Seeing as it’s anonymous… where is your vote going?

[Wheresyourvote]

My views -

Conservative - Potentially had a tough ride with Covid & brexit aftermath to navigate. However, looking at the state of the NHS & the ever increasing price rises in almost everything… how could I vote them in again?

Labour - Almost feels like the only likely alternative. Change is as good as any? But Keir starmer does precisely 0 for me. I cannot get passionate about him.

Greens - Won our constituency a while ago, whilst I appreciate what they stand for the changes they made locally have had a negative impact on the average citizen IMO.

Reform - Nigel Farage is DIFFERENT, I don’t think that can be denied. Part of me thinks bold and controversial is what we need and the other thinks he is a brilliant campaigner and is just playing up to the people trying to act like ‘one of the working class’ to garner votes.

Where is your vote going?

I watched the debate and wasn't convinced by KS. He cannot seem to provide any detail or plan when specifically asked. His tactic seems to be simply to bash RS saying how wrong they got it, without actually offering any alternative. I'm all for change, but with a clear plan. And as for Covid, it was unprecedented and whoever was in power would have struggled to navigate it, it just happened to be RS.

No of course covid wasn't unprecedented we have a pandemic every 50 or so years (last one in 1968 before that 1957) it was in their Risk register but they ripped it up didn't do any cost benefit analysis and wasted half a trillion. Paid out many billions in fraud which Rishi couldn't be arsed to try and recover. And Labour were even worse we would still be in lockdiwn if it was down to them they love controlling people.

Narcissistic personality disorder. Wasn't a thing in the 80s.

It was a stupid comment, no evidence that Mrs T had any disorder.

As a thought experiment, can people say why they are so scared of a "hard left" government?

Labour

Pretty much accurately sums it up - but of course no one wants to admit to the reality and if you had said this at the time of Covid you would have been labelled a covid denier / anti vaxxer.

Try looking at:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crisisinn_Venezuela#:~:text=It%20has%20been%20marked%20by,massive%20emigration%20from%20the%20country.&text=The%20situation%20is%20believed%20to,since%20the%20mid%2D20th%20century.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/EconomyoffNorthKorea

Quite the opposite in fact. Her government was much more ordered than any of the recent Conservative governments 😉

@HappiestSleeping were you actually around in the eighties? Much happier times and other countries envied us for having good leadership unlike now when they feel sorry for us!

I was indeed. I remember rubbish piled up on the streets, power cuts, and subsequent 3 day weeks, raging inflation, unemployment etc. Then came the 80's which did lift the mood.

IMHO it all started to shift during Blair's government. There seemed to be a whole move away from being accountable and responsible on an individual level towards there being some mysterious "they" who will sort everything out. This was exacerbated by the whole "everyone should have a degree" ethos. I agree that everyone should have an equal chance to strive for a degree, but something went wrong somewhere and we now have thousands of people proudly owning a degree in underwater basket weaving or similar, and expecting to earn the same as a solicitor. This has caused a consequent reduction in take up of what became regarded as menial jobs (plumbers, electricians, etc).

Couple the above with the arrival of social media, people comparing their worst day with some fictitious representation of someone else's best day, and you get depression, anxiety, and a reduction in self worth. Add into that mix the online bullying, trolling, disinformation etc and it becomes less of a surprise that so many people have mental health issues.

To your point though, I had much more respect for politicians in the 80's and early 90's. We had a strong government, with a strong opposition holding them to account. Even at age 18 (and partly due to Spitting Image), I knew who the cabinet were, and who the shadow cabinet were. It's such a revolving door these days. Whatever you thought about their respective political views, I truly believe that in a debate, Margaret Thatcher and Neil Kinnock would run rings around Rishi Sunak and Kier Starmer. They knew what they were about and both had vision and strategy. John Smith would have taken the Labour Party to power earlier than Blair I think, and would have been a far better Prime Minister.

Then you get Brexshit, the damage to the economy which will take decades to unpick, more social dissent, devisiveness bordering (and sometimes passing way into) racism and you get a country I don't actually like living in anymore.

