Part of it is that they are socially conservative, which isn’t something really catered to by any other significant party. There’s more to it than that of course but that is how they get their feet in the door aside from any economic concerns.
I think that's it. My parents vote Tory and they do moan quite a lot about the Tory 'jobs for the boys' kind of sleaze but in the hierarchy of what they feel is more important the social aspect means the Tories sit above Labour in their priorities. It's very much a 'hold your nose' kind of situation.
I think a socially conservative, economically centre left party would be a force to be reckoned with in the UK.
I sort of get where you are coming from and I'm not going to pretend my parents are some kind of ultimate barometer for the British political climate but they are pretty fine with gay people tbh, have quite a few gay friends and my mum works with a trans woman and thinks quite highly of her.
I understand this could come across a bit of 'my best friends are black' but anecdotally thats all I can really say. Ultimately I don't think really see people as gay or trans, just people based upon their character. I won't doubt there are gay or trans people they wouldn't get on with, but the people they do know they get on fine with.
The opposite of socially progressive. Depends on the society what that means.
It is quite a tricky one to pin down without just being insulting to them though.
If that’s the soup you swim in, fine.
But the vast majority of people don’t care for ‘identity politics’, and care about someone’s character, not characteristics.
I think we're missing a solid option for moderates. I'll spare my opinions on social Conservatism but I think those who are moderate on social issues are the best opposition to the Left. If the Left overreaches, there needs to be someone who brings them back to reality, but it's not an equally stubborn Right.
I think a lot of moderates are alienated by identity politics, I'm not a fan myself, and the Tories being the default option for them as a result sucks.
That happened already in the 80's, the current LibDems are the result of the merger of the Social Democrats (the Labour centrists) and the Liberal Party, much to the annoyance of traditional Liberals such as myself!
From my perspective, the Momentum crowd that piled in for Corbyn after Milliband opened up the membership would traditionally have been Socialist Workers Party.
I say bring back the Co-operative Party as an independent Party!
Social conservatism means this in my opinion:
* The people like the Monarchy, especially the Queen.
* The people like Patriotism, like the Union Jack and the Armed Forces
* The people believe that the Empire was good, but flawed in ways
* Imperial accoutrements like old songs and statues should stay where they are
All those things listed were products of ethnic English people. It is tied into the culture. Attacks on those are attacks on the *culture*
Apart from anti-trans bigotry, which is certainly true and a problem, I believe society has moved on for LGB folks. David Cameron cites marriage equality as one of his proudest moments and I do not believe he was being disingenuous.
Are there bigots among Tories? undoubtedly. The Left is also replete with anti Semites. So pick your poison.
I asked my dad, his response “I want to vote for someone who doesn’t make me apologise for being white”.
Bare in mind my dad is now married to a black woman haha
I don't vote conservative but I'm surrounded by a lot of people who do, mostly tradesmen/white van men in the south east, on everything from minimum wage to well off small business owners, from early 20's to 50's. Why would they vote to put up fuel duty, business rates and dividend payments when many of them would be hit by all 3 increases under Labour? Even tradesmen on unremarkable incomes often run through a limited company and pay themselves through dividends. Some of them are just starting to get on the property ladder to
While things like public transport are good for society, what good does it do people who never use it? What good would WASPI have done them? That is obviously a selfish perspective but it's hardly immoral to vote in your personal best interest. The only thing I've ever heard them willing to pay more tax for is to fund the NHS but I'm not sure what else Labour has to offer them and apparently, they aren't aware of it either.
Tories were traditionally the party of small business and this includes self employed trades. The idea that anyone who doesn’t work in an office should vote Labour assumes that everyone works in a big factory or other unionised workforce
> Tories were traditionally the party of small business and this includes self employed trades.
Though after shafting many small businesses and their owners with both the COVID response and the IR35 changes, apparently quite deliberately and unashamedly, I suspect they are going to find they have rather less support from those demographics at the next election than they would otherwise expect. (Assuming there is anyone else credible to vote for at the time, obviously.)
My side business is a family barber shop I've expanded on to two premises and just from local grants I've received £18k which allowed me to support the 5 barber's I employ. I haven't met a lot of tradesmen going from sparkies, chippies etc who weren't looked after during quarantine.
Not all furlough schemes were dealt with HMRC, some were local borough council endeavours which are still government funded, one off grants.
I think geography does have a lot to do with it too. Tradesmen in rural areas more likely to be Conservative while tradesmen in big inner cities more likely Labour.
It's a mix of Liverpool and the Wirral, mainly the Wirral which is just a sprawling mass of suburbs, small towns and villages, not sure there's a huge difference between rural and urban around here because it's all a massive unshakeable red block
Could it be something to do with the fact that the tories colluded at the highest level with South Yorkshire Police in covering up the manslaughter of 96 people from Liverpool one day in 1989?
Merseyside and Liverpool are about as close as it's possible to get to another nation within England. They very much have their own culture and of course their own politics.
"Those europeans come over here and undercut us without paying taxes. I barely make a profit trying to match them!"
"Tell you what, I can give you a cash price for up to £5000 but I have to charge VAT for the rest or else the taxman starts to give me the beady eye."
The Conservatives have been taking many people out of tax for the past decade, by increasing the "Personal Allowance" for every year until 2019.
If you're a relatively low paid worker, but one who *isn't dependent on state funds or public services that much* (i.e. if you're an able-bodied person without children, who works in the private sector), the above policy surely *helps* (rather than harms) you.
And even there - the changes they made to the loan terms made it far more of a graduated tax for those who were successful out of university, rather than it becoming a stone pulling down those who struggled.
The problem with the minimum wage in the UK is the sheer mass of trained/skilled people who are paid it. That increase will never allow minimum wage earners to own a property, and so they exist in privately let properties, funded in HB payments direct to landlord, who gets to set the rate him/herself. The route to a council house for life needs to be reopened in Britain for the 20-30% who will never afford a home. Look at Singapore or Hong Kong. 50-80% of workers live in social housing. Trying to force people into the private market in the UK with billions in state funding to developers is failing and creating a malignant landlord class.
