an election. People do not really care. It’s just an excuse to justify their reasoning.

Absolutely not true, and a horribly cynical view.

I want a party that treats people on their merits, regardless of their religion or whether they are male or female. I'll never understand why that is so difficult.

User135644 · 01/10/2022 18:20

LadyRoughDiamond · 01/10/2022 18:10

I think there’s a strong element of snobbery at play here, which is a particularly British trait anyway. Labour were, traditionally, the party of the working class: renters, union members, public transport users, manual workers. These are all things that people seem to want to move away from these days - voting Conservative seems to signal that they’ve moved up and achieved something ‘better’.
There’s also the argument that it’s a bit of a safety blanket - when you’ve lived a large portion of your life under a Conservative government, anything else is going to feel unsettling. It, therefore, takes a big event (Prolonged Tory sleaze in 95-97, economy meltdown now) to break that pattern.

People vote Tory until they're hit in the pocket. They didn't mind when it was the poor paying the price for the banks going tits up. But now its interest rates and their house prices and pensions suffering and they may have to 'shock horror' vote Labour.

XDownwiththissortofthingX · 01/10/2022 18:21

User135644 · 01/10/2022 18:20

People vote Tory until they're hit in the pocket. They didn't mind when it was the poor paying the price for the banks going tits up. But now its interest rates and their house prices and pensions suffering and they may have to 'shock horror' vote Labour.

Show quote history

Yup.

It's Labour who ruin the economy and can't be trusted though, despite the evidence showing that boom and bust is very much a Tory phenomenon.

nancydroo · 01/10/2022 18:23

MangyInseam · 01/10/2022 17:01

The way they try and shut down differing viewpoints within their own party.

2)The way they seem to despise the working classes.

Their smugness.
The way they seem to think they have the moral high-ground, just because.
The way they seem to sneer at any kind of normal affection or value people have for sense of place or traditions.

And I won't count it in the same list, but I am extremely put off by their embracing of identity politics.

They basically remind me of a bunch of old stereotypical do-gooder busybodies. Always in other people's business, always telling them how to live right, always totally sure of their own ideas and understanding. When in fact they often don't know nearly as much as they think and are way out in left field on a lot of basic stuff.

Politically, my economics are probably more of the left than the right, sort of an E.F. Shumacher left, but I find their attitudes pretty insufferable, and also I think socially dangerous.

Agree with this 100%.

Florenz · 01/10/2022 18:25

XDownwiththissortofthingX · 01/10/2022 18:16

Err no.

Employers need to start paying decent living wages.

The answer to shitty wages and salaries is not to take more away from people who are already in receipt of what the government itself says is the minimum amount of money that people need to live. The fact this is still the prevailing view of right wingers just shows what a number has been done on their brains since the advent of Thatcherism.

"I don't have, therefore it's only right that you should have even less" is an utterly abhorrent mindset.

Show quote history

It is absolutely right that people who don't work should receive less than people who do work. To me, it's abhorrent to think otherwise.

itsgettingweird · 01/10/2022 18:26

Ah that makes sense Florenz. Thanks for taking the time to answer nicely and clarify. Something not many posters do nowadays on politics threads. They assume questions are judgement!

walkersareback · 01/10/2022 18:27

SidewaysOtter · 01/10/2022 16:49

Well, aside from the likes of Rayner who feel entitled to call their political opponents “scum”, it’s the fact that they think men can be women and therefore have the right to go into women-only spaces such as loos, changing rooms, hospital wards and prisons.

All the time the Labour policy line is “trans women are women, and anyone who thinks otherwise is a hateful transphobic bigot” they aren’t getting my vote, no matter what the Tories do.

So all of the disgusting stuff that the Tories have done and are doing doesn't matter compared to this one point. By this I mean all of the bare faced lies, Owen Patterson, backing Priti Patel when she was found to be a bully, not raising benefits but reducing top rates of tax for people who neither expected it or asked for it, not listening to experts who told them that the mini budget would rank the economy.

The Tories may be happy to tell you that they know what a woman is but they don't give a shit about them, and are certainly not interested in making women's lives better.

I absolutely despair when I read comments like this

MooPointCowsOpinion · 01/10/2022 18:27

Got nothing against them, cannot wait for them to be in power!! Grown ups in charge who treat people fairly, don’t embezzle tax payers’ money or just hand it to their mates, imagine how much better run everything will be with some morality in government!

BirmaBrite · 01/10/2022 18:27

Because I want the NHS abolished (and replaced with a European co-pay system),

Will people be able to afford a co-pay system ? will it be popular with business ?

DirectionToPerfection · 01/10/2022 18:27

I feel like a lot of people here are stuck in a time warp.

Jeremy Corbyn? The militant left? Even Boris being a better prospect?

Have we been teleported back to 2019?

In the here and now, the human hand grenade Liz Truss is barely in the door and already wreaking havoc on the economy. Kier Starmer has worked hard to bring Labour back to what it was, the militant left are certainly not calling the shots now (in fact most are gone from the party).