I am not taken with Starmer, he doesn't appear to have a plan to speak of. He can't be worse than the Conservative government, but it might not be a whole load better. I do believe that he won't just recklessly spend in the way Blair did. I think Starmer is more considered. At least I hope so.

I think other countries point and laugh now. There is no envy now.

Sorry, ended up being a bit of a rant there, but I feel a bit better for it.

Oh yes sorry @HappiestSleeping we are on the same page, I misunderstood your post and thought you were the one who replied that Mrs T had NPD when I said she was a leader with charisma and competence. You only have to look at old YouTube clips to see how the level of politicians and journalism has declined massively and consequently I think the public are much more ignorant and don't understand that we are in massive debt and have no money - they are constantly misled by politicians and the media. I disagree that Starmer can be worse he will be a whole lot worse - the choice is between s*t and extreme s*t. And Brexit was a reaction to the mismanagement of the country, Cameron told us we couldn't make changes because the EU was in control so people voted to bring back control. Unfortunately because our politicians and civil servants had alot less power for years because of the EU this has led to their degradation and we have ended up with second rate people as the people who want to get things done have gone elsewhere.

Are they scared of a hard right too?

Strange comment though since Tge Labour party isn't hard left. The Greens are though.

Fascism is where the far left and the far right meet.

I don't want extreme politics. I want a government a bit left of centre.

Just ignoring the rest of their plans then.

Oh yeah, wasn't me with the NPD comment.

I don't recall Cameron ever saying that we couldn't make changes as the EU were in control. If he did, that was factually incorrect for two reasons. Firstly there were a great many things allowable under EU laws that the UK chose not to act on. Immigration is one such thing as there were lots of additional rules we could have implemented, but didn't. Secondly, no law was passed in the EU without our agreement. There had to be unanimous agreement for any EU law to pass, so no EU law was ever enforced on the UK. For this reason I disagree that our civil servants and politicians had a lot less power.

I do agree that there has been a degradation but I don't believe it was caused by the EU. More like the EU passed rules that we may not have been happy with because of the degradation in politicians and their inability to debate.

I also agree that Brexit was a reaction to mismanagement of the country, but that is a failing of the politicians in not ensuring that the electorate were better informed, and of the electorate for not searching out the facts and believing what was written on the side of a bus.

Maybe you're right about Starmer. I liken it to choosing between syphilis and gonorrhoea. Regardless, we are buggered, and I'd rather give someone else a shot than to leave the current lot in. Brexit (amongst a few other things) has completely ruined my life, so there will never be a tick in the Conservative box from me again. That leaves me with few other options, although this time will be strategic to get the Conservatives out.

LABOUR 🌹

@HappiestSleeping freedom of movement was one thing where working classes didn't feel they had control. Degraded their bargaining power and contributed to massive cost of housing reversing thatchers idea that we could buy our own home. Yes I know immigration is now higher than ever but that's a very right wing policy benefiting Rishi and the big corporations still at the expense of the wc. Don't expect you to agree with that if leaving the EU has ruined your life but poorer / more conservative people have a different view nothing to do with us thickies believing a bus. After the referendum I realised how much the middle classes hate and despise the wc and refuse to see things from their point of view, makes me feel really angry. And i am a member of the professional class but grew up on a council estate so very much see things from their viewpoint.

That's the interesting thing though, as even freedom of movement could have been allowably less free under tge rules, but the UK chose not to utilise some of the controls that were available. Even then, net migration pre-Brexshit was barely noticeable.

Immigration is higher than ever because of Brexshit, which is a real irony, and I think the Conservative party have just jumped on that as they think it will win votes based on it being a perceived reason that people voted to leave the EU.

I don't have a view of whether the middle class hates the working class. I don't see that, so would disagree, but if you have some evidence to share, I'd be interested to see it. I see wealthy and less wealthy, but don't really see a class structure these days.

And the irony is that the less wealthy have a view of where the divide sits, which is totally inaccurate. The perception is that the majority of the wealth is owned by the higher rate tax payers, which is only part of the story. The top one percent income earners contribute over one third of the government's income tax revenue. More than fifty percent comes from the top ten percent of earners. The reality is that the majority of the wealth is actually owned by the top quarter percent.

