How confident do you feel that the Tories will lose?

[pinklite]

Do you feel confident? Going off what I see on social media, there is no way that they don't lose by a massive majority.

However I worry that this is just a small snapshot of the public and is not an accurate representation.

It really wouldn't surprise me if we don't have a Labour majority.

What does everybody else think the result will be?

Having read the absolute vitriol to Tory voters. I don’t think anybody voting Tory would say it these days.

This. I've put my head above the parapet a few times on MN and been called the most offensive names. Just for the record, Labour doesn't equal the path of righteousness and sunny uplands while Conservative voters are evil scum heading for the red flames of hell. You have a different set of political beliefs to me and I respect your right to hold those.

By the same token, Labour voters often go apoplectic that Conservative voters wouldn't ever consider voting Labour but it's fine for them to be in the same camp. Despite the usual happy MN echo chamber, there isn't a right or wrong.

I'm so sick of the binary choice and hackneyed politicians that don't actually do anything so, for the first time, I'm voting elsewhere. They won't get seats in Parliament but it's a way of showing my discontent. I'm confident Labour will win. I'm also confident that the major structural macroeconomic and demographic issues we face won't be fixed by either party to the population's satisfaction. Which is a rather depressing thought.

@Bululu I don't see a lot of vitriol aimed at Tory voters. And I know many Tory voters, given where I live. The vitriol is rightly aimed at the Tory government and at the Tory party members who gave us Boris Johnson and Liz Truss.

Many people will be voting Labour when previously they did not. There will be tactical voting. There will be a lot of non Labour voters who absolutely want a change of government. And that is fine, because we have a democracy. If you want to still vote Tory after the last 14 years, I'm absolutely fine with that.

When will parties realise that it is the centre ground that wins elections? Labour swung left with Corbyn and lost badly. Conservatives have swung right with Truss and Sunak and will lose badly. The majority vote is always the middle ground.

@pointythings agree. I think the vitriol is in poster’s heads tbh.
People are rightly furious at the behaviour of certain Tory MPs, including at one point our own PM. The country is in a mess and few of the big promises like levelling up have been kept. I think it’s anger mixed with disappointment and frustration. Brexit has messed things up yet now certain posters on here are trying to move the blame to the electorate who believed and trusted the mainly Tory MPs who campaigned for it. Looking at the ERG here btw.
So yes I guess people are gobsmacked that you still support them despite this. Most people don’t think Labour will be able to make the big changes needed but at least they don’t seem as corrupted by power.
I don’t agree with the Tory scum insults and cringe when I see things like that on MN. A few posters have said that labour voters are ‘crowing’ but let’s be honest, if Rishi wins we’ll never hear the last of it and there were plenty of ‘you lost, get over it’ when leave ‘won’.

Ah, the Tory voters out complaining that people should be kind to them. Where was their kindness and empathy in the wake of partygate? 100s of 1000s of British people suffered while those scumbags partied and the response from the Tory faithful? Lie, deny, minimise and deflect.

Don't piss on people's heads and tell them it's raining then expect kindness and respect in return.

It's always sauce for the goose with some people. It's perfectly OK to slate Labour voters, call then naive, woke, snowflakes and so on.

Always remember the ‘salty remainer tears’ jibes. Just so pointless. As if Brexit wasn’t going to affect them…

Well, quite. I think after 14 years of this shitshow, we are entitled to a few tasty bits of Schadenfreude.

So expect quite a lot of more politics of envy and division coming our way once KS is in.

I keep seeing this "politics of envy" phrase cropping up from Tory voters who think that those of us who are fed up that the wealthiest in the country have had all the spoils of the last 14 years of government while wealth inequality has continued to widen and widen, and are hoping for some redress, are just jealous of them.

"Having read the absolute vitriol to Tory voters"

.... "For me personally I find the majority of Labour voters very scary, brainwashed and ignorant."

You get that you're doing the same thing, right, @Bululu ?

Well MN is full of private school parents who earn in excess of £100k. The ones about VAT on private education are a sight to behold. Who knew the self sacrifice that rich people experienced for the sake of us ordinary folk 😂
@noblegiraffe oh yes we’re all knuckle dragging northerners. And the hatred for Angela Rayner is extraordinary. But Labour don’t understand the WC. Would be funny if not so bloody tragic.

@Bululu Complains about ‘Vitriol to Tory voters’
& then proceeds in the same post to call the majority of Labour voters ‘very scary, brainwashed and ignorant’

Oh the irony!

How divisive is his policy on private education in reality though? It doesn’t affect the overwhelming majority of the population . I haven’t heard anyone even mention it, does it not depend on your peer group?

It isn’t unless you mix in circles with parents who’s children go to private school

most people don’t care they are too concerned with managing their own finances of everyday living

That’s the conclusion I reached.

@Seaitoverthere they must have worked out that applying tax to private education would generate more votes than it would lose. Of course there will be pockets of people directly impacted who will vocally complain about it - but the vast majority, 94% use state schools & will not be upset by it and may indeed support it.

Anecdotally, the person I know with three children being privately educated will still afford it, it may mean they go to Spain rather than Barbados in the holidays (not being flippant here, this is genuinely their thinking) which is a compromise that I don’t think many people would find too ‘unfair’.

I put my money on it 18 months ago after Truss. So confident. They are bloody incompetent - they are going to lose because they actually failed to do the one thing that all Conservative governments have to do, which is keep the middle classes sweet. They made them pay more for everything instead. That is what makes them losers.

I mentioned it to privately educated DH who is really really hoping that Labour win and he hadn’t heard about it. Agree that for the vast majority it is unlikely to be too much of an issue and not as socially divisive as @Bululu thinks it is , though obviously is amongst her peer group.

I don’t know a single person who’s has mentioned it-everyone is far more concerned about mortgage prices, cost of living, the NHS and state of education.

Of course they haven’t mentioned it - yet, why would they? It’s probably very low down on their list to care about.

However, that will definitely change when class sizes double over night with the exodus. Despite your inaccurate assumptions that all private school parents are ‘loaded’ and can easily absorb the costs that is not actually true. Many, many hundreds of schools will have to close, and those children are heading straight for your schools to share the scarce resources as this policy is not funded at all.

However, that will definitely change when class sizes double over night with the exodus.

Except they won't. If a state school is full, then it doesn't have to accept new pupils. I know my class sizes won't double because we don't have the physical space to fit any more desks in.

What inaccurate assumptions have I made?

For class sizes to double that would mean as many children are privately educated as those who attend state schools

and that is by far the case

private schools are businesses they will have been planning for this for some time it’s for the schools to manage their finances as all business have to. Services have had to deal with slashed funding for years and now it’s being shared in a different way

when class sizes double over night with the exodus.

Even if every private school pupil in the country moved into the state system, how would the transition of 7% of the nation’s children translate to class sizes doubling? Unless my maths education was completely wrong, that’s an impossibility.

One radical notion might be for private schools to increase their class sizes so as to cut down on costs so that they don't have to pass the full 20% onto parents?