1 in 4 voters still Tory

[User135644]

After the last 14 years how have they still got so many voters for this election (which was lost long ago)? And that's despite loads of Tories going Reform as a protest. Labour only just over 1 in 3.

They'll be back again for sure. Really is a Tory country.

Nothing like the majority of people in the country voted for Brexit. Including non-voters it was just over a quarter.
If 1 in 50 leave voters had voted the other way it would have been a Remain victory. The referendum was incredibly close.

Why do Wales keep voting them back in?

If you weren't there for the 1970s, @User135644 , how could you know that we were better off in many ways than now?

Like some others here, I thought that Sunak was actually starting to turn things around, after the sequential catastrophes of COVID, Ukraine and the cost of living explosion that followed Putin's invasion. Every government gets some policies right and others wrong. Brexit was a free vote, and the prominent figures supported Remain, they lost narrowly and IMO the 52% Leave vote was too narrow a margin to pursue such a hard line departure.

However, I also think that Starmer is pragmatic and competent so hope his administration will continue to turn around the economy. VAT on education flies counter to EU rules and won't achieve anything other than damaging the small private schools that give parents a choice for children who may not thrive in the maintained sector, because of SEN for example. Anything else, I'll wait and see.

Apathy. Only about half of the electorate vote, except for Brexit referendum when around 70% did. Hopefully things will be different at the Senedd election in 2026. Vaughan Gething, Welsh Labour first minister is widely disliked.

I'm not sure why. I think it is both tribal voters who won't change as being Tory is their identity, or people who fall for the right wing self interested press and can't critically think, just believe what they are told.

I have voted Tory before, but never again.

I think the last 14 years have been the worst though. I disagreed with Thatcher, but the way in which she was different to the last lot was that she actually was quite effective in getting things done (although most of the time it was shit things),this lot have literally done NOTHING. Literally nothing. I can't think of any achievements that have made the lives of normal people better. That is quite something.

I think Labour just have to do something - anything - and they will have already been better.

This is close to how I feel. Shame about VAT and I wouldn’t have minded EU stuff over that but he has stated he’s not tribal as a leader and since I’m not as a voter some of what he said resonated (plus child cap commitment which he didn’t renege on).

South Wales was industrial and unionised, to the point where many Welsh people would vote Labour unthinkingly. And the rest of Wales simply hates the English, so votes Plaid.

I voted Tory.

Didn't a previous labour government leave a note saying "sorry there's no money left"? Wasn't that them? They aren't perfect.

I'm not convinced a labour government (or anyone) can properly fix the nhs.

Covid has had a huge impact and whilst we can blame boris and his pals for lots of dodgy behaviour, he didn't cause Covid himself.

We have an aging population. Not too long ago, people would have died from diabetes, various cancers etc. now, people are surviving older and need various things from the nhs as a result.

It's a very hard situation and I'm not convinced keir will do that much better.

25%?

Biased press. Gullible people. Selfish people.

Oh and I don't have kids in private school. Close relatives work for the nhs and in education. They too voted Tory.

I did a quiz online which told me who to vote for and it said I was clearly aligned with the tories. I answered questions on nhs, education, immigration, law etc.

I don't think the labour government will look after people like me and my family (ok earners, but certainly not "rich", home owners with three kids, drive an old car, dh a small business owner, traditional/scientific views on gender) so I didn't vote for them.

Listening to R4's consumer programme (You and Yours) from noon today, there was an interesting section on financial fraud, which they cover very well. Apparently, said the expert, several pieces of (dry specialist but) ground-breaking digital media legislation have recently been passed by the Tories to bring the law up to date with developments in social media.

One of the key changes is that SM platforms like Facebook are going to be held responsible for advertising that sets out to defraud the unwary and even more important platforms will be liable to refund victims' losses. In today's episode a couple saw an ad for cryptocurrency being "endorsed" by "Andrew Marr" and lost £85k. This is the sort of legislation that doesn't make headlines, and I'm sure it would have had cross-party input and support, but while there won't have been much glory involved, it's evidence of the real value of government.

