why don't more women join Labour party?

[tabbymoomoo]

I would love to know why women Typically vote tory? conservatives ideology goes againist equality, when equality is a fundamental value of the labour party.

We should all be voting for labour because they are the founders of; the two weeks of referral for all
atients with breast problems,opened surestart centres,flexible
working for parents,national minimum wage,working tax credit,9 months paid maternity,Free nursery provision,fairer pension system.
for women,funded 36 Sexual Assault Referral Centres and
expanded the number of domestic violence
courts,96 women
with more women MPs then the other political parties put together,NHS,£370 million to deliver
improved short break services for families with
disabled children, Human rights.
The list goes on and on.

Also the current coalition cuts will hit women three times as hard as men, even though they earned and own less than men.
look at the things being cut: child benefit,housing benefit, health in pregnancy,tax credits,surestart,free swimming for under 16's and more. This will directly effect women.
it would be interesting to know your views.

That's what pisses me off when a poster like Tabby come on here; the assumption that we haven't thought it through because we are mums and therefore stupid.

I know that there are ideological and personal reasons why some will vote Labour, and with both Riven and Sancti it is a carefully thought out position. Equally however, the politrolls (not Riven and Sancti!) that come on here should accept that those of us who are not Socialist have equally well thought out positions on why we don't vote Labour.

Sancti - entirely agree about the assumption re tax credits.

I felt more patronised and oppressed under Labour than I ever have under a Tory government.

They don't like it because we are not stupid enough. Watch that clip of Hazel Blears lying through her teeth. Watch the three stooges laughing and chuckling, thinking that Hazel had deceived everyone and pulled the wool over their eyes.

They've all pulled the wool over the public's eyes for too long. The public has woken up and extricated itself from the spider's web that the Labour spinners had lured them into. The progressives don't like it, they realise that they will never regain power unless they find better ways of fooling the public.

Be assured they're working on it. They've started calling themselves "optimists" now, probably because "progressives" is starting to wear thin. There's nothing they won't try, no level to which they won't stoop. We'll see it all over the next few years as they get more and more desperate.

The killer facts about Labour is that despite being in power well over a decade the poor are still poor and society has become even more unequal and some children are educated in terrible schools despite the millions spent and the economy was nearly destroyed by lax regulation of financial services and profligate Govt spending.

Those facts matter and they are damning.

They have never pulled the wool over my eyes. The only thing on which I have ever agreed with them was going into Iraq.

I didn't vote for them in 1997 (no change from when I first voted at 18) and I can envisage no circumstances under which I ever would vote for them either.

They can call themselves what they like - they are old Labour under the skin, and I really didn't like them.

scaryteacher, well done, you are wiser than I am. To my eternal shame, I must admit that I was once deceived by them and fell for their lies.

BeenBeta has mentioned some of the facts of their period in office, and there are many more similar facts, too long and too painful to mention. But then they don't deal in facts, they only deal in spin. There are so many spinners amongst them, so many spinning mills churning out lies, that they even established their HQ at Millbank Towers, the centre of deception.

The public thought that they had seen the back of Hazel Blears, but no, she bounced back like a Jack in the Box. But if you think it can't get any worse than her, just wait until you see the rest of the characters that they've got lined up for you.

I am of the era that remembers the Winter of Discontent. One of my memories of the TV of that period was seeing Red Robbo on the news. Scargill and Gormley made my flesh creep. I thought Callaghan was a twerp and Michael Foot could have stayed for years as he made them so unelectable. I loathed Kinnock nearly as much as I loathed Blair and Brown and the Prince of Darkness, and that's saying something. The only good egg and the one who might have made a huge difference was John Smith.

SanctiMoanyArse

welcome to the LP. It is much more fun than the other parties

There are plenty of women in my local Labour party. Not enough young ones, though, admittedly.

People don't vote Labour because nearly every Labour Government that there has ever been has left the country with a severe budgetary crisis. The current budget deficit that the Brown/Blair Government racked up was due to sheer economic illiteracy as they believed that they had abolished the economic cycle.

Add to this the starting of a war that many believe was illegal and that has killed 100,000s of people at the whim of the United States then you can't blame people for not voting or wanting to contribute to this party.

I agree JOhn Smith was amazing but have had a few dealings with Gleny Kinnock (contacted ehr when doing a Diss. on slavery, I was looking at modern slavery at that stage, she's a local politician) an found her to be incredibly supportive- and I wasn't even a Lab supporter then.

That counts IMO. At least it does to me, be odd if it did not.

MrsDL- thanks. So far, tehy seem good They;ve beaten my temporary interest in the greens anyway becuase at last they don't send each other nasty e-mails via circulation groups that we can all see- most offputting

Yes, your comment to me did seem like a personal attack. I was responding to the OP's naive and condescending post. Just to clear that up.

OK well it was in angered response to a comment that still reads ro me like a condemnation of anyone who votes otyher than as you choose.

Which is something that always grates.

And it certainly can be read that way. But I am not going to take overe this thread debating it; you know where MNHQ are for deletions.

Well I have to say Labour has done some fantastic things during their time in power.

Two things I was particularly impressed with was raising the educational achievement of kids in deprived areas. I know one such area and in the past, they were so far below the national average, barely one out of five children got decent GCSEa (5 A-Cs). Now they are at the national average - and with the same teachers, leadership and buildings. Fantastic that so many more kids are leaving with better chances in life and less likely to end up on benefits. I can only put this down to better school funding and a more equal society under Labour.

