Would you vote conservative again?

[Erica56]

I wouldn’t vote conservative again after the total shambles that have been the last 12 years. They’re constantly infighting rather than sorting out the economy and have left the NHS in a total mess. No care for people suffering from the cost of living crisis

The wealthy will barely notice. I think you'll find it's the squeezed middle that will notice. Which category do you fall in to? And why / how do you think labour will deliver a better outcome for healthcare and public services? More borrowing? More squeezing of the middle?

I didn’t say it, so I can’t answer that, obviously, as “you” is not “me.”…However, it does answer the question in that wealth is trickling up to a tiny minority who have profited from the last 15 years of economic policy and it is not trickling down. Or have you not noticed?

I don't know what you mean - where did I say I think the wealthy will notice or suffer? They obviously won't. Labour have historically delivered better outcomes for public services. They won't be able to work miracles with the shitshow they are inheriting but I'm confident they won't wilfully make it worse, unlike the Tories.

If labour get in then they will introduce self ID, which will be a disaster for women's rights. I don't want the tories in but I really don't want self ID - the thought of it is terrifying, so I'm not really sure to be honest.

How will they deliver better outcomes? And how do you measure those better outcomes?

Tory policy does appear to be to wreck the economy so spectacularly that no other party could ever again resurrect a welfare state, free education, free healthcare or viable state-funded infrastructure available for all. Then the concentration of wealth and power in private hands and the loss of tiresome democracy will have been achieved… Yay!

If it wasn’t for the gender lies and the inflationary demands they’d struggle to not meet or meet it’d been interesting to see how they’d deal with all the high expectations for doing something differently.

Public sector, Wales, free school meals.. I’m sure many more all saying at same time ok you’re not Tories where’s our money.

Good for them (the Tories). I really think we could do with more of that in politics. If the other side have a good idea, take it. Its absolutely stupid to just dismiss something because that's what the other side want, prime example, wind fall tax. The only reason I can see that the Tories won't do it is because Labour are advocating for it. Well, that and the fact they like to funnel money from poor people to rich people.

This. It’s crazy to suggest because one dislikes Tories one would vote Labour even though they currently have zero policies on the table. It would at least be sensible to say ‘let’s see what the policies are’ but nope.

I will vote Tory. I don’t trust the current Labour Party. And I can hardly fight or vote for women’s rights when in one swoop we won’t be able to define ‘woman’ in the first place.

Have you read The Sovereign Individual?

I don’t think labour will bring in self ID. Their vote is split into 2 groups, red wall type working adults, and lefty students/younger people. They lost the red wall vote and are now mainly left with students so are giving out the trans spiel to appease them. Once they’ve won their working class adult voters back, they won’t dare risk losing them by introducing self ID etc because they know they can’t win on the student vote alone.

Another issue is the attitude of labour towards the rich, or actually pretty much anyone above mw! On mumsnet a household income if 60k, so very much lower end of squeezed middle, whenever mentioned is vilified as rich and not needing any help. When uc brings up the majority of lower earners to similar so they end up with the same or more disposable income. The very poorest get help with rent and special rates on bills. Who exactly are labour going to tax as the rich? Even workers on 100k or more live mostly on their paychecks. We need to find a way to tax wealth.

Of course labour will bring in self ID. Keir says he will. If hes changed his mind on that then he needs to say he has so people can decide to vote for Labour or not. But he won't. Because he hasn't changed his mind.

twitter.com/PinkNews/status/1402586773499244549?t=l5lVZtk14Gw7-RFEKE7O7w&s=08

Sorry for the shit pink news link.

Yeh no need to be coy and keep people guessing for him. If he wants to be clear and quit gender lies then state it up front.

Blossomtoes · Today 00:42

The Kings Fund report you linked basically concludes that Labour met its funding and investment targets but that it made very little difference to patient outcomes or staffing? It actually says what most non-Labour voters accuse them of - throwing money at something but with no gain in productivity or output.
“Verdict: Target met, thanks to unprecedented increases in investment. However, questions remain over the productivity of the NHS and the value for money that taxpayers are getting for their investment”
And we know that the NHS infra structure investment was funded through PFI
www.ippr.org/news-and-media/press-releases/nhs-hospitals-under-strain-over-80bn-pfi-bill-for-just-13bn-of-actual-investment-finds-ippr

I’m not in any way advocating that the latest conservative govt have done any better with the NHS but I also can’t see that the last Labour govt achieved anything significant either.