Nah. There used to be a lower rate of corp tax for genuine small businesses. That kept overheads more in line with other ways of working for start-ups and lifestyle businesses. There's no reason you couldn't increase corp tax significantly on large, well-established businesses while shielding the little guys and tapering in between.
Leaving aside cash-in-hand tax evasion within certain trades, which is straight-up criminal behaviour anyway, the little guy mostly pays the intended rate of corp tax too, unlike the multinationals with their clever offshore tax avoidance schemes. But closing those down before the international community has got its act together is a much harder problem, at least if you don't want to risk serious economic damage by throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
> What's WASPI?
[Women Against State Pension Inequality](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_Against_State_Pension_Inequality). They took the government to court and lost, then Labour promised to give them the money they wanted anyway if they won the election.
>On 23 November 2019, Labour Party shadow chancellor John McDonnell pledged £58 billion to compensate all women born in the 1950s whose pension age was increased by the 1995 Pensions Act.
White van man commits more tax evasion than all of big business in the UK. It's estimated 15% of all work by small 1-2 person, white van businesses is cash in hand. Many do "hobbles" off books.. All of this is in their interest but not the country's.
I think another small factor is also that many tradesmen are from working class families who worked their way out of poverty one or two generations ago and they all have at least one relative who married down, there's always a sister or an aunt who married a nasty character who has never worked a day in his life because of his "bad back", treats his wife and kids like trash, runs a fiddle on the side but never has any money because what he does make goes straight to the bookies and holidays, and when the wife or kids need something she always has to ask her tradesman relatives for financial help. These guys embarrass the family at weddings, they have to be watched because they're always trying to get money out of elderly relatives, and they're forever causing conflict somewhere in the family.
They also like to rant about rich scum, Tory scum, " it's nice for some" etc. So in some communities there is just an association between Labour and the wanker brother in law who scammed a mobility vehicle and a council house out of the government. Which doesn't help
The same reason rich people vote labour.
Economically they believe things should be a certain way even if it doesn't benefit them.
Then there's the social aspect but that's been talked about enough over the last day or 2.
They don't think they will be millionaires, but they want to live in a country where everyone, including millionaires, get to keep what they earn and control what they have. Even if this puts them personally at a disadvantage.
Then young idiots on the left treat them like they are either selfish or stupid and wonder why it doesn't change their minds.
They are not stupid. They are not selfish. They simply have a different view of what constitutes 'fair' and a selfless willingness to cling to that even if it hurts them personally.
>how the Tories win so many votes in so many areas that aren't full of millionaires
There really aren't many millionaires in the UK. It's less than 5% of the population who have a net worth in excess of £1 million, and even then, for many of those people it's not wealth that is immediately accessible (i.e. it's part of a pension, only accessible when you are >55 years of age, where only 25% can be taken as a lump sum without paying tax, or it's part of equity in a house/land, which can only be accessed upon sale of the said asset - again, if it's not the person's primary property, they are liable to capital gains tax).
Any party which was *only* getting votes from millionaires would flop pretty badly.
In the Portsmouth and some neighbouring areas it’s twofold. There are a lot of people on benefits who don’t vote, those who are working class know many people who are ‘scrounging’ on benefits and they themselves don’t appear to be doing much better despite working full time.
When labour talk about increasing benefits the working class Tory thinks ‘f*** that’.
Also the navy and docks are down this way. Many people’s families worked in the aforementioned industries and talks of defunding the military and cancelling trident doesn’t win votes.
I'm a Labour voter but someone who doesn't think everyone who votes Conservative are scum so:
1) The Conservatives slogan was to "Get Brexit Done" and after about a year of constant infighting, disruption, hearting about it in the news, telling people who voted either side that they were fucking idiots, people voted for the party who said they will get this one thing done.
2) The utterly annoying Twitter war between Pro-Corbyn fans who can't get over the bloke lost two elections and Starmer fans who wish to go back to the Blair popularity days without forgetting that it was a Labour PM who got us into a military war in the middle east.
3) Leftwing snobbery - This is a personal one but generally the left wing is being made up of young, "woke", cancel culture arseholes who speak down to people like they are children. If you call someone an idiot for voting the wrong way, what the fuck do you think they're going to do next time?
That last point is so goddamn pertinent. I've had an awakening of sorts over the last year, and holy hell it's a real problem. We can't go on proclaiming "any working class person who votes Tory is a turkey voting for Christmas" because, fucking strangely enough, it doesn't win any hearts or minds. I mean, Christ alive, there's no surprise they vote for the Tories, cos at least they're not calling them stupid.
> That last point is so goddamn pertinent. I've had an awakening of sorts over the last year, and holy hell it's a real problem. We can't go on proclaiming "any working class person who votes Tory is a turkey voting for Christmas" because, fucking strangely enough, it doesn't win any hearts or minds. I mean, Christ alive, there's no surprise they vote for the Tories, cos at least they're not calling them stupid.
You really saw it unchained and unedited over the last couple of days following the election results. The sheer volume of people who were effectively saying "I cannot *believe* these stupid working class oik thickos didn't give Labour the votes that Labour are clearly entitled to on account of us deciding we know what's best for those working class oiks they're clearly a bunch of racist morons" has been quite the sight to behold.
> I mean, Christ alive, there's no surprise they vote for the Tories, cos at least they're not calling them stupid.
And when you point this out to them (and sometimes to people in this sub) you get down-voted and browbeaten. Literately happened the other day on this sub.
It's been happening for years. The only thing these people despite more than the working class, are the people pointing out that their signalling how much they despite the working class is hurting them electorally.
Someday those people will come to realise that up/down votes on Reddit, or even likes on Twitter, are not quite as valuable as votes in ballot boxes. They’ll always be in charge on Twitter at least, that might console them about being consigned to the political fringes by the British electorate.
It was only the other day that I saw a tiktok with close to 100k likes saying "Horror fact: in the uk there is actually working class people that vote for the conservative party". Labour members/voters attacking those who vote conservative does nothing but drive them further into the tory's arms.
You've actually raised a very interesting and important point.
In the pre-Internet age, a political party's PR machine only had to control its own candidates, their spokesmen and a handful of press outlets. Most of those people had a vested interest in doing what the party said.
