Why do working class vote for Torries?

[ArvidsDaddy]

Apologies for being provocative. If what it said in the news is to be believed, I am puzzled by why the traditional Labour voters in the North (and South) would vote for the Torries? It is a bit like Turkeys voting for Christmas, both in the election and the Brexit vote. Lack of education? Lack of self-confidence? Lack of empathy?

@Contraceptionismyfriend not protecting somebody’s ego, not demoralising people who are trying to get into work. I could possibly get on board with community service after a long stint on job-seekers, 6 months or whatever, but if it was framed in more of a ‘you’ve had 6 months, it’s time to start giving back, how could you help?’ and use the experience and qualifications that person has to give them something useful to do, coach a sport, visit care homes to help with activities, volunteer in a school, gardening for sheltered housing tenants etc - showing people that they are needed and valuable to society, and that productivity and work isn’t for ‘other people’ would be more effective to get them back into work than sticking them in orange jumpsuits and getting them litter picking!

Some of them will have already spent their lives giving back to the community. And paying NI that contributes to the money they will be receiving. Many of them will have already paid for it. Do you believe in making pensioners do community service to earn their pension?

Exactly @Kungfupanda67

Many people who aren't working do volunteer anyway. I just don't think it should be a condition of getting help.

The ordinary person on the street is living in delusion - we have the power to vote and supposedly make our voices heard in political democracy but in reality we simply hand power back to people who have always held it, the Tories. Tories greatest strength is persuading the poor to allow the rich to continue ruling.
Also, remember that the Tory millionaire press carries out sustained propaganda completely unfettered.

The pension argument is a whole other debate.
At present I can't believe that there is such a difference between those who've worked all their lives and those on pension credit.
In my grandmothers living accommodation she is one of the worse off because she worked.

And also. How many would've actually have been Net contributors?

You can't just walk into a bank and say 'I've been putting money into you for years. I can't put any in now but you can go ahead and give me some'

@Dapplegrey labour.org.uk/press/labours-five-pledges-support-armed-forces/

Right to buy was a massive factor in the growth of support for the Tories in working class communities.

How old are the right-to-buy generation now? Because they were the only generation that got to benefit. Right-to-buy would have been a great scheme if the money generated had been used to supply new council housing. Instead, it was a one-off lottery win for a single generation.

The loss of council-housing stock through right to buy has shafted younger generations who don't have the easy access to cheap, good-quality housing that they could gradually afford to buy instead of rent. Many of them will never hope to buy their own home. Will the Conservative Party retain their support in working class communities once the older generation who benefited has passed on?

@Contraceptionismyfriend Sure you can, it's called an overdraft!

And what's the one massive difference between an overdraft and job seekers 😐

I remember during the miner's strike the NUM officer Mick McGahey was interviewed and he said he "was unsure how to talk to the young generation of miners, but one thing he knew was he couldn't say to the miner with a mortgage, a car and two foreign holidays a year 'let me take you from your suffering brother'".

Governments have not caught up with today's working conditions. I have a friend who writes apps, he moved to Spain with his fiance, so he lives in Spain, works for the Edinburgh branch office of the London office of an American company and he is working on a RyanAir app.

‘Lying is a necessary part of a Tory’s political equipment, for it is essential for him to conceal his real intentions from the people’

Ha I know, I was joking mostly. The idea is also that people on JSA will go back into work and will pay into the National Insurance pot in the future. I don't have the numbers but I can look for them if you really want them. Like I said, I'm happy to pay, hopefully never need it, but know it's there if I or others do and would rather it was there to help people and sometimes get abused than not be there at all. Same as with the NHS, schools, the fire service etc

I would say I'm working class. Since the tories came into power in 2010 they have benefited me greatly. I started my first full time out of college job in 2010 earning £11k. The personal allowance then was around £6k. It is now £12.5k. Meaning that every low earning person is now paying far less tax than they were under the last labour government. Whilst I'm now earning £40 something k a year, I'm still a basic rate tax payer when 10 years ago that would not have been the case. I also bought my first house under the help to buy scheme. For these reasons I have voted Tory on all previous elections. They have hugely benefited lower income people and penalised those who do not contribute which under my personal circumstances I am not adverse to.

I fortunately have not needed to rely on the nhs or any other public service, maybe my opinion would differ if I had.

I also did not go to university and whilst I would've just missed the £9k fee increase I don't necessarily think it's a bad idea but there perhaps could've been a fairer way to deter people than money. There are far too many people going to university for the amount of graduate level jobs there are in the country, if more people are put off because it's too expensive then there will be less over qualified people working low paid jobs.

However, all that being said this election will be the first time I will not vote for conservatives as I do not want to leave the EU. I also will not be voting for labour as they have sat on the fence for too long over Brexit. So think I may be voting to Lib Dem's by default?!

Fibromyalgia is the new bad back

So @Contraceptionismyfriend you're saying my daughter's constant pain and randomly dislocating joints are as imaginary as her 5 operations to alleviate her scoliosis? What a charmer you come across as. My daughter is too scared to claim DLA/PIP as she knows too many of her friends have been turned down, including two who are wheelchair bound with Spina Bifida.

BTW she works with disadvantaged children in between hospital visits for aforementioned dislocated limbs.

So thanks for your empathy.

Fromthefrontboardsup.... Not agreed policy yet but there are rumblings e. G life.spectator.co.uk/articles/how-will-labours-proposed-tax-grab-affect-your-home/

Not an expert on policy by a long way but a lot of a labour's ideas don't sit right with me. They are good at pulling ladders up behind themselves.

