Where are all of the Labour voters in real life?!

[PBEEBIES]

I grew up on a council estate. I would say the majority of the people here were very “I’m happy for people to come to this country, but those who come over and don’t work/don’t assimilate are unwelcome” as their main political belief. Despite being a poor area with the majority of people on some form of benefit, they believed that people who work shouldn’t have to pay super high levels of tax and people should be able to keep what they earn etc.

I went to university and associated with “posher” people for the first time. I would say the political beliefs held by these people were very similar to those held by the people I grew up around. I met a few people that were stronger to the left and right here, but to generalise, the majority were all pretty middle of the road/right leaning in the same way that they were on my council estate.

I now have a well paid professional job and live in quite a “posh” area. The people here again, generally hold the same views as everybody at my university and the council estate I grew up on. Probably slightly more right leaning, but all pretty similar on their thoughts on immigration, taxation, government spending priorities etc. We’ve recently completed a house renovation and if ever the topic of politics came up with the tradesmen we were using (eg. If the news was on when we were in the same room), the general consensus was still the same. I have also noticed that 99% of people I have spoken to all seem to be anti Covid vaccine/think that there was some kind of government conspiracy with hiding the negative effects of the vaccine - this is ranging from the drs I know, to the tradesmen, shop assistants, students etc (not just a small section of society).

I’m suprised that considering I’ve lived in multiple cities in both rich and poor areas, socialised with and have friends in professional careers as well as tradesmen, students, across all ages… most people I encounter seem to all hold the same political views.

I have genuinely only ever met a few truly left wing people in my life, in real life. For example, I’ve never met anyone in real life who has stood up and said “I think that we should take asylum seekers as they’re at risk in their own countries” even though this isn’t extreme! I’ve never met anyone who has said “I think that our taxes should be raised so that we can improve public services”, or “I think it’s really important that we spend on making our country more energy efficient as this is important for eradicating climate change”. How is this possible?! Everyone I’ve ever discussed politics with across a wide range of social classes , careers, ages, locations has always been centre/right.

Please don’t focus on the fact that I’ve used immigration as an example throughout this, it was just one of the stronger examples that I can think of! Another example would be the trans issue - I’ve never met anyone who thinks anything other than “trans people are free to do whatever they like, but sex is a biological fact that you cannot change”.

It could also be that the right leaning are
lurking rather posting.

I would describe my self as centre right. My background is NHS, but left a while ago. The way it has gone now is unrecognisable. My DD is a nurse but has left the NHS and has set up as an independent.

Left leaning people understandably feel aggrieved at the inequality they are directly affected by. This is understandable and are therefore very much more vocal on MN. Is it their intention to drown out, attack and vilify centre right leaning voices because to them we are the problem?

@PBEEBIES I believe that there maybe many lurkers on this thread that would have similar thoughts and experiences to yours but prefer a quiet life, instead of being subject to much of the personal attacks and verbal abuse some left leaning MN PPs are prone to dishing out.

No as are your too subservient and lazy to bother reading up on things 😴
DYOR as if i careless my comment is based on your leaning and green party of all parties. Rather vote for Monster Raving Loony Party

I think it is much more the fact that for a time period, many people were comfortable so we had the luxury to indulge progressive beliefs.

The economic fundamentals have changed. The super international rich are exploitative and not just economically, it is more than that. They have too much power.
So now is the time for Labour and Tory to work together on our safety, the time to set aside fringe issues and to work on fundamentals.
We need both devolution to allow people autonomy - with which comes responsibility as well by the way - and an end of abdication to the nanny state. And we need a central government with real vision that keeps us all safe, in the broadest sense.
There is no point harping on about Margaret Thatcher nor even Tony Blair. The decisions at the time were made based on worldwide economic fundamentals and what may have looked like making us richer as a country at that time point.

I do feel strongly about some issues, I’ve just got enough people around me to discuss it and get through that fine.

😂

That whole thing we saw with Keir Starmer doing a good job internationally but failing nationally - that is a structural problem fundamentally. One person cannot deliver it all. Power has to be devolved and with that comes responsibility as well and no longer an entitlement to be fed like little birds by Westminster and London at large.

DYOR! It is like being back in the good old days of the Covid conspiracy theories.

We have power devolved here in Scotland and the Scottish government are terrible. Really really awful. I think a few really intelligent people in Westminster who know what steps need to be taken to drive growth and get the borrowing down would be so much better than the likes of the primary school debating society we have here in Scotland. Hard choices need to be made to improve the economy and make everyone’s lives easier. No labour politician has the balls to take the necessary steps so things will go on getting worse and worse.

I’d be pissed off if I was trying to remortgage and facing ever higher interest rates due to Andy Burnham suggesting he has the money to nationalise e.g. water and the bond markets naturally flipping out.

Also on an individual MP level - the energy should be spent on working locally on bettering your area with long term agreed vision and working collaboratively - not on challenging the opposition centrally or nit picking fringe ideological points.

And Nigel Farage out of all of them - what exactly has he done for his local area. Other than put it on the map because of the personality cult he has tried to create. Nothing much.

And that's fine. If your political choices are not particularly guided by your moral values, then you may not find anyone else's views to be morally objectionable because you don't actually think morality comes into it. Nobody is saying that you should feel differently.

