This is who the Tory Party are, read this if you are even considering giving them your vote.

[Rhubarb]

A few facts about the Conservative Party that you should know if you are being persuaded by their talk of change.

David Cameron was born in London, his father was a stockbroker and his mother the daughter of Sir William Mount. His ancestors from his father?s side hail from bankers and stockbrokers, it?s how they made their fortune. Cameron went to Eton and then Oxford where he was a member of the notorious Bullingdon Club. He has stated publicly that he is a huge fan of Thatcher. Unsurprisingly he voted against the hunting ban, being a hunter himself. He has been criticised by his own party members for being too Etonian and out of touch with reality.

In 1989 Cameron accepted an invite to South Africa paid for by an anti-sanctions lobby. This was whilst Nelson Mandela was still in prison. He was quoted as describing the trip thus: ?it was all terribly relaxed, just a little treat, a perk of the job.?

Cameron?s wife Samantha is the daughter of Sir Reginald Adrian Berkeley Sheffield and the Viscountess Astor. Their combined wealth is estimated at £30m plus.

George Osborne is the eldest son and heir of Sir Peter Osborne and was originally named Gideon. He was educated at Oxford and he too was a member of the Bullingdon Club. He has two children who are privately educated.

He was caught up in the expenses row after he ?flipped? his second home in order to pay less tax, the Lib Dems reckoned he got away with £55,000 by doing this. He also claimed for a mortgage that was paid, chauffeur fares and two copies of a DVD of his own speech on, of all topics, ?value for taxpayers money?. He subsequently paid it back.

He also tried to solicit a £50,000 donation from a Russian multi-billionaire back in 2008.

So there are 3 members of Oxford?s Bullingdon Club in the Tory Party right now, all from the same year. Isn?t that nice for them? A club that was noted for it?s drunken antics, willful destruction of restaurants (run by working class people), bars and windows and it?s arrogance in the face of the law.

Of the Tory Party itself, there are currently 17 Conservative women MPs compared to 95 in the Labour Party.
Of the occupations of MPs, in the 2005 general election there were 35 manual workers in the Labour Party compared to 2 in Conservative. Labour had 32 school teachers, Tories had 6.
In the same election there were 13 non-white Labour MPs and just 2 Conservative MPs.
Of those going to fee-paying schools, in 2005 118 Tory MPs came from fee-paying schools compared to 63 Labour MPs. 43% of Tory MPs were Oxbridge education compared to 16% of Labour.

So whenever anyone tries to tell you that the Conservatives do live in the real world and are all for making ordinary peoples lives better, quote these figures at them.

Me, I might vote Lib Dems.

not discredited Hassled, but making the point that because of their association with that club, who made a point of trashing valuable antiques to show how rich they were, and their priviledged upbringing, they don't really have a clue about how the other half live, so how can they represent us?

Same with any Party, how can we be represented if half the members are Oxbridge grads? Will they understand what it's like to live on £7.03 an hour? What it's like to pick broken glass off the swings in the playground before your kids can play there? Or having to walk back from school past gangs of swearing teenagers with cans of lager in their hands, throwing stones at the swans and ducks on the river?

Do they know what it's like to raid the kids money boxes for spare cash for necessities because you've run out?

Do they?

ah well, thecrackfox, I went to a private school, but lived on a council estate - surely I am better placed to see both sides? (and just ofr good measure, i was actually homeless for 4 years while at said private school!)

Silverfrog: "And joined a club" - actually it is the membership of the Bullingdon Club that I find really objectionable. Going to Eton, Oxford, having loads of inherited wonga doesn't necessarily make you unfit to run the country - there are plenty of decent, upstanding citizens who might have ticks in all these boxes. The Bullingdon Club represents everything that is loathsome about a particular type of Tory - the idea that if you have enough money you can do whatever you want. They are no better than the gangs of feral youths who make life miserable for ordinary working people on housing estates through vandalism and unruly behaviour - the only difference is that after they have wreaked havoc - smashing up pubs and restaurants where they hold their meetings - they can afford to pay for the damage. Personally I find a gang of braying Hurrah Henries smashing up my town (I lived in Oxford for many years) more offensive - and less excusable - than the uneducated oiks who they would have held in such disdain. I find it hard to stomach the fact they may soon be running the country.

smallwhitecat: don't worry about facts, they are irrelevant to the important lefty business of blaming the Tories for the financial crisis that ensued after 10 years of Labour government. Everything bad is the fault of the Tories and everything good is caused by Labour. If you vote Conservative little fluffy kittens will die. etc.