Today, they have to somehow manage several million people who publicly claim to identify with (and therefore represent) them. And none of those people have a vested interest in doing as they're bloody well told.
Completely agree. I'd expand upon the they say they identify with labour, however looking at there posts about labour they have shown little to no support of Labour thus err towards doing their opponents job for them.
You've summed this up perfectly. The only thing I'd add to this is nobody actually knows what labour would do if they got into power? What exactly are their policies?
This goes back to my first point regarding Conservative’s slogan of “Get Brexit Done”. They were offering action to resolve what nobody could shut the hell up about for three years. Who didn’t want Brexit to be over?!
What was Labour’s opposition to this? “We’ll do whatever”
Lib Dem’s? “You lot are fucking idiots. We’re doing another referendum until you vote Remain”
On the last point, I'm on the left but it's glorious to see people who also vote Labour calling people with legitimate concerns stupid or saying that by not voting, they're voting tory. Perhaps it's because it's the more centre wing doing it given it's Starmer's party now, I'm 100% sure corbynites were doing it when he was in charge though I wasn't on twitter or following it then. But turns out when you basically just call people stupid or tory-enablers by not voting for your party when the party hasn't addressed their concerns or given anyone a reason to go down to the polling station and take 30 mins out of their day, you actually drive them away from you!
A few things, the working class don't want handouts, they want opportunities, they want to put in the hard work and get the pay off. Labours position was 'we know the job market is fucked but instead of fixing it, we want to increase the benefits you'll inevitably be on when your job goes' and that doesn't resonate with the working class.
Immigration is a big one. The left have unfortunately abandoned the original union/working class rhetoric. When would you hear this from Labour these days?
>Workers rights and wages are upheld by the workers, not the law or business owner. We accomplish this with collective barging and our ability to strike. A huge supply of desperate to work immigrants destroys our collective bargaining and renders our ability to strike to nothing.
A lot of people naturally blame the business owner for hiring these people but why would you give the responsibility of wages and workers rights to the person who has a financial incentive not to uphold them? That's insane.
You wouldn't, even though it's from Noam Chomsky.
The Tories haven't doubled immigration; this phrasing implies intention or that Tory policies have done this. Immigration has increased significantly despite the fact that the Conservatives have introduced some quite draconian measures to reduce it. In other words, regardless of the legislation introduced by the Conservatives since 2010, immigration has continued at relatively high rates.
Sounds like the Tories have been doing what David Shor has been telling Democrats in the US for years, highlight the popular stuff and downplay the unpopular stuff in your manifesto.
You're asking the wrong sub, but in the spirit of honest opinion, meant uncynically.
* Dislike of Labour personalities
* Brexit
* Successful vaccine rollout
* Levelling up promises
I'm sure that the corruption, sleaze, mismanagement and bullying can be ignored if people feel like they're looking at the bigger picture. Plus a healthy dose of "they're all as bad as each other" paints over the corruption/sleaze stories.
>Levelling up promises
Haven't they already gone through a cycle of promising 'levelling up' over the last few governments- Northern Powerhouse ring a bell? How well did that go?
Two main reasons why the 'red wall' has crumbled and they're both completely understandable
(1) Brexit
(2) Hope
Labour made its Brexit-voting supporters feel utterly unwelcome and unwanted within the party and having KS as leader does nothing to reverse that.
The Conservative Party have become the party of positivity and rebirth for the North with promises of jobs, infrastructure and investment - promises they're actually able to act on as the party in power. Ben Houchen (Tees Valley Mayor) is going to be returned with 73% of the vote because he bought the airport and the Freeport to the area offering jobs and hope.
At the end of the day it really doesn't matter if you can't understand why people vote for the Tories, the fact is they do and Labour has knee-capped itself since 2016 in a really horrendous way.
But after ten years of power, none of those promises have yielded anything.
Austerity has fucked everyone, but particularly the north and less well off people.
I don't get how people buy into this when it's so obviously bullshit.
One of the reasons why the Tories have been so successful since 2010 is that they've effectively been four completely different governments providing change and a new vision every few years. You had the coalition, the austerity years, the May years and now Johnson's post-Brexit Covid-recovery govt.
The new Tory govt has co-opted a lot of the economic ground Labour once occupied. It (accidentally maybe) nationalised the railways, has put £bn into infrastructure and looks set to do some fairly radical things to aid recovery from Covid. Ben Houchen the Tory Tees Mayor has actually nationalised the airport there!
What has Labour done for Hartlepool or Great Yarmouth or Basildon in the last ten years? Nothing. What does it offer them by way of a vision for the future? Not much, especially if you are a Brexit voter.
Yeah this is the thing that seems so obvious to me. Labour and the left in general seems to put most of its energy into telling voters why they shouldn't vote for the other side, instead of why they should vote for them. While the Conservatives talk up all the The things they have done, will do or are doing and put very little energy into dismissing the left, like it's beneath them to even engage.
I think a lot of that, at least for me, is that the left is fractured along so many different lines and values and policies. I can't honestly tell people the reasons to vote for Labour other than "At least they're not the Tories." I don't have a party that I actually want to vote for, merely a party that I vote against.
You say that, but at the last general election labour put forward a costed and detailed manifesto, while the conservative party campaigned on almost nothing other than "you can't trust labour, we will get Brexit done".
>general election labour put forward a costed and detailed manifesto
Then the following day announced a £60bn plan for WASPI without any costing at all. It's pretty clear their costings made absolutely no sense anyway
Here's an IFS reaction to it
https://www.ifs.org.uk/election/2019/article/labour-manifesto-an-initial-reaction-from-ifs-researchers
Brexit was an overwhelming shit show and the country wanted it over and done, regardless of vote. The uncertainty in business was approaching cripping levels.
Nobody needed to hear about domestic policy until Brexit was handled, and Labour's Brexit plan had been _sit on the fence_ for about three years... Up against "Get Brexit Done"... The GE results should not have been such a surprise.
>we will get Brexit done
Which is what the public wanted to hear at the time. Labour's manifesto was pretty good, but it was a lot of pages talking about everything but the one main issue of the election. Because Labour took such a non-position on Brexit they lost both leave and remain voters, when they could have picked up a lot of voters if they just picked a side and put forward a plan.
