Vote the conservatives out

[Consent2trix]

you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/a-vote-of-no-confidence-in-the-conservative-party-running-the-uk?source=facebook-share-button&time=1434571593

angela Merkel.
Or Francoise Hollande.

Seriously.

"If you don't like it why don't you emigrate"
Believe it or not, there are some people who care about the future of this country. You know, the one where we were born raised and are half fond of.

The thing with proportional representation, is that it would have seen a conservative-UKIP coalition in the recent election.

Does anyone on here want that?

...And there are some people who care equally deeply about the future of this country and want it ruled by Sharia Law or UKIP or SNP etc .

There are many different forms of PR and only some can we accurately use previous election results to get a potential outcome.

However, if the people vote for a conservative/Ukip coalition then that's what we should have. I wouldn't like it but that's what democracy is. It would be up to everyone else to make sure they voted next time and put their car forward better.

I don't think not liking the result is a good enough reason to keep an unfair voting system.

I don't think not liking the result is a good enough reason to keep an unfair voting system.

Labour campaigned pretty solidly against AV. I realise that AV isn't PR, but it would have put the issue of electoral reform on the table and broken the assumption that it's FPTP or nothing. Labour was under the (incorrect) impression that they were on course to win the next election and that AV would dilute their crushing majority come 2015. In this, as in so many things, the Miliband regime was utterly deluded.

In all fairness AV was crap but I knew at the time it would a) not get through b) turn into the 'public voted against PR or changing the voting system' rather than 'voting against AV'.

I don't think labour or the tories are interested in changing it because it would change the political landscape and not necessarily to their advantage.

Yet another example of how our political system is about getting voted in and being in power rather than representing the people.

"If it makes the bitter pill of defeat easier for you to swallow to believe that people were conned into making a choice that you dont like them so be it."

I believe that the Tories are doing what they've always done, creating a bogey-man for people to blame for society's ills, massively exaggerating existing issues, to make us all too busy pointing the finger at each other to focus too clearly on what they're doing.

The bogey-man is always a group with no voice.

In the 80s is was single mothers - everything was their fault, and the Tories stood for "family values". What a load of bollocks that was. Pretty damaging if you were a single mother or the child of a single mother at the time.

We've had illegal immigrants being the scapegoats, and by implication all immigrants. The most recent one is benefit scroungers of course, specifically including - shame on the Tories for stooping so low - the disabled.

The Tories do manipulate the voting public, of course they do. If you think they don't you have blinkers on. The vast majority of the UK press is run by Tories and presents a right wing agenda as if it were fact. This affects people's opinions. How could it not?

An Ipsos Mori poll not so long ago found that people had huge misconceptions about things like the level of benefit fraud, immigration, how much is spent on job seekers allowance. The Independent ran an article about it called British public wrong about nearly everything, survey shows !

Most of the things the public were wrong about were things the Tories have campaigned on.

Coincidence? Hardly.

Here are the top 10 misconceptions:

1. Teenage pregnancy: on average, we think teenage pregnancy is 25 times higher than official estimates: we think that 15% of girls under 16 get pregnant each year, when official figures suggest it is around 0.6%[

1. Crime: 58% do not believe that crime is falling, when the Crime Survey for England and Wales shows that incidents of crime were 19% lower in 2012 than in 2006/07 and 53% lower than in 1995. 51% think violent crime is rising, when it has fallen from almost 2.5 million incidents in 2006/07 to under 2 million in 2012.

1. Job-seekers allowance: 29% of people think we spend more on JSA than pensions, when in fact we spend 15 times more on pensions (£4.9bn vs £74.2bn).

1. Benefit fraud: people estimate that 34 times more benefit money is claimed fraudulently than official estimates: the public think that £24 out of every £100 spent on benefits is claimed fraudulently, compared with official estimates of £0.70 per £100.

1. Foreign aid: 26% of people think foreign aid is one of the top 2-3 items government spends most money on, when it actually made up 1.1% of expenditure (£7.9bn) in the 2011/12 financial year. More people select this as a top item of expenditure than pensions (which cost nearly ten times as much, £74bn) and education in the UK (£51.5bn).

1. Religion: we greatly overestimate the proportion of the population who are Muslims: on average we say 24%, compared with 5% in England and Wales. And we underestimate the proportion of Christians: we estimate 34% on average, compared with the actual proportion of 59% in England and Wales.

1. Immigration and ethnicity: the public think that 31% of the population are immigrants, when the official figures are 13%. Even estimates that attempt to account for illegal immigration suggest a figure closer to 15%. There are similar misperceptions on ethnicity: the average estimate is that Black and Asian people make up 30% of the population, when it is actually 11% (or 14% if we include mixed and other non-white ethnic groups).

1. Age: we think the population is much older than it actually is – the average estimate is that 36% of the population are 65+, when only 16% are.

