An open letter to everyone who voted Conservative

[blacksunday]

To everyone who voted conservative yesterday,

I hope you’re happy. Actually that’s a lie, I really don’t. But before you sit smugly down and give yourself a big pat on the back I’d like to ask you a few questions.

Do you think you haven’t benefitted from the system you are currently trying to break down? As a child, did you ever go to hospital? Have you had an education? Did you ever use a library? Have you ever been on a bus? If so, you have benefited from a system which subsidises facilities with taxes. And now you have, you are willing to take it away from everyone after you. Correct me if I’m wrong but that doesn’t seem very fair. You cannot have socialism and a support system when you need it but then be unwilling to support it for other people.

Now if you are someone who has used the private sector more than public services then I also want to know a few things. If you went to private school, or used private medical care as a child, did you pay for it yourself? Now I’m not asking if your parents paid for it, but you personally. I’m guessing the answer is no. So can you genuinely say you worked hard to get these privileges? No baby earns the right to an education. No child works hard to be born into a particular family who can afford healthcare. So why do you think one person is more deserving than another? If you value working hard and getting on how can you see this as fair? Do you really want to live in a world where children are deemed more worthy of education and healthcare based on what family they come from?

If you are someone who uses a lot of private, who are you? Are you one of the 1% who are currently getting richer? If so, are you ok with the fact that your benefit is someone else’s misery, someone’s poverty, someone’s lack of care? Are you ok with the fact that while you got a pay rise 900,000 people had to go to food banks because they literally didn’t have enough money to feed themselves to survive? Do you really believe that you work harder than these people?

If you aren’t one of these few people benefitting from this system then why have you voted for it? Conservatives use rhetoric of working hard and fairness but this is simply not the reality. If you start life without a lot, to get out of that is hard. “Success” stories are pinned up to show that if you work hard you get somewhere. But they are stories because they are anomalies. To come from a background of little education or money and to get a career you want is not the common way, and you can’t do it without a benefit system. We do not live in a system where if you work hard you get somewhere, the system the conservatives are creating means that if you start off well off you stay that way. Because someone who goes to a private school with tiny class sizes and one on one help does not have to work as hard as someone at an underachieving state school with over worked underpaid staff and huge classes. They just don’t.

Now if you are either one of these types of people you have to question whether you really do believe in what you have voted for. Because in voting conservative you are saying you are happy with the last 5 years. You are endorsing food banks. You are endorsing cutting care for the elderly and the mentally ill. You are endorsing a party where over half the MPs voted against gay marriage. You are saying yes to the NHS being privatised. You are saying you are happy with people being put off education based not on ability or passion but by money. You are saying yes to victimising the poor and disabled and scapegoating people based on where they come from. You are saying that you are ok with the incredible inequality in our country today and you are saying you want more of it.

I do not wish poverty on anyone. It is a cruel and harsh life. But what I do wish for you is that you at least experience it. If not first hand, that you witness the harsh trapping reality that is poverty. The gruelling cycle that doesn’t allow a parent to feed their children. That doesn’t allow for parents to feed themselves. And that you see that this is people who are working. People with jobs. And if they aren’t I hope you see that a life on benefits is not the picnic people make it out to be. Nobody wants to be on benefits. Maybe if you see this you will see what you have voted for.

And if you are ok with all of this then you make me sick. I can’t put it any other way. I am so ashamed to come from a country where this is apparently what the majority think. That the majority of people are too selfish to accept any form of tax rise to support those in our society who need help makes me so incredibly sad. Truly you should be ashamed of yourself that you can so heartlessly put yourself first and not see the consequences. I hope that in the next 5 years you fully appreciate what you did yesterday. I hope you know what you have supported and I hope one day you feel guilty. Because I am scared of what the next 5 years will bring and you should be too.

sourdraws … re your “You do love a stat don't you? Also you seem to have it in your head that I'm arguing Labour's cause? You either haven't been reading my posts properly, or you've mistaken me for someone else.”

Yup can’t get enough of them, especially if needing to put soundbites e.g. all jobs are MW or ZH, to bed – as without stats, its 20 posts of ‘she said, then she said’, so saves time and effort.

As to who you support, it could be the Moonies for all I care; the point I try to make on here time and time again, is the Conservatives coalition policies like reducing the size of the State, were often in reaction to Labours record in power - there was no reset button back to what they left in 1997.