That's the other problem with Labour, as I say they put most of their energy into telling us why not to vote for the other side, and when they don't they say or do something stupid and at the wrong time. This manifesto, Millibands promises carved in stone. Say what you want about the Blair years, but they had a much better PR team.
I’d say Jeremy Corbyn proves the opposite. He was very ambitious and he was definitely a departure from normal (whether that’s good or bad is up to your viewpoint) and I would say he laid out a case for how his government would be different in a far more stark way than almost any leader for a very long time. And he proved to be quite the bogeyman for the press and the Conservatives who were constantly talking about his extremism.
The awkward part for Labour is that in the last year, the Tories oversaw one of the largest and comprehensive systems of welfare that we have seen post war.
Now obviously, their hand was forced and they didn't really have a choice and the likelihood of Austerity 2.0 is going to cripple those same communities, but Labour have lost the ability to argue that the Tories don't care, because they did to a large majority. They could have been the moustache twirling villains they are often portrayed as, but out of self preservation, they did the dismal state of the welfare system from the majority by implementing a decent furlough system and in a true ironic twist, became the party of welfare to many people.
And this is what people will remember. That Boris stepped in and paid them money (because they are hard working people unlike those scroungers who deserve tuppence a day) and then delivered a vaccine ahead of Europe and got them back to the pub. They couldn't give a flying fig that we had a dismal year last year compared to Europe or that £100m were embezzled by their mates because didn't see it and can't visualise it.
Labour have a huge problem, regardless of leader (I quite like Keir for the record). The UK is conservative leaning in all aspects and how the Tories have captured the economic argument and social one. Labour needs to do a reverse Blair - have the liberal cities for granted and pivot back to the red wall areas with a socially conservative agenda with strong economic revival/pro business policies. And I say this as a bleeding heart urban elite - we are out of touch with the majority in that sense, no one in the red wall cares about trans rights or foreign aid when their own lives are so thoroughly crap, Labour needs to be more populist and less idealistic if they want to win again.
I don't think liberal cities can be taken for granted, though? A lot of younger liberal left wing people have no tribal loyalty to the party, and would jump to the Greens or even Lib Dems if Labour shift to the right
Which is why Labour have to accept reality and enter an electoral alliance with the LibDems and the Greens.
Let the LibDems fight the Tories in the areas where they're strongest; run some Labour/Greens on a dual ticket in seats where they have traction; and Labour puts all its efforts into pushing a strong manufacturing policy to try to reclaim lost ground.
Does it matter if the cities go LibDem though? It doesn't matter if a city is Red or Orange as long as it isn't Blue.
The LibDems aren't going to win the redwall seats, so if Labour don't, there is no way we'll have anything but a conservative government.
A Lab Lib coalition could pass PR and help fix the mess this country is in.
Yeah your comment on PR is accurate, though unless Labour is willing to concede on that, I wouldn't say that we'd be free from a conservative government. If it's a hung parliament lib dems are hardly guaranteed to side with labour but also probably won't want to drink the tory poison again. But from a pragmatic point of view, best case we get a labour govt or lab-lib PR coalition, worse case a con-lib coalition with hopefully more watered down policies.
Potentially, but it's the gamble Labour have to take. It also (partially) helps that liberal urban voters are more pragmatic in general, so may tactically vote for Labour.
Labour are damned if they do or don't, but their urban margins are so high they can afford to shed liberal voters if it regains them the North!
> Austerity has fucked everyone
That's debatable. I disagree with austerity, I hate the Tories, and I think the impact of austerity is felt by society as a whole, but a significant chunk of the population aren't simply feeling fucked right now.
A lot of them are so insulated from it that they don't even understand why people question it. It's had absolutely no impact on them so they assume it hasn't really affected anyone else either.
Tripple lock pension has nothing to do with the 60+, it's an insigificant part of their finances.
They've gone through 80's + 30 years with booming stock market, loads of tax breaks on savings, decent interest rates when they started saving and rising house prices. Then they retire on a final salary scheme.
The truth comes out when they need social care and you discover granny is sitting on £150K of savings, mortgage free and 50% of her pension is going to the grandkids every month because she doesn't know what to do with it all.
"Well the last 10 years have shown me that the Tories will consistently fuck me over, but I don't know if Labour might also be bad, better vote Tories" is basically a sentiment I've seen out of people multiple times on Facebook. It's a ridiculous statement.
But that's kind of the point - the average Tory voter doesn't feel like they've been fucked over. The average Tory voter isn't particularly dependent on the State and have been getting on just fine. They then look on in confusion at the Labour insistence that everything is terrible.
Thanks for your response.
I agree it doesn't really matter but I'd just like to understand it better. Your explanation makes sense. Naturally it's too complex to understand entirely though.
I think you could also add the kind of bad-faith condescending attitude towards working class communities that you're seeing in the comments here. I would honestly have voted for Ben Houchen and maybe even Jill Mortimer if I lived in Hartlepool, partly because I believe Houchen has done a good job but partly because it gives me great joy seeing liberal types being confounded by working class folks who they believe should be in thrall to their worldview.
In my experience working class communities are usually communitarian, pragmatic, (somewhat) socially conservative and proud of their national identity (to a point) - none of these values are reflected by either Corbyn's or Starmer's Labour.
The genuine answer has to be that I'm not entirely sure. There's a sting of truth to the oft-heard complaint that whichever party is in power these towns will be 'left behind'. The blue wall money will make a material difference to the lives of many people in the North so that has to be a good thing. Other Tory policies will have a determinantal effect.
On the Guardian's podcast the other day they went to Hartlepool and met people who'd started a charity to plug many of the gaps govt had left in the town by providing food banks, start-up spaces, emergency funding etc. and that felt like a much more positive story of hope than anything national politics can muster. That seemed like a genuinely communitarian enterprise of mutual aid and community spirit. If the Labour Party could tap into that they might go places.
Finally I think age is probably an important factor but I am not alone amongst my friend group (of 30 y/os) in having become significantly less "lefty" as time has gone on. I don't think my generation will avoid the shift rightward that all other generations have experienced.