The second thing is what has happened to crime - it has plumeted, gone down through the floor. I was so impressed. Again I think this is all linked together - perhaps kids with better chances in life dont want to end up in jail? Perhaps they behave better because they have a job and are intergrated and respected in their society?
Conservative do a lot of 'hard talk' on crime but when you look at their record, crime gets worse.

So why did I not vote Labour? Iraq, didnt think GB was a good leader, tuition fees, and just felt they were not listening to people anymore.
The Lib-Dems had great policies and 'fit' me so much better.

I really like it that they have got more women in parliament. This article also makes me think that we should have a minimum number of women in parliament.

lifeinlimbo I don't see how under our current electoral system or AV a minimum number of women or any other demograph could be guaranteed.
Only using a closed list electoral system can this be achieved and theres no chance of that system being adopted.

hudds I say only that Labour increased the number of women in parliament, and that this is good. Will the conservatives reach similar achievements? (haha).

Conservatives criticise Labour for its welfare spending, but look at the facts here!
Yes, welfare spending rose LESS under Labour than in any previous government. Well done Labour.

'I can only put this down to better school funding and a more equal society under Labour.'

That'll be the Labour govt who starved schools in areas such as Cornwall of funding to redirect it to those in Labour heartlands would it?

As for a reduction on crime - that's because they can tick more boxes on soft crime, like not having a numberplate on your car than by actually doing anything about hard crime. If they don't follow it up it doesn't go in the figures does it?

There is a really interesting column in the Times today (can't link as behind the paywall) about how Ed Miliband and the Labour Party in general fail at the recipriocity of liking. The theory is that, if you don't like the voters, then they won't like you.

Hopefully two small quotes won't break copywrite!

"Looking back, I think that one of the crucial political steps from William Hague?s leadership of the Conservative Party to David Cameron?s came with an understanding that liking is reciprocal. Swing voters wouldn?t like the Tories until the Tories liked swing voters. Mr Hague?s Conservatives didn?t look like swing voters, didn?t talk like swing voters and couldn?t understand swing voters. The reaction of swing voters to this was predictable."

"Anyway, I think the reciprocity of liking might turn out to be Ed Miliband?s big problem. Ed, like his brother, is an intelligent, rather nice man. He?s a bit serious sometimes, perhaps, but maybe that is just because he cares a lot about the politics of belonging and it weighs him down or something. I don?t, however, think he much likes or understands people who voted for David Cameron. He regards supporting the Conservatives as a very odd thing to do. He gives you ? and I am not the only person to experience this ? a sort of compassionate but rather irritated look, as if you are a bit dim, perhaps, and certainly a great disappointment to him."

I think this thread is a really good example of that - if you approach those who voted differently than you as being wrong and a bit thick, they won't listen and they won't like you. If you approach them as having valid concerns and opinions, and sharing those concerns then they will open up and think that maybe you do have a point after all. Tony Blair did that, Cameron is making a decent fist of it, but I think the labour party really don't understand why people might not think like they do, and until they do again, they aren't going to convince people that they are the party for them.

Good point lucky1979.

I think they understand why people don't think like they do, because they themselves know that they are wrong, and are angry that the people who disagree with them can't be easily hoodwinked.

We saw the classic example of that when the life-long Labour supporter, Mrs. Duffy of Rochdale, dared to ask Gordon Brown a few questions. He was flabbergasted, who did she think she was? His answer was that she was a bigot. Mrs. Duffy actually liked Gordon, she tried to reason with him, "but Gordon", she said. But there was no reciprocity of liking, he just thought that she was a bigoted woman.

"I think they understand why people don't think like they do, because they themselves know that they are wrong, and are angry that the people who disagree with them can't be easily hoodwinked."

I don't agree with that, I think they absolutely believe in what they're doing and what they're saying, hence this inability to understand why other people don't think in the same way. I don't think it's party specific either, as in the quote that I posted above, the Tories had the same problem.

It's the attitude that if they just EXPLAIN it a bit more then people will get it, rather than accepting that people might have a different viewpoint.

She'd always liked him. But when she discovered that there was no reciprocity of liking, she was devastated. The public were the same. When they discovered that there was also no reciprocity of liking, they decided to withhold their vote.

I am not as certain as you that they believe what they are doing and what they are saying.

This is a quote about Ed Miliband's leadershoip speech at conference recently.

"In his first speech to Labour's annual conference on Tuesday, Miliband distanced himself from key policies of Labour's 13-year rule, particularly its support for the 2003 invasion of Iraq and its handling of the economy.

Asked by the BBC if he was not guilty of hypocrisy and opportunism when he had been an adviser or minister in successive Labour governments, Miliband said: "I'm not going to deny my associations with the past government. But the real issue is do you have the courage and the humility to change and recognise where you went wrong?"

Proclaiming he was part of a new generation, Miliband criticised Brown on Tuesday for his claim to have ended "boom and bust" and berated Labour for not resisting financial market deregulation. He plans to ditch Labour's old policy of university tuition fees in favour of a graduate tax."

They'll change their mind like the wind. Now Mrs. Duffy is no longer a bigot, she is a VIP with a front-row seat at the conference, and it is very important to shake her hand on camera and court her approval.