So when Labour unbalanced the economy and would be a part of the £157 bil annual overspend they left e.g. over 13-years the Public Sector employment finally grew around 18% and the Private Sector paying for it grew by only 7%, it had to be addressed – especially as Labour seemed to think that increasing non front line government spending/ jobs was a sustainable way to boost GDP, instead over giving businesses/citizens tax cuts – there HAD to be public sector adjustments.

LaVolcano ... who says that they are ZH or MW, everything in the report pointed to salaried, stronger business confidence and a tighter labour market tightening pay rates?

How many working people are on Zero Hours, 1 in 30, how many were on them in May 2010?

P.S. as NET, if there has been under 3 million new non public sector jobs and currently 800,000 workers on Zero Hour Contracts - if every month nearly every job is Zero Hour, under Labour there must have been a HUGE NEGATIVE NUMBER of ZH employees.

i understand that zero hrs contracts is just over 2% of the employment contracts out there. No such a big issue.

I don't know whether they are zero hours or minimum wage, but certainly if Mr Carney's words are correct, and I have no reason to doubt him, low-skilled and low-output do not sound like salaried jobs.

These threads never go well, quotes from right wing papers, quotes from left wing. The Labour supporters claiming they were robbed due to the media, stupid Tory voters or even that their supporters didnt vote on the day.

The fact is that things will be changing, you can grizzle all you like but it WILL change. All of us will need to think about making perhaps different decisions then we would normally.

That's life

LaVolcano .... Carney said job growth skewed towards lower paid jobs and no one quite knows why Productivity is lower, but he does cite possible wage compression from overseas workers as well.

If the economy 'loses a small army of Public Sector workers/managers on £25k - £50k and sees more public sector workers, they don't have to be on the MW or ZH to have an effect.

Wow this thread is something else.

The majority of voters, voted Tory, as did I. I am glad I did. There is no point counting the non voters into it. They didn't vote. As far as GE goes, they don't count. You have no idea how they would have voted. They could have all voted Tory, a mix or all for labour.

To whine and moan about the tories getting whilst also saying you voted for a party that had no chance of even coming close to a majority, or even being able to enter a coalition with the majority party is ridiculous, imo. If you desperately wanted The Tories out, you should have voted for someone who actually had a chance of making that happen.

I voted Tory, because I can not support Ed Balls, he is a shit MP and couldn't give a crap. He isn't trust worthy. I don't believe his or Ed Milibands plans for the country. I don't believe they are the party for working people. They haven't got a clue, neither have any of the celeb mates.

I also won't vote for a party that still rolls Tony Blair out in an attempt to give their current leader some credibility. If I had my way he would have been on trail for war crimes. Whether some Labour MPs opposed it or not, Labour still think Tony Blair has some credibility. Having lost a relative in that shitty war as well as some friends. I will not give my support to party that is so short sighted they think Tony Blair impresses people. I won't give my support to Ed Balls who can't even make sure he has enough money in his own bank account before he writes a cheque, never mind let him look after the country.

People are so sure Labour wouldn't have screwed them over, I am sure they would have screwed everybody. and the n claimed it wasn't their fault. It was the Tories fault, that poor Ed Miliband had no idea things were such a mess when he made his manifesto.

By what token is the 37% of those who did vote tory 'a majority'? Unless either the dictionary has been rewritten or the rules of arithmetic. It happened to give them more seats.

I agree you it's legitimate to ignore those who didn't vote; if they couldn't be bothered then they have to accept who they get.

Agree about Blair though.

I use majority in the term of the won a majority, relating to politics and the GE itself. More voters, voted for them than any other one party. They won the majority. We have so many parties, no one party will ever get over 50% of votes. Especially when people keep insisting on spoiling ballot papers or protest voting.

Yep, OK, and while it's to the advantage of any of the main parties the system won't change. But I think at one time, parties with most seats did get more than 50% of the vote, so it's worth specifying what sort of majority you mean.

Clearly the 'fat' was in non front line services, and maybe apart from the hundreds of thousands on new Labour teaching assistants found not to have made any difference to our childrens education, that is where the axe fell.

Most classes would not function without teaching assistants. they are paid an absolute pittance and put in so many hours for free so that your children receive a decent education. Please do not be so dismissive.

I think they probably did. But it's not likely now. My assumption was, as this is a politics thread about the GE the word majority was self explanatory. But in future I will make sure I make it more clear in future. Thank you

I agree with NRomanoff as far as Bliar goes. I also don't trust this woman at all news.bbc.co.uk/democracylive/hi/representatives/profiles/25253.stm and have to think carefully over whether I can vote for a party which gives people like her any responsibility.