😂😂😂 you can’t count non voters. They clearly don’t care as evidenced by not voting, but sure, if that makes you feel better.

People who don't want to pay more capital gains tax (although labour haven't said they are raising it I'm sure they will). Landlords. Anyone basically wealthy I guess. One in four could be correct.

Capital gains tax seems likely, but on what? Above what level? Stocks and share portolios that have soared in value? Probably. Agricultural land? Unlikely.

Family homes?

This is the most difficult one: I understand that the Treasury would like a share of my house's increased value since we bought it almost 30 years ago. But how will it be calculated? Is there an allowance for inflation? Or scope to offset the cost of improvements?

If I have to pay 28% of the uplift in value taxation when I sell AND then pay stamp duty land tax on the property we downsize to in addition, then we'd just stay put. And so will most other people occupying spacious family houses after their children fly the nest. It could, badly framed, achieve very little. There's not many appealing properties for downsizers in the first place, and they cost nearly as much as a larger family home, so any government that wants to nudge me out is going to have to offer something worthwhile in return.

I think a fair chunk of people held their nose and voted Conservative because they believe in Conservative principles. Small state, low tax, free market and the idea that hard work should be rewarded. The problem for them was:

1. Lockdown. Half the people hate them for it, half the people think they didn’t do it hard enough. Everyone is pissed off they imposed it then seemingly disregarded the rules themselves.
2. Economics. Cheap credit and Covid relief schemes saw far too much money in the system which would only fuel inflation. Ukraine but the boosters on this, and the market reaction to the Truss/Kwarteng budget sent it into overdrive. People felt the pinch. Governments don’t win elections when people feel poor.
3. Trust. They said they’d bring immigration down to tens of thousands. It went up every year. Meanwhile they can’t see their gp and are waiting years for operations. Of course Reform would get their vote.
4. shambolic. Factions, infighting, briefings. The Eton out of touch perception. People accept it if they’re delivering. But they weren’t.

It was time for them to go. But a large amount of people still want to keep their hard earned money and have a sensible approach to immigration/gender/welfare etc and trust labour even less on this. And aren’t right enough to go reform of realise the reform vote simply rubber stamped a labour land slide.

@Everanewbie this is spot on and sums up how I feel. Reform are too right wing for me, I don't agree with Labours politics of envy and I think the conservatives have been very weak on key areas that their voters are mainly concerned with- immigration being a key factor. I don't think Sunak was a particularly bad prime minister. I think Boris did the damage and Liz Truss was the nail in the coffin. As someone said re Sunak, his party didn't back him but they didn't sack him. I think the fact that he's a very wealthy man was always going to be a problem. Any time he was questioned about the economy, the audience would jeer so he didn't really stand a chance winning over those voters. I think the conservative PR team did a pretty poor job with him. They didn't make enough of the fact that he comes from a poor, immigrant family and rose to the top. That being said, I don't think Starmer will embarrass us. He seems confident and competent, even I don't like some of his policies. I am also pleased to learn that his wife and daughters are Jewish so he won't bow down to pressure re Israel and Gaza (one would expect.). What remains to be seen now is what happens with the whole situation shown with Jess Phillips. But I am glad we have a labour leader like Starmer and not Corbyn with the way things are.

Yes agree to a lot of this. I don’t know who briefed the story about AM taxes but it was very damaging for RS, in a way the electorate didn’t really care about his wealth beforehand, during the pandemic for example

He pretty much inherited a bunch of leaky ministers and disagreement and then Farage coming in with pretty poor attacks after D Day

I’m ok to give Starmer a chance though so we’ll see what happens

🤔 In a lot of the north, Thatcher is famous for breaking the north.

What @Everanewbie said. That is exactly it. Good summary.