I'm at a loss - why are the LD's being punished and who is voting Tory?

[smashingtime]

It feels to me as though the LD's are being punished for the Coalition but really it is mostly Tory policies which are in the process of ruining the country. The Tories haven't done badly in these elections so are most people really unaffected by cuts or is it the grey vote that is making the difference?

Lol at LFN! (How can you robustly defend tax avoidance??)

Carmina, journalists often don't check their sources. For example, front page of Telegraph and Daily Mail on the day that Osama Bin Laden was caught: they both said he had used his wife as a human shield. That turns out to be totally incorrect. Other papers said the same.

Also, some journalists are not trained mathematicians, and don't know how to analyse statistics. They know that people like to read about benefit scroungers so they look up some 'survey'. All that means is that some interest group or other has picked on a certain group of people, asked them certain questions designed to elicit certain answers and reported their 'research'. Journalist comes along and quotes it. For example, I could go round to four of my neighbours and ask them if they work and if they have ever received benefits from the state. They would all say 'no' to the first question and 'yes' to the second. Neighbour A is disabled, Neighbour B is the rich elderly widow of a colonel, Neighbour C is the 68-year-old owner of at least 11 highly-priced, prime-location properties which she lets to professional couples and Neighbour D was injured in Afghanistan. That gets reported as 'Benefit scroungers'.

Carmina, sorry for going on at such length, as I am sure you know this. The main job of newspapers is to sell newspapers.

Edam - I am not insulting all journalists, btw - I have great respect for the ones who do their jobs properly. Hope no-one takes it like that.

Spot the tribal labour supporters on here. Jeez.

mellow - that's an entirely fair point. Too few journalists have a maths or science background so most of 'em struggle with stats. When teenagers ask me what subjects they should take to get into journalism, I always ask if they enjoy science, because it will make them stand out.

The popular support the Lib Dems gained at the election was from disappointed Labour voters and the novelty value of Nick Clegg in the TV debates from the floating centre. They promised polices that seemed more leftwing than New Labour. Apart from suggesting that the deficit could be paid back by cancelling Trident, their most popular policy was on tuition fees, but they made no stand on it when the crunch came (and possibly made it more complicated). They seemed to think the public would prioritise ID cards, detention centres and AV as they do, but most people can't be arsed about issues that don't affect their everyday lives and are more concerned about taxes, schools, hospitals. If they make a stand on the NHS they may regain some support, but I think it will be too late. Cameron is going to wrong-foot them by appearing to make concessions that he would have made anyway in the fact of criticism from professionals and their own party. They're stuffed from now on, I think.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought the Lib Dem vote didn't change substantially at the last election? Wasn't there a feeling of surprise that purported Cleggmania actually didn't translate into extra votes?

I voted Tory because my LD controlled council is completely hopeless and is running what was a lovely city to live in into the ground. I would have voted green but wanted the best chance to harm the number of LD seats. It didn't work sadly :(

edam - that is my understanding too.

What merylstrop said on page 1.
The power of Clegg was massively hyped up by the media last year - couldn't understand any of it myself as he is a privileged career politician and a blatant power seeker with the least conviction of any politician since John Redwood.
Can't say I would ever vote Tory in a million years, but Cameron is at least implementing right wing policies, exactly as he said he would do, and in the manner of how every Tory government has behaved in the last 100 years.
Am surprised anyone is surprised about Clegg.
Also what Edam said.

Mami, agree with you, people aren't surprised at the Tories being Tories and attacking public services and the poor and vulnerable. (Except those who fell for Cameron's 'we've changed' bollocks.) They are angry at the Lib Dems who should know better.

But I'm really uncomfortable with the way they are blaming Clegg. Why do we always single out individuals to carry the can? He is just the little white head on the top of the pimple.

Shirley Williams on Question Time was repeating the notion that the LibDems knew what they were doing when they went into the coalition with the Tories and were selflessly sacrificing themselves for the good of the nation - knowing that their party's popularity would suffer as a result. i think there could well be some truth in that. But could they have guessed how virulent the attacks against them would be, I wonder?

The main problem (or their main stregth, depending on your pov) seems to be that there is a north-south split in Libdem ranks, with the southerners being Torylite and the northerners being pinko social democrats.

That's the problem with these political parties, imo. The political system as it stands creates all these false divisions - I'm really not sure we're best served by our adversarial party system. The only thing that could ever bring them together in the best interests of the nation would be a war or natural disaster (or royal wedding, perhaps).

Someone come up with a better system ...

So, this deficit. Basically, income less than expenditure. 2 solutions : cut spending or increase income. How about actually collecting the correct amount of tax? Just a thought.

Not convinced, Giddy. have you looked at PCS stuff (they're the people who compile the govt stats) or False Economy? (sorry no links)

Anyway, agree it's because LibDems lied, but Tories always told us they were bastards who know the price of everything and the value of nothing, so we weren't disappointed. Just nauseated.

A third of the UK votes Tory most of the time (BBC statistic) apparently. I have friends who are Tory and friends who are socialist. None are obviously more nasty than the others. They just see things differently. And the Tories aren't necessarily the 'rich' ones. Doesn't anyone else have a mixed group of friends to give them some perspective?

Those who vote Tory are rich and selfish, or/and misguided fools.

FACT.

What pleases me most about Red Ed is that he seems to believe exactly what HHLimbo believes.

They just doesn't get why people vote Tory. A hint: it isn't because they are rich.

David Miliband sort-of-understood, but only at a nerdy, wonky, level. Blair understood these voters in his gut. Brown never understood, at any level. Red Ed looks like he won't either.

LFN - They just doesn't get why people vote Tory. A hint: it isn't because they are rich.
Totally agree. It's because they are trying their best and are striving to be independent. tbh I really fear for this country, it appears there is an ever diminishing number of people propping up the fat, bloated state.

P.S.

Either as clients of the state, or those servicing them. Now that's a vested interest.

The real tragedy is Tories who genuinely believe that people like Osborne actually care about crap like 'broken Britain' and poverty and convince themselves that, since they've got a couple of rungs up the ladder because of free education, grants, affordable housing, etc they've done it all themselves and so can everybody else so we don't need the public sector. LOL! Let me know how you get on.

HHLimbo - how would you summarise those who vote Labour, Lib Dem, UKiP, Green etc? Just wondered since you seem to have such a subtle handle on the precise character of millions of people.