Why is it at your expense?
Because tory policies prioritise keeping the rich rich and I'm not rich. For example, the policies of the government have stoked inflation to more than 10% and tanked the pound. The effect of those policies on me is that my salary - which has increased by 2% this year - buys considerably less than it did last year and further excludes me from pretty basic needs like housing security and dental treatment. Those same policies have proved substantially more beneficial to others.
"Tory donor Chris Rokos makes a fortune from market turmoil | News | The Times" www.thetimes.co.uk/article/tory-donor-chris-rokos-makes-a-fortune-from-market-turmoil-crwvvq6nj
"Tory donor says bets against UK government bonds ‘gifts that keep giving’ | Bank of England | The Guardian" amp.theguardian.com/business/2022/sep/27/tory-donor-says-bets-against-uk-government-bonds-gifts-that-keep-giving

No, but just looked at it on Amazon. Confirms my opinion that Rees-Mogg is actually evil.

So what will labour do better? Where will they take the money from to fund those who don't pay much in the way of tax at all? Do you think that it would be better to have a continuation of artificially low interest rates and a stagnant economy for ever more?

notprincehamlet

For example, the policies of the government have stoked inflation to more than 10%

Inflation is the same in the EU. The only significantly different county is France because they allowed the building in nuclear power when the rest of Europe incl the uk said no.

ec.europa.eu/eurostat/documents/2995521/14698150/2-16092022-AP-EN.pdf/741bf6b2-1643-6ff0-34e7-31522ce1e252

Like Truss, Rees Mogg also seems wedded to a fantasy that will be catastrophic in reality.

The existence of human beings like Rees-Mogg who want to accelerate the world towards a vision that would be disastrous for the vast majority of humanity is why low regulation of their levers of power is an absolutely atrocious idea. Hedge fund profiteers who are manipulating politics and the markets for personal gain and pulling the ladder up after them so they cannot be challenged. They will suffocate the world in a vat of their own disgusting greed.

@JabberwockyPie - how about waiting lists in the NHS were at their lowest in history when Labour left power in 2010. Is that measurable enough for you?

Labour also crippled the country with debt when they left too. In retrospect though, the outcomes in health (or education) weren't really any better for people overall despite labour throwing money at the problem. The impact on actual people needs to be measured as well. So no, it's not really measurable enough for me. I say that as someone who was, at the time, a massive supporter of Blair, until he involved us in a war that never should of happened.

But that aside, knowing that Labour does tend to throw money at the problem, with seemingly no better results, what do you think they would do differently now in 2022, to what they did before?

Did you actually read that report @Effic or are you misrepresenting it to influence other posters who haven’t bothered?

Here’s an extract from the summary.

The Government is now on course to meet its key targets to reduce the maximum time that patients have to wait for a first outpatient appointment to 13 weeks, and for inpatient treatment to six months. According to one official measure, the average time that patients have to wait has also fallen, from just over four months when Labour came to power, to less than three months last year.

^The Government has tackled other difficult areas. More than 96% of Accident and Emergency (A&E) patients are now discharged, transferred or admitted to hospital within four hours; a little short of the Government’s target of 98%.
And official statistics say that virtually 100% of GP practices now comply with the target that patients should wait no more than two days to see a GP (although patient surveys give a rather different picture).^

Despite these successes, the Government has accepted that there are ‘hidden waits’, in which treatment is stalled at specific bottlenecks (for example, diagnostic tests, such as MRI scans, that will lead to a diagnosis). To address this, the Government has announced extra investment in diagnostics and a new ‘total waiting time’ target; patients should wait no more than 18 weeks from GP referral to treatment by 2008.

Verdict: Targets met. Huge progress in the area that was the highest priority for the Government. However, more work is required to reduce waiting times for diagnostic tests.

That isn't true.

Waiting lists were considerably shorter until about 2000, but various counting measures have changed over the years.

The version that puts 2010 as lowest is a system that began only in 2007.

So yes, in the last 3 years of that Labour government there was a fall, but to say that was "the lowest in history" is simply not true