Ronald - its precisely these types of statements "if you vote tory then you must be selfish" that means that
a) tory voters don't respond to polls so they become unreliable in terms of predictions.
b) tory voters avoid posting on threads on MN because they feel so under attack
c) we stop debating issues that need proper grown up discussions.
I am not selfish, or an idiot, or grasping, or not understanding of the funding crisis in education/health/whatever else.
the plain truth is you cant keep doing more stuff for the same or less cost. there is no "someone else" to pay for things. its all of us. I am happy to pay more, much more, but if and only if I feel that I get value for money for these services and at the moment I just do not see that I do. lots of people feel like this. it doesn't make us selfish.
for every post about school funding I look at my kids schools and see the huge number of non teaching posts - vast in comparison to what there was when I was at school and I simply have no idea why or how these can be justified despite asking the schools and doing my own research.
for every post about NHS funding there is that feeling from me that a lot of people pitch up to A and E when they really don't need to. because they can and that is about personal responsibility as much as it is about availability of ooh doctors.
You cant on the one hand moan about the retirement age being raised and simultaneously moan that there isn't enough quality elderly care. the state system was never meant to care for pensioners for 30 or 40 years. the original age of 65 was set because over 50% of men were dead by then! how many of us have parents/grandparents who have been retired for as long as they worked. My fil retired at 59 because he could. now late 80's. how is that ever in any world going to be sustainable?
frank field did a lot of excellent work on this but his work was dismissed. we need to start a proper debate about these issues instead of throwing more and more money at NHS, schools etc.
for me it comes down to this: would I sooner vote for someone who isn't media savvy/friendly like TM or vote for JC, a man I worked with and whose vile character traits I know all about.
why do we want our politicians to be media friendly. wasn't that Tony Blair?