Anyone else wobbling about voting Labour?

[MaryMaryVeryContrary]

I desperately want to GTTO but the last few years have taught me that ‘any change’ isn’t always good and things can get worse, even if you think they can’t.

I’ve watched all the debates now and Starmer is so… wet. I don’t like him. The first thing he did when women’s rights were mentioned his first thought was men who ‘identify as women’ and how ‘marginalised’ they are. When asked about immigration he squirmed and squirmed before muttering about his role as DPP (who cares? We want to know what you plan to do NOW). When asked about his support for Corbyn he said ‘but I didn’t think we would actually win..’

There’s something about him which is making me very uncomfortable and I just have a bad feeling now about what would happen if he was leader.

Anyone else? If you’re not voting Tory or Labour, who are you voting for and why? I assumed I would vote Labour this time but my gut is suddenly screaming at me not to!

You know I think it’s a slow burn with Starmer. He will be a less wooden PM than some think. I am looking forward to less official lines and some actual action on policy. He knows how to do this and he has a Whitehall savvy team and City of London on board for finance.

Will it be easy? No. Will it be better than the last five years? I believe yes.

I don't believe anyone posting these things

Why? It's an anonymous online thread. What do people have to gain by lying?

I thought Starmer’s wife was an Occupational Therapist?

This is my issue. Things like tax rises can always be rowed back on, but this can’t be.

I can't stand any more of this lying, self serving and incompetent government.
I can't believe they have the cheek to say that immigration and health will be worse under labour. How could it possibly be any worse?

NHS staff are treated with utter disdain! Drs on £15 an hour. Young professionals with no hope of buying a home, then introducing the joke that is "National service".

The financial waste! Just how much have they wasted on their half baked Rwanda and HS2 plans? They should be held accountable for that! We should know where that money went and exactly who benefitted from it.

(Sir) Keir Starmer is not the best Orator, but he is far from wet. He is an accomplished and respected lawyer and strikes me as a good man. I trust him far more than the utterly deplorable Sunak.

My constituency is staunchly Conservative but our MP is based in London, seldom visits here, and she very right wing, proudly homophobic and has no concerns for the environment. She also does not reply to emails. For the first time it looks like our area might turn red. That's how much my blue neighbourhood value this current government.

Absolutely true. Self-ID appalls me.

I'm the same. I voted for Blair initially, and then, working for the nhs, I saw the damage that was done by their target driven policies. Again and again people will churn out the graph that shows waiting list really low under labour. But the bit they didn't see was how we were made to 'massage' the figures. People got a phone call contact and/or offered an appointment the same day which had very low chance of being able to make due to work, childcare etc. Then they were removed from wait list, or discharged back to GP as a 'non attender'. So much time was spent on this that did a very low number of productive hand on clinical appointments. But the figures looked 'good'! My pay was pretty low - I think I started on £17k in 2002, new grads now start on £35k+ in my profession.

I worked in a PFI hospital which was falling apart as soon as it openned. Any maintenance had to be done by a government approved contractor,at twice the usual price, and a long wait. We later found out this contractor was owned partly by local labour MP.

So from my limited experience,both care and staff conditions in nhs were much worse under labour. Our wait lists back then were actually 4-5 months to first proper appointment, now they are about 4-6 weeks.

I appreciate others will have very different experiences

I don’t see the point in just disbelieving. On a public forum not everyone will think the same way

Being quite willing to chuck millions of women and girls under the bus due to an issue ( which isn't even stated in the manifesto btw) which has extremely low levels of impact, disgusts me. Makes me question the statements and the motivations behind them.

Compare tax under the last Labour administration and now. Which is higher?

We’re not able to reverse though so do you think Labour will increase or decrease taxes when they get in?

Look at who you vote for to unseat your Tory. There are tactical voting websites. I'm by nature a socialist (leaving the current issues with labour and gender aside) but to get rid of my Tory I need to vote LibDem. So I will.

Labour have effectively taken all the big taxes off the table. What is left? Capital Gains. Corporation Tax. Levies on gas and oil.

None of what you have written is objectively true. It is (pretty nasty) opinion dressed up as fact.

Comparing a Tory voter to far right extremist and convict Tommy Robinson does absolutely nothing to prove the legitimacy of your arguments and merely seeks to alienate and divide people. It's totally possible to be right or left leaning and not being an extremist. The Tories are not an extremist party nor are Labour. The parties actually have more in common than most people would have you believe. This is important to remember as the last thing we need is for politics to become even more divisive with people calling extremism where there is none.

I think the published, verified statistics will tell a very different story overall.

Your waiting lists (why do you call them wait lists btw? The NHS has never used that term) may be an outlier both in the past and now.

Eta: I accept that some inadequate hospital managers might have acted dishonestly to massage the figures, but I don't believe it was widespread.

Yes. I was a sure-fire Labour voter but I can't now after their loose stance on girl's and women's rights.

No, because its a 2 party race, and even if i didn't like labour, i'd still vote for them tactically to get the Tories out.

#fuckthetoryparty

It's objectively true.

You just find the comparison uncomfortable because it reveals you.

"Comparing a Tory voter to far right extremist and convict Tommy Robinson does absolutely nothing to prove the legitimacy of your arguments and merely seeks to alienate and divide people"

Strawman. Comparing a Tory voter who claims to be voting Tory to defend the rights of Women and Girls to Tommy Robinson, who likes to say that his campaigning against Muslims living in the UK is to protect women and girls, is entirely accurate.

You both do so for your own agenda rather than really for what you claim, therefore it is in bad faith.

She said elsewhere that she’s only ever known a Tory government. How can anyone who’s never experienced a change of government have learnt from past experience?

i'm 43, i've lived through Tory, Labour, Tory.

My life (and my parents having talked to them) was better under Labour, both times Tories have been in they have struggled, and we have struggled.

Thats speaking as a middle class, disabled white woman, single mom of disabled kids.

I didn’t say I had. I was talking about change in general, just none of it ever seems to make a difference and tbh I wonder if the country is in decline for reasons the government isn’t even in control of. And we’re just destined to go slowly downhill for a long time yet.

This is the Tory playbook.

The more hopeless and apathetic voters feel, the better for the Tories.

Some of you are demented and think ANYTHING that critiques Labour is a ‘Tory playbook’. I have zero power over anyone, to make out 1 comment on mumsnet will topple a party that survived party gate and Johnson is wild.

I will revisit this thread in 2027 and we can all laugh at our comments and bask in how wonderful the country will be at that point.