My takeaway from the referendum was how ill informed people are about why migration is actually a good thing. All I heard was about "they take away our jobs", but to my earlier point, they are actually doing the jobs nobody here wants to do. This can be evidenced by how many vacancies there are in care, in the hospitality industry and in retail.

@HappiestSleeping I'm just catching up on thread so apologies for jumping onto the last post only.

Immigration is always a difficult topic, as no one wants to be seen as a racist. Whilst I agree immigration is a necessary practice we do have to control it. If stats from the GED are to be believed 1 in 30 people in the UK have moved here within the last 2 years, that is incredibly high for a relatively small country. This is just legal immigration stats.

Whilst we must not let the conservatives shy away from the fact they have massively failed public services we also cannot pretend that an influx of 6 million people in 4 years is not going to also put a straight on these services.

Also, you talk about jobs English nationals would not do… is that not because they are underpaid for the hours/time/dedication/sacrifice they require?

Maybe less immigration would mean having to increase pay for roles like health care which would encourage people back into those roles?

My point was that we didn't control it as much as we could have done pre-Brexshit. It has gone through the roof post Brexshit (legal and illegal), and it is no surprise that the party that didn't control it pre-Brexshit are doing a worse job without the assistance of the EU.

I agree that the Conservatives have massively failed public services, and also that a sudden huge influx is going to do anything other than exacerbate the situation (although it is unclear how many of those will actually be allowed to stay once the government catch up with the backlog).

And no, I don't think it is only due to pay. My earlier post regarding the Blair government and that multitudes of people now have worthless degrees and expect to earn 100k+ is, IMHO, a larger contributor to number of vacancies than the lower wages. It is a mismatch of expectation. Of course, there are elements where what you say is true, but I don't think that is the whole story.

I am all for increasing the wages of the health care and other public service jobs, but it won't be anything to do with immigration. It will require increase in taxation in order to pay for it. The UK has one of the lowest rates of tax in European countries, hence we also have public services that are on their knees. And all this despite the current level of taxation being higher under the current government than it has been in years. Possibly ever.

I would happily pay more tax, but I would want to have a little more faith that the government would administer what they collect more efficiently, and right now, I don't believe they would. I'm not sure Starmer would either, but at least he appears to be a little more realistic about the situation than previous Labour leaders.

One thing is certain. It will take multiple terms to sort it out. This was the case pre-Brexshit, and is now even worse post.

The incompetent buffoons we have now couldn't run a bath. Or their party. Or a country.

It's very depressing.

Yes @Wheresyourvote there are a million vacancies and 5 million plus on out of work benefits think it's over 1 m actually looking for work. Most of the immigration in the past 4 years has been non workers, students, dependents etc. which put a big strain on infrastructure and is a net cost. I don't understand why people of my age who lived through the 80s and 90s when there was a lot less pressure on public services and housing because there was less than 50k increase in people per annum can't see that. The people coming in doing these low wage jobs are also going to need social care, housing etc. when they get older so storing up problems for the future - typical of our politicians who don't think long term.

And @HappiestSleeping we have the highest rates of income tax since 1945. But have alot of people not contributing as wages so low. So high tax worsening services. The top 1% who Labour think should be faced more (anyway pay massive amounts) will just bugger off somewhere else and who can blame them.

Yes, that's what I said (highest rate of tax in years).

It is still one of the lowest rates in Europe, so it is unlikely that all those rich people will bugger off immediately, although it is a risk if it isn't handled properly. Of course there are other things to do as well such as closing loopholes, and taxing companies more efficiently.

If it was easy, they would have done it by now, it's a very complicated balance. It is even more difficult when the people doing it just want to line their own, and their mates' pockets, and keep themselves in power.

We don't have one of the lowest rates of overall taxes though...... when looking at direct and indirect taxation "The UK's combination of both high direct and indirect taxes contributes to its status as one of the highest taxed countries.".

You have to actually look at all taxes since that's is where the government gather total revenue.....