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”.

I have become more right wing in my views on benefits and immigration but I don’t feel comfortably sharing those views with my left wing friends. I know I would feel like a bad person! So I keep quiet. These are generally higher earning uni graduates and we have all
moved away from our places of birth and families. The ‘anywhere’ people rather than ‘somewhere’.

i love asking people about this sort of thing and I find that my anecdotal research agrees with you. I also know Green voters , trans activists, Labour Party workers but this feels a minority.

I suppose I’m thinking about how on social media, you would have people calling people racist for opposing mass immigration. But I’ve never actually met anyone who thinks that immigration beyond highly skilled immigration and then asylum claims from families genuinely at risk is a good thing or should be encouraged. But I’ve also never met anyone that’s genuinely racist.

This is such an interesting post. I am rather glad there are still Conservatives like you out there. How do you feel about Badenoch? She seems to want to push the party in a Reform-ish direction.

A few actually!

Forgot to say , I don’t think people always vote with a party as they agree with them. I think they vote against another party. So they aren’t necessarily Labour voters but rather don’t want reform or conservatives

I know some. They work for the charity sector, in public funded arts type roles, low level civil servants, universities etc. All very woke.

I work for the NHS, I have no idea how my colleagues vote.

I live in a Labour constituency, they’ve never lost their seat here. When we had the Senedd elections in May it was the first time Labour lost but the results were split between Plaid Cymru and Reform so we’ve ended up with Senedd members that are opposite ends of the spectrum. I think our Labour MP will also lose his seat when we have the next general election although voting is normally different because Plaid doesn’t do very well in a general election so those people may vote Labour again.

Lolz you must live in a bubble op

cus I’ve rarely met anyone who thinks that about covid vaccine and most people I know aren’t blaming the immigrants for our problems - we blame the rich

my borough has always been labour - until this year we voted green in local elections.

Labour didn't get in because people voted for Labour, they got in because people didn't want the Conservatives any more (and I can't blame them after Boris).

I would class myself as left behind , I think we are in a permanent decline .

I’m politically homeless. They are all dreadful and the country is in decline.

What you've highlighted is a great example of how its sort of understandable how some people end up thinking 'everyone is talking about xxx' or 'everyone thinks xxx and we arent being listened to' because they just through a combo of circumstances dont meet any or enough people of opposing viewpoints to understand how big the support for the opposing viewpoint is!
I've had a much more balanced experience than yourself, so i feel quite lucky in that respect - i think its great you've been able to recognise you've managed to find yourself in a bit of an echchamber as many dont and its where problems can stew! Especially combined with people not understanding how social media/internet algorithms work and therefore not understanding that we aren't all being fed the same types of content online and what might seem the biggest issue in the world on their homepage isnt even represented on other people's.

I too live in Makerfield and not come across anyone who voted for Burnham. Very odd that, don't you think?

What you've highlighted is a great example of how its sort of understandable how some people end up thinking 'everyone is talking about xxx' or 'everyone thinks xxx and we arent being listened to' because they just through a combo of circumstances dont meet any or enough people of opposing viewpoints to understand how big the support for the opposing viewpoint is!
I've had a much more balanced experience than yourself, so i feel quite lucky in that respect - i think its great you've been able to recognise you've managed to find yourself in a bit of an echchamber as many dont and its where problems can stew! Especially combined with people not understanding how social media/internet algorithms work and therefore not understanding that we aren't all being fed the same types of content online and what might seem the biggest issue in the world on their homepage isnt even represented on other people's.

I know a lot of left wing people. Not all Labour voters though but mostly leftwing. I know people who have fallen for the reform rubbish too unfortunately, which I never understand because it's an extremely white community(very rural). There is quite a green contingent(including people who go to the palestine protests). Many welsh nationalists too. There are not many jobs though due the location. So whenever I hear people going on about disability benefits. I think good luck finding them a job.

Most people aren't far right or far left.Most people are centre and slightly leaning to left or right.

Most people vote Tory but they don't tell people because they get torrents of abuse and I don't know why recently, it's acceptable to criticise or abuse people who don't share the same beliefs as you. People certainly didn't do this even twenty years ago.

Given that, in the last century, labour has been in power for only about a third of that and ten of those years were Blair, Labour is a very weak opposition and most people do consistently vote Tory.

A few people have very strong views on vaccines and especially the Covid one. It is as decisive as most topics are these days.

I was uncomfortable about Badenoch and Jenrick. I am very pleased to see Tugendhat in Cabinet and in the Foreign Officer. In my view he was the best candidate at the time and may yet take the Conservative Party into the next election.

Having said that, Badenoch has done a better job than I expected.

Millions want to come here because, despite all our problems, here is better than there, probably by a long way. If we opened up safe routes, we couldn't take them all and so many would still come via unsafe routes.

There were different types of Covid vaccine and the mRNA vaccines are now being developed into specific cancer treatments with lots of promise.
The vaccines at the time were to stem the overwhelm and get back to real life asap on a population level.
If you mean that medics don’t believe they work in any long term way for individual healthy patients or kids that is an entirely different matter. We know that. Treating on a population level in a pandemic is an entirely separate matter.

And of course most of the population is in the centre somewhere - that is why we keep getting the eternal Tory Labour flip flop.
The current captured ideologies that the press keep harping on about are neither here nor there. At a fundamental level, most people operate on a common sense basis which is somewhere in the centre. But it will adapt according to economic circumstances and world events and the party that seems to be the most competent prima facie at handling it will typically win. Just like the legal system keeps evolving and laws keep changing. Remember a time when women did not get to vote and being homosexual was illegal and so was abortion? Things change, people change, laws change.

And whilst we are at it - no AI is not going to take over the world. AI is not going to be making the laws in Parliament, sitting on a jury or being a judge! It is literally just a short cut tool - which if used rightly, makes people smarter not less smart.

It probably depends where you are op. There’s a few topics you’ve raised and some people will still believe that’s the way to go.

Depends on where you live because I know loads of people who didn’t have the vaccine and even more who had it and regret it now. Immigration is also a hot topic and I’ve never heard anyone here saying they agree with what’s happening now with people arriving on small boats.

I grew up on a council estate where the majority of people had morals and values and worked hard and so on. Unfortunately a lot of that has been eroded over the years. Manners and a sense of community doesn’t seem to exist , it’s all ‘ I’m ok Jack ‘ with so many people. Politicans have never really listened to what people want though.
All this building going on worries me too. It all feels as if things are slowly getting worse and nobody seems to know what to do.

Most of the nurses I met were reluctant or actual refuseniks for flu vaccines.

Are there many Labour voters in London? I was born in London. I grew up voting Labour. I no longer vote Labour and I no longer live in
London. I would say these two facts are connected.

I now live in a rural area and considerations and experiences are different. No one where I live votes labour.

My old neighbour who I used to call ‘my favourite old socialist’, to his face, mind, used to vote labour. He doesn’t anymore. He votes Reform, I don’t. He is now my favourite ‘anti irregular migrant Reform protest voter’. we like to have a chat about politics when we can.

I live amongst an older population, at 59 I one of the youngest, the elderly are still having seasonal COVID vaccinations. My DH has them because he is older than me and has a health condition which makes him vulnerable. They still queue up when called to have them. And they are offered across the county, so little Covid vaccine Government conspiracy here, I think.