Does anyone find themselves politically homeless?

[mynamefor2025]

Hi

Does anyone else find them selves politically homeless come the may elections?

I can vote SNP, not after what they have done and continue to do to women. They education system is in tatters and they don't seem to be doing anything about it. Though I'm a long standing independence supporter, I won't support then at the cost of women.

Labour - they just follow the rule of Westminster, and not a fan of kier starmer.

Lib dem- nope.

Green's-nope

Torys- only one standing up for women but over all the country's in a shambles due to previous administrations decisions. Again they they their orders from main Westminster party.

Feel like just putting a big line through my paper 🙃

The SNP have backed themselves into a corner with all of their unaffordable overly generous freebies. You can cut a justice budget by 10% and the voters won’t notice much difference, but cut pensions or benefits by 10% and recipients will be outraged. The SNP have been cutting alternative budgets for year upon year, and public services get worse and worse in a country that receives a lot of money per person, all due to so much money being handed out as benefits.

@Mishmosher I was around, just starting Uni, when Maggie came to power. This is my memory. It may not be accurate !

At the time we had lived through a series of strikes, winters of discontent etc under Harold Wilson and Jim Callaghan.

The Tories took a sledge hammer to public owned industries as they drove forward their view of capitalism. Privatisation was the name of the game.

Scotland then, as now, had a large public sector and our industrial heart was struggling to compete, without doubt. But the Conservative view was that the future of the UK lay in the powerhouse of Financial Services and that was the City of London.

In my view this accelerated the division between ‘them & us’ and the haves and have nots. It certainly decimated jobs in traditional industries, without providing alternatives.

Then to compound things, the poll tax was trialled in Scotland, easily the most left wing part of the British Isles. Couple that with policies like right to buy etc and a lot of Scottish societal values were trampled.

For the record, I would naturally fall to the middle of the road, probably liberal type. I have voted Tory in the past, but I am really struggling this time around.

I just cannot see the issue with getting rid of dying industries. I lived in a former mining community for a bit and was staggered when the guy in front of me in the post office was picking up his benefits and was complaining to the guy behind the till that if ‘Maggie’ hadn’t closed the mine he wouldn’t have to claim.

The mine had been shut for 20 years by that stage and this was a relatively young man. He can only have been mid 20s when he was made redundant and this was an area with many other thriving businesses nearby. I was really shocked that he was happy to still blame ‘Maggie’ for his lack of employment and wasn’t looking closer to home. It’s a view though I suppose.

@Mishmosher I don’t disagree with getting rid of dying industries, but as one who worked in the oil industry believe me, it hurts to see the consequences of that industry dying when it’s personal.

But as to the Tories, and as you know, we Scots can hold a grudge like no others.

You’ll know better than me but surely oil is not a dying industry. These are profitable businesses that the government is getting rid of on purpose to meet environmental targets, while shipping oil in from overseas. Have I understood that correctly? If so, where’s the sense in that?

@Mishmosher you are exactly correct on that one. Maybe I should have worded it, seeing my former home town ‘dying’ with the effects of the oil downturn.

party gate? Eat out to help out? Kemi Badenoch?!

Thatcher.

No regard for livelihoods.

Introducing the Poll Tax into Scotland first.

Demanding that no oil should land on Scottish soil.

Poll Tax? I have no issue with it. We’re paying for council services. The poor consumer far more in council services than the wealthy. The poll tax didn’t reflect this of course, it just suggested that instead of loading the vast majority of tax on the better off (as they do with stamp duty, income tax and inheritance tax) that everyone pays the same, like a tv licence.

i don’t necessarily think is fairer than the council tax that we have now but it’s not outrageous.

Partygate was clearly outrageous. Kemi badenoch I have no issue with. Nor eat out to help out. There were pros and cons of deciding to go ahead with it. Pros - helps out hospitality and reduce risks of mental health issues, cons - risk of another spike in cases. If we didn’t want to take any risks at all we’d still be in lockdown.

Im not saying I’m going to vote Tory - I usually vote Labour - but I do think some Indy supporters paint them as the devil spawn when they’re nothing if the sort.

And sold off the council houses

They prioritised eat out to help out over getting kids back in schools.

Subsidised meals and super spreader events, rather than prioritising education.

And Kemi is an outright moron.

I have no problem with selling off the council houses either. I grew up in a dire housing estate but you could tell
the homes that had been sold off just by looking at them. The owners had so much more pride in their homes and made an effort to keep them looking nice.

The mistake was not insisting the council replaced the homes with the money paid.

Which many people took full advantage - including the parents of a boyfriend of mine who were extremely left wing and hated Thatcher with an absolute passion. Somehow, the fact that this was a Tory policy didn't seem to matter to people when it meant they could buy their own homes at a cheaper rate.

agree with @Mishmosher the money raised should have been put back into affordable or social housing, but councils across the political spectrum chose not to do that.

Many of those houses are now buy to let. When the original buyer died they were bought by landlords who are now charging high rents.

The tories brought in the right to buy round about the time of the miners strikes or after? (I would need to ask family) It effectively stopped people from striking as they now had a mortgage to pay and couldnt afford to lose their income. I live in a town where closing the mines decimated the area and nothing was done to help, provide alternative work. It's only now in recent times that the town has started to get back on its feet as it were.

Around and about that time - although remember most people who bought their council houses weren't striking miners, and of course no-one forced anyone to buy their own council houses. The parents of the family I mentioned supported the striking miners and refused to buy coal that winter as it was being brought in from abroad - it was a cold NE Scotland winter for them. Didn't stop them from buying their own council house though - in a naice area where there were very few council houses and which they made a lot of money from when they came to sell it. Come the revolution and all that.

Think the one thing I remember growing up was 'Maggie Thatcher Milk Snatcher' the tories truly hated the Scots.

It was great - no more compulsory warm milk at break time

Only in as much as they're all hopeless - and that's all the parties regardless of whether it's north or south of the border.

The Scots contingent are all currently lacking in capability which is made worse with the underlying Tory/Unionist bias and the sheer vitriol on certain subjects.

For the first time ever I may spoil my vote.

Urgh agree, who on earth wants to drink tepid milk which has been sitting by the radiator? To use a much overused MN word - grim. I don't like any milky drinks like latte coffee or milkshake and that's probably why!

Same. I remember it being delivered and then sitting outside in crates - it would be warm, or freezing cold with ice the burst up through the foil tops, or sometimes the birds would peck through the foil and drink it. I can't recall classrooms of children being devastated when this stopped being a compulsory part of break time.

I just be in the minority. I sued to like sitting down to my milk. Would be only time I would do so

Completely homeless - will probably end up voting libdem as the least
offensive option out of a bad list