@SherbetDips ,
Why do you think Labour will be worse? (I am a pretty much lifelong Tory voter bar voting for Blair in his first term).
We need a functioning medical system. We need a functional education system outside the private sector. And we need a sensible immigration and trade policy, not silly gimmicks like ‘Rwanda’. We also need our utilities to function properly, especially the most basic thing of all: clean water.
For the vast majority, the above are the sine qua non of a functioning modern democracy (plus defence, but I don’t see either party leading on this). The Tories have got so involved in infighting and enriching themselves that they have neglected the basics. To many outside the UK, we are no longer seen as a 1st World country (sorry if the phrase offends some, but everyone knows the meaning).
OTOH, VAT on school fees is a massive thing for a tiny amount of people. Most people educate in the state sector and, for the majority of private school parents, an extra couple of hundred thousand over 13 years of schooling isn’t significant and won’t be a defining issue. The gender wars are important but not vital for some and they are also being seen to have had their day with biological sex being increasingly accepted as definitional.
I find Starmer an intensely boring and not particularly likeable technocrat. But he is ‘doing a Blair’, just blocking Sunak and not committing to anything until he is in power. But he will put more money into the NHS and, hopefully, education. He will also, hopefully, renationalise water, although he hasn’t said it. I don’t love him but he doesn’t scare me either.
The Tories will get annihilated. I just can’t see what might happen ahead of July 4th to change the way people feel.