I am not a fan of the Tories at all, so am stuck with minor parties who seem to be becoming less and less relevant, except for the mad racists. There is no one I can vote for in whom I can have any confidence.

No-one has got more than 50% of the vote since the Conservatives in 1930 (after the first Labour govt). Conservatives got 42% of votes in 1992 and v small majority. Labour got 43% in 1997 and a stonking majority.

LumpySpacedPrincess .... please excuse me if I sounded dismissive, I was in a numbers contest trying to identify those public sector jobs that came, and may have gone.

The thing is I knew I was reaching into the back of my mind for a comment I've read before to even mention them, so while individually it seems unfair to the effort that went in (and successes), collectively the policy was seen as an education failure by those that may know more about it than me.

“TA’s;Teaching Assistants impair pupil performance.”
www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storycode=6022071

“Pupils who receive intensive help from teaching assistants make less progress than their classmates, damning research into a key Labour education policy has concluded."

On the subject of majorities; in 2005 Labour had 35% of the vote and had a 66 seat majority while in 2010 the Conservatives had a 36% share of the public vote and was 20 seats SHORT of a majority - which clearly is not explained by the Conservatives failing to surpass the panda numbers in Scotland.

So we need English boundary changes before even the current FPTP system is deemed 'fair'.

A Quote from the comments section of your link isitme

What an unbalanced account - reading towards the end gives a completely different picture
"Alma Harris, pro-director of London University’s Institute of Education, has carried out separate research into the impact of support staff that found they had a positive impact on attainment."

Why print such a misleading headline when all research does not show what it states? Yet again schools and those who work in schools sacrificed on the alter of a soundbite or a titillating headline that must just be there to shock. We have lost balanced reporting - even the TES has been drawn into this!!

ShellyBoobs I'm sorry you're taking it that way and of course you couldn't be more wrong.

Tell me - would you say the same thing to Prof Noam Chomsky, Edward S. Herman, John Pilger, Tariq Ali, Naomi Klein, Seumas Milne or anyone else who writes on the subject of how important the mainstream media is as a tool of established power?

We, ( so for you, that would be me and all the other people I look down my nose at?), need to seek out ALTERNATIVE MEDIA (media outside the mainstream) and get engaged in community action. We can use our own intelligence to make changes in our lives and our communities.

Just for a laugh - tell me honestly and without Googling it up; as you read this, ask yourself, what do you know about TTIP ? If your answer is nothing, don’t feel bad; you’re not meant to.

TTIP ..... in a nutshell, I thought that it opens up competition across much of the world, so our businesses can compete in say America, but no one can force contracts on, say the UK public services ... am I wrong, can they e.g. the NHS, be forced to accept contracts from hostile providers?

Just for a laugh - tell me honestly and without Googling it up; as you read this, ask yourself, what do you know about TTIP ?

Quite a bit in terms of supply chain; I was previously in EMEA SC for a large U.S. corporate and now work in the same field as a consultant. We've been doing a few bits on business feasibility for some UK SMEs in specialist manufacturing areas (pharma and life sciences mainly) where they're looking at the U.S. as a new market.

I know very little about TTIP potential in the public health sector though, that's very true. I'd have to look that up.

betseyfly .... the floor is yours and/or Russell Brands, ed-u-ma-cate us in how TTIP is guaranteed to affect all our lives/pockets, with qualified facts please.

On the subject of majorities; in 2005 Labour had 35% of the vote and had a 66 seat majority while in 2010 the Conservatives had a 36% share of the public vote and was 20 seats SHORT of a majority - which clearly is not explained by the Conservatives failing to surpass the panda numbers in Scotland.

Part of this is down to a lower turnout though too. 2001 and 2005 had lowest turnouts for quiet a long time.

I didn't vote Tory. But I can understand why so many did.

There is no way you can trust the Labour Party in its current form with the economy. I shudder to think about Miliband et al being entrusted with it.

Miliband didn't even have an economic policy. He didn't even accept Labour cocked up before!!!

I am against many of the Tory cuts. But something had to be done. It is head in the sand to deny this.

In a percentage of the popular vote in any given general election, is that relevant, as don't affect the parliamentary 'scores on the Westminster doors' in seats - a 66 seat majority is no less valid on a lower turnout is it?