1. Benefit bill: people are most likely to think that capping benefits at £26,000 per household will save most money from a list provided (33% pick this option), over twice the level that select raising the pension age to 66 for both men and women or stopping child benefit when someone in the household earns £50k+. In fact, capping household benefits is estimated to save £290m, compared with £5bn for raising the pension age and £1.7bn for stopping child benefit for wealthier households.

10. Voting: we underestimate the proportion of people who voted in the last general election – our average guess is 43%, when 65% of the electorate actually did (51% of the whole population).

Survey link here

Also, I firmly believe that what the Tories are up to basically amounts to moving power from the government to corporations.

I think they want to take away our human rights and make it normal for people to have to work for benefits, for example.

I believe the quality of life for pretty much everyone except the super-rich will get worse under them, and that if they were honest about what they were up to they wouldn't get in.

I would like to take back something I said earlier - I was typing in haste. I said, in answer to the idea that non-Tory voter should just get over it.

"If this government stood on a platform where they were open about their ideology and the real reasons behind the cuts, and people voted for that then fair enough."

Actually I don't really mean that.

I don't think our engagement with politics should begin and end on election day. It's not about whether I like their policies or not. It's much more than that - I think their actions are totally immoral.

The results of their policies damage thousands upon thousands people, people are in poverty, homeless, sick and even dying as a direct and indirect result of Tory policies. They are destroying this country, in the name of greed. It's evil IMO.

If I can see this happening and I fail to act, other than to put a tick in a box, then I am complicit. So I will take every chance to stand against them, including signing petitions wth about a zillion in one chance of working.

Although - that petition has worked to get us talking though - hasn't it?!

Mumsnet gets funnier by the day!

First we had the excitement about the Protest Against Democracy. Now a petition about a vote about an election!

You lefties need to face up to the fact that the country wants a right-leaning government, thank god.

You're as bonkers as the Greek government.

I think the conservatives are getting our country off in the right direction- so no, ta

Done and thanks.

Shelly

Yes, cunts do want a right leaning government and child poverty.
i hope you are ashamed, but doubt it.

"I think they want to take away our human rights and make it normal for people to have to work for benefits, for example."

Could that be like a salary?

£100 a week or whatever is not a salary. It is a pittance.

No body should be forced to work for that in a rich country like ours.

Would you be happy to look after a family on £100 a week? Would you have a decent standard of living? Would your children get the best opportunities?

There has to be a point where benefits are a safety net not a lifestyle choice so they can't be set as high as a wage.

Also you mention the Tories want to transfer more power to corporations but this thread started off with using Facebook to collect a petition to re-run the election? That's some power they would have if it were possible. It's not otherwise the SNP would have a petition every week till they get the result they want.

They are taking away the safety net.

Also, the main reason benefits get to the levels of a salary are because of housing benefit. And that money isn't going into the pockets of the benefit claimants, it goes direct to landlords.

It represents a huge transfer of wealth from public (ie our) money rather to private hands.

The lack of any kind of policy to deal with the housing crisis from this government - or any government in my lifetime - is a much more serious issue than "benefit lifestyles" which is a con IMO.

Yes there are areas with lots of people on benefits. But lots of those areas did have jobs and industry until Thatcher got rid of the jobs because she was playing politics,.in an attempt to smash the unions.

A couple of generations later, there's still no work yet the people are being called benefit scroungers.

Fucking disgraceful IMO.

Why not make work pay at a living wage instead of robbing the poor to pay the rich which is exactly what they are up to.

This petition is crazy. We will have the opportunity to "vote the Tories out" in five years time. They won the election. That's how democracy works.

Christ, not this pish. We had quite enough of that after the Scottish Indyref. Apparently the majority of voters were tricked and lied to so the outcome doesn't count.

Look, we either have elections or we don't. And you respect the result or you don't.

MorrisZapp what if the majority of voters really were tricked and lied to. What then?

Regarding this governmentioned handing over more power to corporations, I'm not mentioning that glibly or lightly. That really is what they're up to. However it's not something they wish to discuss so you could be forgiven for not knowing about it, it's not generally in the press or the public imagination.

We would all do well to educate ourselves about what powers are being given to corporations however as this will shape the world our DCs and grandchildren grow up in.

One example us the trade agreement TiSA. This an international trade agreement that the US are pushing through and being very secretive about. Our government should be resisting it but as far as I know they agree.

I'll see if I can find some info on it ...

MorrisZapp what if the majority of voters really were tricked and lied to.

They weren't. The "all the other voters are idiots who can't see the truth that I can" line is never convincing.

Ask yourself this: if the trickery and lies were so convincing, why were you able to see through it? What special powers do you think you have that the majority of the population don't?

What Gemauve said.

All political parties accuse each other of lying. It's what they do.

Maybe the electorate wanted the Tory liars more than they wanted the Labour liars?

I detest the Tories btw and would cut my arm off before voting for them. But I respect others' right to vote for who they choose to.