@DoctorTwo just like actual bad backs back in the day the real ones do exist.

But it is certainly a band wagon that many have decided to ride on.

Haven't RTFT but I share the OP's mystification. However, I'm not sure that voting preference has as much to do with background as it used to.

These days, you vote Tory if you (1) read a paper owned by Murdoch, Rothermere, Barclay etc. You're indoctrinated on a daily basis that Corbyn is a clown, and anti-Semite, a joke etc etc. Or, if you are born into significant money with a vested interest in keeping taxes low, public spending low etc. But, ultimately, you view politics from the standpoint of "What's in it for me?"

People who are vehemently anti Tory tend to have more of a social conscience. They are less concerned with personal gain, and more interested in a more equal society, with better welfare provision and better universal healthcare. Purely anecdotally, I have found that they are more interested in finding out about actual policies and will not accept the word of the newspapers, of any bent, as gospel.

Yes, I am vehemently anti Tory. But I've yet to meet anyone who votes Tory who can justify to me why it's better, not just for me but for the majority of the population.

Personal tax allowance went up from £3005 to just over £4000 under the Tories between 90 and 97, and the rose to almost £7000 under labour after that so you could also argue that low earners benefited greatly in that labour period, too.
Income inequality, despite you feeling you have benefited, remains almost completely unchanged, with the top 45% of UK wealth held by the richest 10% and the poorest 10% of the population holding just 1% of UK wealth.
The fiddling with personal tax allowance at the bottom makes very little overall difference.

That’s not what the pp is saying. They are talking about the number of false claimants who make it more difficult for real sufferers, but that it’s difficult to tell them apart and they put a blight on people that actually need help- stretching resources and giving claimants a bad name.

We need a decent political education in this country.
So many working class tory voters cling onto carefully engineered sound bites based on fear mongering and scapegoating. And LIES.

The tories don’t care about you! Time and time again they have been pulled up on their racist, homophobic remarks and them some tory twanker says “JC hates Jews” or “labour want to tax you more” and they are sucked in....

Good examples:
Tory mp: we are going to recruit 20k more officers
Reality: they personally scrapped 21k officers a few yrs ago

Tory mp: we are putting more money into schools
Reality: schools have been crumbling since they came into power and their “increases” still represent losses in real terms! Schools cannot recruit teachers, class sizes are through the roof and the system is at breaking point, however if these cracks show they will sell your child’s school and future to one of their mates to MAKE A PROFIT FROM (hello, it’s a SCHOOL) and they are then free to employ non qualified staff, cheat on national exams and vast sums of money from the funding pot go missing!!!

Tory mp: grenfell victims should have had the common sense to get out, the fire service are to blame
Reality: fire services cut by the tories themselves, cheap cladding caused the sheer number of deaths

We need a press that isn’t owned by their Tory mates so maybe they would show the world what they really are and we need some actual accountability.
I don’t get why people aren’t more angry at them!!!!

@OhMyDarling 👏👏👏👏 hear hear

The Spectator is owned by the Barclay brothers. They have a net worth of £7.2 billion. They are extremely right-wing. What is published in their ‘publications’ is at the very least biased, at worst nothing short of propaganda. And they employ the sweaty ballsack Rod Liddle.

@confusedandemployed the attitude that people who vote differently to you is because they’re stupid is very unpleasant.

I have a social conscience. I believe in helping everyone to achieve what they can. I don’t believe the way to do that is increasing welfare.

I believe when you increase benefits (and anything that is free at the point of use) you take away personal responsibility. It’s no coincidence there are so many dads who feel they can leave and not provide for their kids - why do they have to, the state will?

Social conscience shouldn’t be provided by a government, society is made up of individuals. People who use food banks should see those individual people giving up their free time to help them, so that when they’re in a better place they know that it takes people not help, not the faceless state - hopefully they’ll then give back when they can.

I disagree with lots of Tory policies, I disagree with lots of labour ones. Making sweeping statements that people only vote Tory because they read the mail and lack empathy is silly. Have enough respect for people that just because their opinion is different from yours, doesn’t mean they’re wrong.

I'm DM to 2 DC and have a DH. I'm late twenties and didn't go to university but DH did. I work public sector and DH is in travel. I'm voting Tory and so it everyone else I know - including NHS workers and 2 people with disabled DC.

Labour seem to think the playing field can be completely levelled, but it's ridiculous. You always need people to be bin men/cleaners/other low paid and unskilled work.

Universities have never been easier to access so anyone who wants to 'better themselves' can do it. 95% mortgages are available- and as a mortgage adviser, absolutely no way should we go back to 100% mortgage days.

I want to pay into a pot that supports those who need it, that pays for a good NHS and ultimately builds us a strong economy post Brexit. The Tories are the only party in the U.K. who can offer this.

Also despise Corbyn's defence plans, ideas about decommissioning trident and his awful anti Semitism.

There is a very unpleasant echo chamber of hatred directed at for those who don't vote Labour.

I am astonished by the patronising tone that in some way Labour is morally superior.

Before you start throwing mud at those who don't vote the way you do perhaps look at Labours history and it's overall ethics. They are no more glorious than any other party and the level of hatred on MN and social media is astonishing.

I am working class, educated and respectful of all political views

@RaininSummer but you said yourself this isn't a Labour policy. And as someone else said, I wouldn't believe the Spectator, it's desperate to get the Tories back in power. I base my decisions on the policies themselves that the parties announce, don't believe the press! (On either side)