Are only people with Dcs allowed to run the country?

If only David Cameron's parents had been a bus driver and a school cleaner we could all vote for them without being ridiculed

LilianGish, the likes of Prescott are still behaving as if they are in the Bullingdon Club today. AFAIK, there are no accusations that Osborne and Cameron are still acting like they did when they were 18.

Most 18-year-olds are very narrow-minded about whatever their world view happens to be, it doesn't mean that much 25 years later.

silverfrog, avoid any areas where you pretend to know what's important to people like me, where you speak down to people like me and go around patting them on the head like dogs.

I don't care where you come from or how educated you are, so long as you have respect for your fellow men and I don't get that respect from the Tories, not from the leaders of that party in any case.

And I'm probably in a minority here on Mumsnet too by the looks of things. I wonder how many of you would like to swap your lives for mine right now? Take away your Sky TV and your comforts, come and live in my shoes and then tell me that these people know what is best for me.

If the Tories get in, then financially dh and I are even more screwed than we are now.

Smallwhitecat, did you really vote Labour once upon a time?

I'm just interested.

Oh isn't it so easy to be patronising?

rhubarb, now that is just not fair.

once agian you are assuming a whole lot of things.

what on earth makes you think I would speak down to anyone, at any time, merely because I went to a private school?

how on earth can you judge that I am nopt a "person like you"? on the basis of what school I went to?

you really are letting personal prejudices colour your vision, tbh.

The Labour Party may be corrupt bastards too, but they introduced the NHS, the Tories would still have everyone paying much like the system America has now.
Students had free grants.
GPs were free to visit people in their own homes.
You could actually find an NHS dentist.
Trains were affordable.

Sorry silverfrog, but there are a host of people on this thread now who cannot seem to reply to me without being patronising.

I suppose they at least paid, which is more than I remember hearing about the activities I remember from university, which range from a pub's owners drive on mower being driven into a pond, to setting alight a restaurant.

Don't buy it I'm afraid.
New LAbour also has its share of grand well connected people from upper class families who went to top schools. Someone mentioned Tony Blair, what about HArriet HArman? Have a good dig around on her wiki entry, she didn't go to BAsh Street Comprehensive. She's rich, she's a toff, she's from a long tradition of grand people patting the heads of the working classes. These people, of whatever party, are politicians, they are not the same as you.

Hesitating to defend John Prescott here, but in what way is behaving as if he were a member of the Bullingdon Club?

Because he hit someone who threw at egg at him.

Which is exactly like getting pissed and trashing a restaurant on regular occasions.

JUst noticed, lots of head patting in this thread!

Prescott punched a protester who threw an egg at him. I think Bullingdon Boris had something similar happen to him (pint of beer over his head), and he just carried on with what he was doing. Violence is not necessary.

I'm not being patronising, and your OP made a number of valid points - it's just the whole - "they are privileged so can't be voted in" tone which doesn't stand up

catinthehat, read the OP.

The point I am making is that, of all the Parties, the Tories are the ones who are the furthest removed from ordinary life.

I agree with you, as a socialist, that no Party is going to fully represent us. I've not said that I'm voting Labour, nor have I said if I have ever voted Labour. Just that they have the least Oxbridge educated MPs, no Bullingdon club members, more women MPs and more MPs from ethnic minorities.

Therefore they are better placed than the Tories to represent us.

Just a logical argument.

bugger, so now at some point I've got to go and check the Tories record on unelected peers. Had a feeling I might when I posted!

Surely Rhubarb's point is that it is important to have a cross-section of society representing us in parliament? Therefore if there is a strong bias towards the upper-classes in (for example) the Tory party, then it is less able to understand the plight of (for example) the poor.

It's just info to do with as you will.

I am as yet undecided as to who to vote for. But I know do want a party who understands what it is to struggle to afford basic needs; to stand in a shop and agonise over buying something worth £5.

Always check your facts crumpet, mumsnetters are gits for pulling you up if you don't