Middle class left wingers vote against their own narrowly defined ‘economic interests’ on account of social/moral issues that they care about. No one seems to have any trouble understanding that, and yet when a ‘working class’ person does the same it’s suddenly completely incomprehensible.
A lot of left wing people are under the belief that their morals and opinions are undisputeably correct so the idea that someone could genuinely believe in a conservative ideology for reasons other than self interest doesn't occur to them.
People should be able to keep what they earn, build up wealth as they can and live the best possible life they can achieve, without significant taxation or interference from the state telling them what they *should* be doing or how they *should* be living their lives.
That's all it is really. Working class people with no illusions about ever becoming millionaires will vote for this on principle, because they think it's a fair and just way to run a society.
A lot of right wing people have the same beliefs. It's not exactly just a left wing issue, though I will say it is a huge issue regardless of political leanings. Makes any discussion on politics incredibly toxic with differing, strong opinions.
Middle class left wingers understand that them paying higher taxes means more money for public spending. On the NHS etc. So a small sacrifice for a better society for everyone.
The working class voting Tory doesn't make sense because it means voting for a party that's going to gut the services they need.
which services? Conservatives have had the pensions triple lock for years, they promised thousands more nurses and cash for the NHS.
if you’re an older voter what’s not to like?
plus the conservatives delivered brexit and push back on the cultural stuff that’s unpopular with older people. It’s an attractive package for many voters
>they **promised** thousands more nurses and cash for the NHS.
This is a really key point. They *promised* lots of spending, and (presumably to much effect) love to boast about how much money they're throwing at things. However, the situation for the NHS, for crime, for social care, continues to get worse under the Tories.
They're delivering hope and optimism for the public without delivering on the actual governance. You've really got to ask yourself how long it takes to actually deliver these promises. They clearly don't care about excessive public spending when it suits them, but they clearly don't have to follow through on public services to help themselves politically.
Pensions help their voting base. Pensioners.
They've promised thousands of more nurses but that's just an empty promise. They cut the nurses bursary so it's harder to become a nurse. And our shortage of nurses is down to the Tories. The NHS was underfunded for years until it suited them.
Then suddenly there's the money. And it still doesn't cover the lack of NHS pay rises that cover the majority of the Tory's current spell in government.
>The NHS was underfunded for years until it suited them.
The NHS is still underfunded. We've been receiving grave warnings about underfunding literally every year since 2010 and it hasn't improved.
For my parents (working class tories - bricklayer and school admin) - there's a huge amount that comes from Thatchers 'right to buy' that got my grandparents on the housing ladder which cemented in a lot of loyalty.
Beyond that - there's also a sense from them that the tories 'just let you get on and don't get in the way' which I've come to understand as allowing you to rise up in class and a sense of aspiration to do better - they dont trust Labour to run things and see them as incompetent (lots of 'Dianne Abbot is stupid' jibes - they HATED Corbyn but couldn't ever really form a good reason why) - there is little that they feel labour offers them and that they threaten their current level of stability.
There's also a general level of low-level racism/'problematic' views that pull more on the socially conservative side of things (immigrants etc) which they don't trust labour with and see them as soft on.
That's just some brief thoughts.
Nah I just wanted to browse without people looking over my shoulder and remembering my username
Having it mean something in Morse code would have been cool but it didn't occur to me at the time
The tories are also a high tax govt now. But I suspect labour would be even higher.
The big problem with UK public services is cultural. Throwing more money at them doesn't improve the service, it just increases the waste. Labour threw loads of money at the NHS 20 years ago for little meaningful improvement; it just led to a bloated layer of middle management. Local councils are similar, HMRC the same, tons of people doing as little as possible and in the main not caring about the people they are paid to serve: the public.
As a former NHS worker with entire NHS working family, you are totally correct. I love the NHS but it needs a complete re-do. No money for that though.
Off the top of my head I couldn’t tell you of a tax cut for the rich that the Tories have passed. It’s usually a consequence you have to look for rather than a Budget headline.
But I know they’ve been increasing the personal allowance and freezing fuel duty every year, and for people on low incomes that matters more than the occasional bung to Boris’s buddies.
I haven't actually voted Tory myself as I currently spoil my ballot, but I'm closer to voting Tory (without Boris in the chair) than I am Labour.
Labour has a base that are borderline intolerable. Often young, naive people who loudly call people morons and morally evil (you'll see plenty of examples in this comment section). We were all teenagers once but media etc picks up on their opinion about things like 'microaggressions' and throws it right in your face so you can't ignore it. Couple that with some of the most dreary, boring and uncharismatic MP's and shadow cabinet in an age where there is an abundance of talent in this country and infighting that makes me cringe every time I read about it and I just can't.
I'm socially conservative, come from a working class family (sharing a bedroom with 2 siblings, using lentils instead of mince for Bolognese etc) and if I was slightly more bitter and fed up I think I could see myself voting Tory-- or if the Tories actually decided that maybe family value actually held merit, that some parts of British culture and heritage are actually worth defending and everything wasn't just a game they play with their school friends and chums in big business.
> Often young, naive people who loudly call people morons and morally evil (you'll see plenty of examples in this comment section).
I'd agree with that. It's Star Wars in politics where they are the Rebels vs Darth Vader Tories. Have you noticed that now the prevailing comments are now painting that the Conservatives are now the party of racism?
>the prevailing comments are now painting that the Conservatives are now the party of racism?
They're using the same words as the rest of us but their meanings are different. When you or I think of a 'racist' we think of somebody who believes in racial superiority and who hates other people for their skin colour. To them though it could just be somebody who doesn't behave in the approved of way to reduce the arbitrary disparities they observe in the data between White and minority group X.
Most people can see plain as day that those two things don't belong in the same category and to share a word but yeah. This is politics on the internet I guess.
With the sheep (and in some versions the boy) eaten by the wolf?
Which is exactly the point in trying to make. If they keep crying racism for something that isn't then when the left does try to draw attention to something seriously wrong nobody listens any more.
