what's so bad about being a Tory?

[hatwoman]

let's be clear. I'm a leftie. But I'm also a liberal. and I'm actually quite shocked by the number of people who've put being a Tory/voting Tory on their list of ways their dcs could rebel. I think there are some awful Tories. But I also think there are some awful lefties. I think there are Tories who have very different values and desires for our society to mine. But I also think there are Tories who have very similar values and desires for our society - (some are perhaps a bit misguided about how to implement them) - and similarly there are lefties who have different values to me. I also think that certain political labels are so fluid as to be misleading at best (eg Tory and Labour - as opposed to conservative and lefty) and that declaring a party as party non-grata (along the I could never vote Tory and I would hate it if my child did lines) is naive and dogmatic. I could never vote for a party that was racist and I will always choose not to vote for a party if I don't believe their social/educational/economic policy will be good for our country and the wider world. But I will never say I will never vote for a particular party. I know the thread about dcs and rebelling is meant to be light-hearted but are people really quite so dogmatic about their politics?

Completely agree with you - I don't get this either. It is what has always annoyed me most about my own parents - the total total refusal to believe that you can reconsider your own standpoint or that political parties move on and change.

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I wonder if people's reaction to the idea that their children may vote differently from them comes from an experience in their own families?

My family contains 2 Tories, 2 LibDems and 1 socialist - or did when I was growing up - I am not sure what they all vote now. It caused a few debates when we were all at home, but nothing serious. I don't have a problem with differing political views. I like a good debate!

"don't underestimate the damage Thatcher and her lot did to our generation's ability to be tolerant of Tories" I think you're spot on. But voting Tory at some date in the future does not a Thatcherite make

Completely with you hatwoman.

In my case, it's an unthinking kneejerk reaction acquired from my parents (who are in many ways utterly bonkers and whose upbringing left a hell of a lot to be deserved); I am an unthinking bigot. I do realise this.

DP is much less bigoted and two of his best mates from school are Tory Paul and Tory Ben.

I think that's exactly right Pruni re the attitude of our generation to voting conservative. My parents and alot of their generation (the ones that voted Thatcher in) have alot of the same hang ups about Labour (my dad is like a broken record with 'oh you don't remember what it was like, the strikes etc etc' - think he is genuinely surprised the country hasn't crumbled into the sea the last 9 years).

I have to say that I've always been biased against the tories as we did not prosper under them like some in fact were virtually destitute because of them. However, I've matured since having a family in the sense that although we all have to have our beleifs and stand loyal to them, we have to be grown up and realise that there's a bigger picture to be had and you have to work out who is going to work for a better society for your child to grow up in and that's how I view it all now. I've grown very cycnical towards the political parties - I've always been 'labour' and lefty as it were but now and again I have to say I feel myself swinging to the right - could I every see myself ticking the conservative box on a polling ticket????? Bringing me out in a cold sweat as I type it

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I was a bit surprised by how many people said that too Hatwoman. But I think for people of a certain age, the sheer nastiness of the Tory party in the eighties is what makes one automatically have a mental tic that comes up about it. If you haven't met many bright tories (LOL Pruni) then really what you're left with is the image of Peter Lilley attacking the most vulnerable people in society, Portillo being an arse, Michael Howard and Anne Widdecombe's sheer Adams Family quality, and all those awful, awful, awful unchinned ghastly selfish-sounding creeps who didn't even attempt to pay lip-service to the idea of compassion.

Fortunately, I've met quite a few nice and/ or intelligent Tories, so haven't quite got the kneejerk thing about them, but would certainly have had it about fifteen years ago, simply based on the party's image. I think it's a generational thing.

Pruni our generation will say "ooh... you don't remember... they would say such terrible things about really powerless and unfortunate people"

And the youngsters will stare blankly at us, having a cabinet minister's latest attack on asylum-seekers ringing in their ears.

this is an interesting question, isnt it?

for me, voting left wing is the practical manifestation of an abstract notion of maorality. one in which i beleive in the intrinsic goodness of people, of community, and in a notion of the greater good. which in practical terms means treating people well, and with compassion and a degree (at least) of self efacement to make ones community (however local, or not, that might be) a better place, for example.

for me, right wing is born of a beleif of the rights of the individual, or ones immediate family, are more important than the wider community to the extent that one would serves ones desires at the expense of others.

based on this kind of moral distinction, such affiliations feel terribly important. i dont want to bring up my child in a world where the latter beleif system dominates.

what is interesting is that i have, therefore, always assumed that my friends have the same moral beleifs. and i have discovered recently that some dont. in fact, some have behaved appalingly to some people working for them, treated them like staff, and it really made me think hard about their world veiw and my assumptions.

anyway

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As a Conservative voter in the last election and probably in the next one too, I find the attitudes of most of you towards my politics completely bemusing as well as very patronising and sometimes extremely insulting. Tories are all greedy bastards who would sell their own mother for a fast buck and Labour are all fluffy and lovely and really care about society? Yeah right. Reality check needed I think.

maybe we need your definition of what it means to be a tory, callisto?

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Small govt, low taxes, efficient nhs without all the beauracracy, no spin, no celeb a**e licking to look cool, less tax/red tape burden on small businesses, less league driven education system...(for a start)

My words this time Pruni, but it has been said many times.

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I could never vote Labour.I remenber reading about a Labour minister saying words to the effect that the countryside & the people who lived in it embodied everything that Labour stood against & that they would never do anything for them.
If the strikes in the 70's hadn't made my mind up,this surely did.

Meant to say,I nearly always vote Tory & dh ,who was a Labour voter before we met,does too now.

the whole system sucks, how can people be divided by political parties, we need a whole new system. british politics is just a joke.

Mirage, was that an opponent of fox-hunting talking about the countryside alliance, by any chance? In the cut and thrust of debate, sometimes people go a bit OTT. FWIW I grew up in the countryside and there was a thriving Labour party. Lots of rural Labour activists going off to conference - rural areas were NOT ignored.

I said on that thread ds could rebel by becoming a Tory MP, not just by voting Tory. It's the 'devil take the hindmost' sneering attitude of the Tory party of the last, what, 200 years, that does it for me. I know some Tories socially and they are just people like everyone else. But the core values of the party are hateful. Blaming people for being poor as if it's some sort of moral failing rather than admitting the party's policies are designed to keep the commoners firmly in their place.

Not that Labour under Blair is particuarly the party of equality.