But if someone else does view it as a moral choice, and chooses not to be friends with people whose views they find morally reprehensible, then that's their prerogative.

I imagine that most of us probably have some moral boundaries in relation to our friendships and close relationships - we all have things that we would not find morally acceptable. We just draw the lines in different places.

“I’d be pissed off if I was trying to remortgage and facing ever higher interest rates due to Andy Burnham suggesting he has the money to nationalise e.g. water and the bond markets naturally flipping out.”

@Nimmec - the bond markets are spooked by international macro primarily. Water is a scarce resource, we have had a drought. They probably have advise that it is a key long term risk point affecting health. In fact, clean water is probably the most important resource of all.

And also @Nimmec - if the Scottish Government are terrible and that is what the Scottish people keep voting in, then they need to take personal responsibility for that.
It is exactly what I mean. Both those on the left and right are wrong. The left assuming you are entitled to someone else’s wealth/genetic privilege/efforts and the right in not repaying society fully and being grateful for that privilege. These were all things that past societies still had in form of noblesse oblige and honest working class huge work ethic as opposed to entitlement.

The Government won’t tell us how dire things really are because it “spooks” the financial system. But people need to wake up. If everyone pulls their weight and adjusts, it will be fine but attitudes need to change.

Yes I can understand that, it doesn’t seem to deliver but politically it gets traction.

I live in a Tory area, where residents think Labour are destructive for the country and always have been. I'm one of them, If I went back to my place of birth, I would find plenty of Labour voters - probably one of the reasons I wanted out. I can't be doing with negative people and some combined with sneer, which is why I removed myself from my past career. I only ever now see left wingers on MN and it's like a different world, where the Daily Mail, GBN, Reform and Farage are obsessed over. My partner is an ex miner and you'd think he would be Labour. No chance. I took the vaccines but my community was split 50:50 on that. Immigration is a massive no because it's been abused by both migrants and politicians. Windrush was the benchmark for good migration. Those days are long gone.

I really wish I knew what you are talking about.

Sorry. Back in the days of Covid when posters claimed the virus was being deliberately spread by Klaus Schwab or that the vaccine was implanting microchips in us all or whatever nonsense, when asked for proof such posters would respond Do Your Own Research.

That reminds me, those of us who had the vaccine were supposed to be dead within two years...

Sorry @BasildonBonds i thought you were the OP of the comment.

See below. I thought you were the poster of the comment I responded to .. yeah, I’m vaccinated and not dead 👍

No problem!

The majority of people I know vote Labour/Green. But then, I do live in Leeds, so this isn’t exactly surprising.

It does depend on where you live and who you associate with.

Re the COVID vaccine, I wouldn’t even know what the majority of people think these days! Not many people qualify to take it, as it’s limited to the over 75s and the immunocompromised. (Both my DM and MIL take it.) For most of us, it just isn’t a current issue anymore.

You must be bringing up the subject yourself a lot.

My name is not Jemima or Annabel.

@BasildonBonds there are plenty of left wing Jemimas and Annabels - at least, if that was meant as a sneer at posh girls.

But it objectively saved millions of lives.
Doubtless as with any medicine it had side effects but every doctor or scientist I have met thinks that the vaccination programme was the one single thing we got right in Covid.

Not it wasn't meant as a sneer at "posh girls". It was my response to Dollymylove sneering at left-wing people called Jemima or Annabel. I even quoted Dolly's post in my response, but perhaps you didn't bother to read it.

I never fully got that line of argument anyway. It's true that different parts of the country face very different issues in some ways. Eg parts of the North, Wales etc facing the legacy of deindustrialization. Different places have seen different levels of migration at different times. Rural issues are different to urban issues. Etc etc. But the idea there are these enclaves of rich/upper middle class people that are geographically very far from the put upon working classes, the poor, the squeezed middle doesn't fit. You usually have a mix of incomes in areas even if they don't mix (maybe one end of the street is the posh bit) or experience the same problems. Of course there is inequythere, and regional inequalities. But the stereotype of left wing people in "leafy suburbs" who are only not upset about migration/asylum centres because it's not happening near them doesn't fit. Any asylum accommodation in London or Manchester etc is going to be within a stones throw of both a leafy suburb and a council estate. There are areas in the UK with much lower diversity and much lower numbers of asylum seekers housed there. But they tend to be the places with the strongest sentiments against migration. London is both home to the dreaded "liberal metropolitan elite" and some of the highest rates of residents born outside the UK. Which means presumably the liberal metropolitan elite living there are not unaware of multiculturalism.
It feels like an argument that makes sense for places like America that has been copied and pasted into the UK context but we are a smaller country. We have a class structure but it's not segregated by geography.

I think the way the COVID vaccine was sold to the public as a means of stopping COVID (in the same way as say a small pox vaccine) was both false and harmful.

The COVID vaccine definitely has its place for the elderly or medically ill alongside say the Flu jab which imo is way more important. But the COVID jab was never a vaccine- it didn't prevent you getting COVID or passing it on, it simply lessened the severity of the illness. To force people to take the COVID jab for example by making Covid jabs compulsory for NHS staff or face dismissal (later quietly dropped) was an unnecessary and unforgivable state overreach.

As for giving children Covid jabs this too was unnecessary and although it's too early to definitively tell, my gut feel is that this caused more harm than good.