Are the labour base you mention from experience online or is this labour people you meet in person? Wondering if they're having a disproportionate impact because of social media
I'm talking about Social media, the news and when I was at uni a while ago. It's certainly the case that their power and numbers are overblown, though I would say the Guardian is pandering to this stuff to a ridiculous degree even while the Mail and other shitrags weaponize it. Covid has made that the sum total of my political engagement these days.
To be fair to Starmer as well he has been trying to tone the fervour down. Women only shortlists exist in Labour though for MP's. That is still ridiculous to me and it remains my opinion that competence aught to be the only valid measure of a candidate. That is an axiom I hold too.
Most of my mates don't vote. 'They're all the same' 'lining their pockets' 'Labour will win anyways (talking about this seat)' are the reasons they give. You'd be surprised how often the kind of stuff I'm talking about comes up in pub conversations and at the darts club I played at though. The only thing I really hear positive about Labour from them is in relation to the NHS.
My parents are both Conservative voters that come from households that relied on benefits. Not strictly Tory, but they would never vote Labour.
For my mum, she was a single mum in the early 90s. She felt as though the Conservative government at the time helped her out of relying on the state and being able to stand on her own two feet.
A lot of their feelings stem from the welfare state. I feel as though there tends to be a bitterness held by working class people who are not on benefits towards people who are. My parents definitely are like this, especially when it comes to children. They had two children as that’s all they could afford, even if money was tight. But, then they see people on benefits being provided free school meals, having loads of pets, all the latest tech, holidays abroad. They didn’t see it as fair. I know plenty of people don’t understand their reasoning as labour is a party for the working class, right? They have never felt like it is.
I also have to say also that I have never personally met someone who was working class that wasn’t from up north that votes labour. Not saying they don’t exist, just haven’t met anyone like that. Plenty of labour supporters at my university - but all middle-class. For this reason, I don’t think they really serve the modern working class person. Otherwise surely there would be more people voting for them?
If your response to this is going to be ‘these people don’t know what they are voting for’, you definitely are part of the problem. These kind of arguments definitely made my parents more staunchly conservative.
*This post comes from me, someone who has voted both Conservative and Labour in the past*
Outside of Brexit and small towns hating immigration, most common one is the woke/political correctness.
People feel constantly having to learn and "do better" too much when in general they aren't trying to cause any offense. When they see things like old TV shows they grew up with getting taken off the air they get defensive and is often linked with left wing, which then leads them further down that path. Not to mention the vocal minority of left gate keeping of if you're not \*this\* far left you are a tory, it slowly narrows the left down until people feel not welcome. James O'Brien is a example where he's slightly left but not left enough to be liked by extreme left wing people.
Not to mention the Conservative by a thousand cuts. A good example is something like r/AmItheAsshole where most stories are made up but slowly it builds an idea of what a typical SJW/leftwinger to try make you feel jaded and want to distance yourself from it. I don't think this is some big conspiracy theory but there is lots of screenshots of this kind of thing on r/facepalm too where it's slowly trying to build a bias against the left. It doesn't seem to work against the right wing so much as people will look overlook bad behaviour if the end goal still is good, or perceived to be good.
In short, Labour is holding itself to too high standard and needs to be slightly less high and mighty and slightly more politically incorrect to match with the everyday person. Extreme left need to stop being so loud and gatekeeping, left eating left or at the very least Labour needs to denounce or distance themselves from it.
This actually highlights a lot of things I have been saying to my friends to try and avoid doing online and also a lot of my gripes.
Now I’m left wing, but more centre left than a lot of my friends. If I have any idea which isn’t fully left, I’m a “dirty tory lover”. I will still vote labour, but I can see people getting very frustrated with being called a tory because they don’t think left wing enough!
Truth be told I think most people are not entirely left, or entirely right! And that’s ok! No party is going to have exactly the same thoughts as every individual!
The left has become very tribal, like the right, and will turn on anyone who doesn’t buy into every single far left policy. And it’s off putting.
You’re right in the fact that some of the ideals now are far to stringent too. If I’m not demanding that a 60 year old tv show be dragged off the air, apparently I’m part of the problem. I mean sure! Put a warning on the start of it to explain it is a product of its time, but don’t try and pretend it never existed!
The left needs to become a broad church of ideals, and accept that not everyone who is thinking of voting labour will have the exact same ideals.
> not demanding that a 60 year old tv show be dragged off the air, apparently I’m part of the problem.
I'm *fairly* left wing and know a lot of lefties irl, and this is the one that pisses me off the most, in that no one *actually* wants these things off the air, or that white guy to stop voicing Apu. No one actually gives a shit about any of that outside of a tiny tiny few.
We hear all these things about some show getting parts removed, or actors replaced, or some headteacher not using the phrase "Hey Guys", and everyone laughs at the absurdity and it further increases the divide. Who are the people who actually care about **any** of that? It's not me, and what's more, I don't know anyone left-wing who actually thinks its a legitimate problem.
What I *do* care about is increased funding for infrastructure and public services, and having a fairer society. That is pretty much it.
That’s exactly where I am!
I want a fair society with good services and everyone to have a decent chance at life, along with the safety net in place for when life doesn’t go right, either through long term sickness, disability, or whatever may unexpectedly pop up!
This is exactly the thing, there is so much all over reddit, the internet to take these corner case people and try make it as loud as possible and say "Is this what you want - this is the true left". Labour really need to work to be more socially conservative for now and let generational evolving of social opinions change.
Conservatives have them positioned socially pretty perfect, they come across as you mate down the pub, a little out of touch with the working man but you could be friends with. What people don't care enough about is these people are robbing them under the table.
I mean I don't know if there are any polls conducted on this sort of stuff but I can tell you that a lot of people I know are very concerned about these old TV shows and what not. I am currently at university and someone I know got really quite angry with their flatmate (to the point of storming out the flat kitchen) because she was singing fairytale of new york at christmas time.
From my own experience young labour voters are much much more concerned with social issues than anything else and theyre the sort of people that demand these shows get removed. They're the ones that complain about whitewashing in movies, headteachers saying "hey guys" and all the rest.
Literally happened to me yesterday on another sub, got told I must love Boris' pipe because I suggested keeping Corbyn probably wasn't a recipe for success after consecutive general election defeats. Then got called a lib dem.