I absolutely don't agree with a PP that the far right is somehow more acceptable than the 'evil' far left. Both extremes are horrific.

walkersareback · 01/10/2022 18:29

WalkininsunshineKat

Tontostitis
Apart from the misogyny, antisemitism, racism, homophobia and toxic namecalling I have no idea

Sorry this isn't about the Tories.

Love this!!

Pumperthepumper · 01/10/2022 18:29

Florenz · 01/10/2022 18:25

It is absolutely right that people who don't work should receive less than people who do work. To me, it's abhorrent to think otherwise.

Show quote history

They do though. I can’t imagine how people get so wound up about benefits, yet couldn’t give a shit about how little tax very very rich people pay. I know which one I think is shafting the country.

luckylavender · 01/10/2022 18:29

Florenz · 01/10/2022 16:18

A lot of people on the "left" are absolutely toxic and very unpleasant. Some of that rubs off on the Labour party. Perhaps unfairly but they really should do more to distance themselves from the extremists.

For balance, I think the extremes of Left and Right are quite toxic. This has always been the case.

BirmaBrite · 01/10/2022 18:29

it’s the fact that they think men can be women and therefore have the right to go into women-only spaces such as loos, changing rooms, hospital wards and prisons

But which party with an absolutely stonking majority, has been in power, whilst allowing this to actually happen ?

mynamesnotMa · 01/10/2022 18:30

walkingonsunshinekat I quoted the consensus .
But there is a defensive reverse snobbery know your place and all that. You can be better off on benifits that was Thatcher not Brow n to shut the miner's whose livlihood she ruined.

XDownwiththissortofthingX · 01/10/2022 18:33

Florenz · 01/10/2022 18:25

It is absolutely right that people who don't work should receive less than people who do work. To me, it's abhorrent to think otherwise.

Show quote history

So how does that equate to solving the issue by taking away from the people already living in poverty, which is exactly what the 'hammer the scroungers' lot are advocating?

Just to be clear - I am absolutely of a mind that working full time should be rewarding, but there is no way to achieve that by paying a poverty wage to those in work, and simultaneously pushing those out of work into further privation. If that somehow results in a sense of satisfaction for some, then that can only be because of completely misplaced spite and malice.

Again, this is symptomatic of the economic lies and deceptions that Toryism depends on in order to maintain their own self-interest. If you are in work and poor, that is obviously the fault of people who are even poorer than you, and therefore it's only 'right' and 'fair' to punish them even further, and don't, whatever you do, ask yourself why you are working 40 hours a week and still flat broke, while the people who own your employer are making vast profits and getting fat off the back of your labour.

DuckBilledFattypus · 01/10/2022 18:34

BirmaBrite · 01/10/2022 18:29

it’s the fact that they think men can be women and therefore have the right to go into women-only spaces such as loos, changing rooms, hospital wards and prisons

But which party with an absolutely stonking majority, has been in power, whilst allowing this to actually happen ?

Labour aren't doing anything to reassure voters that they will role this back are they. That they will ensure women's sex based rights are upheld. If they get in, they'll take it even further.

HandShoe · 01/10/2022 18:36

HermioneWeasley · 01/10/2022 17:16

The fact that women’s rights will be eliminated under them

This. Otherwise I’d be voting for them.

babyjellyfish · 01/10/2022 18:37

I think Labour are lazy, more interested in identity politics and moaning about how awful the Tories are from the opposition benches than actually running a country, and horribly intolerant of anyone who doesn't agree with their views on every issue.

I was planning to vote for them under Starmer but since this toxic trans debate and hearing what Labour MPs have to say about women who need single sex spaces, I don't see how I can.

I'm just utterly depressed that the only other party which can actually win an election under the first past the post system have absolutely nothing to offer other than not being the Tories.

Florenz · 01/10/2022 18:38

XDownwiththissortofthingX · 01/10/2022 18:33

So how does that equate to solving the issue by taking away from the people already living in poverty, which is exactly what the 'hammer the scroungers' lot are advocating?

Just to be clear - I am absolutely of a mind that working full time should be rewarding, but there is no way to achieve that by paying a poverty wage to those in work, and simultaneously pushing those out of work into further privation. If that somehow results in a sense of satisfaction for some, then that can only be because of completely misplaced spite and malice.

Again, this is symptomatic of the economic lies and deceptions that Toryism depends on in order to maintain their own self-interest. If you are in work and poor, that is obviously the fault of people who are even poorer than you, and therefore it's only 'right' and 'fair' to punish them even further, and don't, whatever you do, ask yourself why you are working 40 hours a week and still flat broke, while the people who own your employer are making vast profits and getting fat off the back of your labour.

Show quote history

Set the benefit cap at 75% of NMW x 40 hours, and make that permanent and irrevocable. Then when people want benefits to be increased, they demand that wages go up, people working get more so they don't get aggrieved at non-working people on benefits also getting a bit more.

XDownwiththissortofthingX · 01/10/2022 18:39

It's utterly bizarre how 'protecting women's rights' doesn't seem to be an issue when it's the right to expect a decent standard of living, not have the economy crashed because of reckless and entirely greed-driven economic policy, being able to feed your children, heat your home, afford a home in the first place, or worry constantly about being able to make ends meet.

Are those issues that only affect men or something?