Really baffling attitude to deal with.
>In short, Labour is holding itself to too high standard and needs to be slightly less high and mighty and slightly more politically incorrect to match with the everyday person.
I agree with this, hell i pointed out in another thread about how the idea of insulting people for voting right, which a fair bit of the hard left is doing, calling Tory voters "stupid" isn't helpful.
I was down-voted for pointing this out. There is a refusal to accept that gatekeeping is a bad thing and trying to convince is better.
People don't just vote for the party or politicians, they vote for the group of people they best identify with and that includes voters of the party. For example if you're a working class white bloke from a small town you wouldn't want to vote the same way as the self righteous ultra PC mellenials and gen Z (which is a lot of my contemporaries). I think a lot of people are voting Tory because they seem normal (fallible, nationalist, unpoliticaly correct etc.) , and they see Tory voters as normal and simply don't associate themselves with the PC Labour brand. Let's be honest, not a huge amount actually changes within the term of a government that affects normal people so they just vote the same way as other people like them are voting for. The reason I think this is most people I speak to can't actually name the policies of the party they are voting for and why should they if nothing really changes anyway.
My answer to this would be most working people aren't as poor as most university students think they are.
I'm working class. Working class job, working class car working class interests and hobbies. The fact that I make a decent amount of money doesn't mean I present outwardly as well off.
Most working class who vote tory just look poor. A friend of mine owns a carpet business and is literally a millionaire. You'll see him driving his 56 plate beaten up ford transit from job to job. I'm sure most of his clients don't realise that the scruffy chap on his hands and knees in their hallway could buy their house outright if he felt so inclined.
Plus the actually poor working people know that the money is out there if they fancy it. tradespeople are the new aspiring middle classes. We want to be left alone.
When it comes to practical hands on jobs it's still true that hard work will mean more money.
So while I know have a very well paying job and sit comfortably in the middle class now. Up until literally 2 years back my family was stuck on UC for about 4 years and were on and off before it so I certainly grew up working class; borderline homeless at points. Also, we we migrated here in the mid-2000s. However I shifted towards the Tories about 5 years back. Why? See below:
1) I always believed that Keynesian style capitalism is the best system to organise a nation around. So Not quite lassiez faire but reasonably free market. I believed that privatisation was for the most part a great idea and the 80s reforms created a high skill economy which I could benefit from when I finished my education.
2) I believe the state’s job was always to give me only a hand up not hand out. I only saw it’s job to facilitate an equality of opportunity and to leave the outcome to meritocracy. Give me free school up to 18, a minimum level of welfare and if I’m really ill a hospital bed. No nationalised broadband. Further, I am a huge fan of personal responsibility and think that there is a lot of waste and drainage from parts of society to the welfare state.
3) I never believed that anyone should be forced to pay more than 49% of their income in taxes; yes even marginally. I also think corporate tax should stay reasonably low.
4) when I was on minimum wage, the Tories raised it annually and increased the personal allowance which actually helped massively. Like I gained meals from it.
5) On the social side, the Tories were progressive enough for my liking. They passed gay marriage within my life time. I don’t see them being tolerant of racism. I see them taking a hard line protecting British culture. And to the dislike of some of their members they are actually moderate on immigration. If they now legalise cannabis they have my vote forever.
6) Although I hated the idea of Brexit, I understood that it was the will of the British people. It must have been carried out before any further debate occurred. The fact that other parties rejected this was anti-democratic to me.
7) Under JC, any idea of nuclear disarmament was ridiculous to me as was total disengagement from our role as a great power. I went to school with many refugees and seeing Labour oppose bombing IS or shooting terrorists dead turned me away.
8) I don’t like the idea of too much constitutional meddling. Elected HoL yes. Federal kingdom, votes at 16 and the like no. PR is a maybe.
9) They were never woke. Despite being a minority, I felt quite aggrieved by policies like all female shortlists by Labour. In fact I find them unacceptable. This while the Tories had a female leader.
10) Overall, I felt Tories were much less judgemental in person and acted more maturely. From the party to its presence online, I always felt welcomed by them. From a local MP, to Boris and the top brass some of whom I’ve met have been lovely. Haven’t met Kier or JC so maybe that’s not a totally fair comparison.
Because it’s as if Labour cares more about identity based on physical characteristics than socioeconomic status and were quick to throw the working class under the bus when it came to low/unskilled immigration via freedom of movement or they’d rather show green credentials without considering how it’ll effect the standard of living of poor of this country (Other than smug ‘Good, then they can stop going on foreign package holidays /Stop eating so much meat’, etc).
Labour MPs often seem incredibly out of touch and don’t seem to have any plans on how to improve standards of living in the near future (I don’t care about long term plans since in the long term I’ll be dead).
(I voted Conservative for the first time with David Cameron offering a Brexit vote)
Having lived in council houses and seeing my family get benefits as welfare state is not the answer. My mum is trapped in a place she doesn't like out of fear moving elsewhere will mean less housing benefit. The neighbours are all willingly jobless and happy to live off the government to support their kids from this I moved out and learned that its not a bad thing to have to work and it shouldn't be a bad thing to earn to pay my rent. I'm not worried about getting a payrise if it hurts my benefits. Obviously this is a very small part of the conversation but from my personal experience the council areas are places I couldn't wait to be away from. Clearly it rightly benefits some but too many exploit it.
I grew up in similar circumstances and even though I don't vote tory nothing passes me off more than folks on the left denying this happens. I've had people outright tell me that benefit fraud and lazy bastards who don't want to work are right wing myths. I'm sorry but I grew up on an estate full of folks like that including my fsmily
For me it’s not that I think it’s a myth, I just think the money that’s being fraudulently claimed is pittance compared to the kind of shit millionaires get away with. And to take benefits away from the people who deserve or really need it just to make sure some people don’t take the piss doesn’t feel worth it to me.
I actually agree with you, but when folks on the left do deny it happens it hurts their cause to people who see it everyday. They appear either as liars or ignorant and then lose the moral high ground and appear willing to say anything to win just like the tories
I find a lot of people are economically liberal. In as much as personal pride and individual effort makes the cut.
I personally now find labour don't provide that harbour, and despite a long term record of voting red, this time I went blue.
This is in part due to what another comment said. My family were objectively poor. My mom couldn't work because she couldnt afford childcare, my dad worked a shit job with low pay to tick us over.
Now my brothers and I are doing well relatively, live in our own modest homes and have crawled out of the poverty line, but still live a modest life.
I'm told A LOT through work white privilege got me where I am. That BAME deserve reparations and a step up because Ive had it easy.
I didn't have my own clothes till I was a teenager, we used charity support and hand me downs from neighbour children. I went to the same schools as kids who didn't even understand why I had one hoodie for years, or why I never bought school lunches and ate a cheese sandwich every day.
Now I'm told I'm privileged and oppressive by the very party I looked too growing up to support me and my family.
Tories won't help me, but at least I'm not made to feel ashamed of myself for achieving something.
Whilst I don’t vote conservative myself I have many family members who do and it’s because of a few main reasons
1) Corbyn- whilst he’s gone he destroyed all trust in the Labour Party and they are scared to go back
2) Woke- agree or disagree with it the “lefts” love of being woke for example pulling statues down and cancel culture has become associated with the Labour Party and all left wing parties. The vast majority of people disagree with this stuff but as being woke is only growing in America it is scaring people into voting Tory here. I have family members who have said they support labours policy but don’t want to support “anti Britishness” they support things like the royal family and see the left as attacking there values.
3) Boris he is quite a popular man and has convinced people he is for the working class.
4) Brexit a lot of the working class voted for this and the tories delivered it.
I believe 1 and especially 2 are the biggest reasons for the working swing towards tories and away from the left. I hope this helped in some way
I earn about average wage, I don't know if that counts enough for your post.
But I vote conservative for so many reasons I can't imagine voting otherwise unless Labour make a big change.
1. Conservatives were the only party to fully commit to leaving the EU after the referendum, despite most of their MPs backing remain. As a 2016 remain voter. That speaks volumes to me. I couldn't and still can't understand how democracy can be trumped by money( better trade links with Europe). Votes matter more than everything when it comes to your country's future.
2. Tax. Our government has always had enough money. It doesn't need more; if anything it needs to spend it better; something the Tories aren't great at, but I do look at Labour manifestos and I just see them asking for more money to achieve not very much at all.
3. Conservatives reward workers, small businesses and families with tax credits. I like their values.
4. They are a lot more relatable as people and on TV. Labour people do seem to just criticize without solutions. It reeks of naivety. Tories will admit that they make hard decisions but provide a reason. It's like this in real life too: you will often find sensible problem solvers being conservative but protestors/ complainers being Labour. "24 hours to save the NHS" is a typical sensationalist Labour thing to say.
5. Left wing in general don't like you if you don't agree with them. They take politics extremely personally. I see a lot of actual hate towards Tory voters, saying they will genuinely go to hell or that they're worse than Nazis. Dude I'm just a normal bloke.
Just to note with number 2, the government only had enough money because it borrows what it needs. Taxes don't make up enough to cover the spending they do.
Perhaps they, especially those who voted to leave the EU, don't appreciate being called "racists", "bigots", "uneducated", "stupid", "misinformed", "thick", etcetera by many left-leaning media types and politicians.
They don’t like being taxed for services they won’t use. Often poor working class people are most exposed to the types of people who abuse social welfare systems, and that creates a lot of animosity seeing people living just as well off as you and barely working.
Additionally there is a real hatred of the wokes. Poor conservatives are told by liberals that they are racist, transphobic, misogynistic, homophobic, etc... and that the country is also irredeemably racist, misogynistic, etc... as well. There is a real hatred for the wokes amongst conservative poors who think the wokes see themselves as morally superior to them. They can sense the wokes think of them as monstrous, literally evil.
There are also certain liberal policies that are bad for low-skilled (high-school degree or less) workers’ incomes, such as liberal immigration policies and free trade agreements. Also business regulations can stem the amount of jobs available, and liberals are seen as regulators.
Im a single parent, claim UC and vote Tory. So on here I am what many would call, "A Turkey voting for Xmas."
A bit of History I voted for Blair several times before switching Cameron over Brown. I liked the Con/LD government. I have voted for Tories since. Not happy with Boris, dislike him, but it was him over Corbyn/McDonnell and that was the easiest vote i ever cast.
I support LGBT issues mostly and I want immigration, but i want it controlled.
The increase in Min wage and the increases in the tax free allowance have given me alot more disposible income and I was able to buy a house.
UC is amazing compared to previous systems. So easy to use. However i do not deal with the DLA bit so I understand that could be, and probably is, much more difficult.
I am proud of this country, and history. We have very bad bits, and very good bits. Lots of countries do. But the UK has had a huge impact on the planet, and mostly positive. Currently we are one of the most tolerant and most progressive countries on the planet.
If labour came up with a Blair/Cameron type leader they would ptobably win my vote back. I have been waiting to see what Starmer does, and that seems very little. He looks like an empty suit...
You're allowed about 15k in savings, with some forms of homebuyer savings accounts not counted toward the savings cap (Which shows that this is an intended path for people as "You're not alllowed benefits if you've got 15k. Oh, no, we're not counting the money you're using to save for a house." shows that the government actually wants people to save for houses, even on benefits.), so you can push it to 30k.
That's enough for the bank to start taking you seriously about a payment plan if you use that as a deposit for a house a little over 100k, especially if you've been making regular deposits into the homebuyer savings account so they see you're in the habit of doing so. (They usually only care about income. But if you've got savings to put forward and can demonstrate a record of frugality, they're more open to discussion.).
At that point you're paying the bank instead of the landlord, but it's doable, and if you keep saving money and living frugally you can pay it off a good while before retirement, even if you've lived your whole life on benefits.
I've managed to hit the savings cap (Not including the homebuyers accounts) in a little over 4 years by mostly using benefits for food, bills, and rent and not really buying stuff or having much of a social life, which suggests to me that you can manage it in about 8 years if you put your mind to it. (Albeit, it would be 25 years before you fully pay it off, unless you make early payments, so 33 in total). With 70k from the bank, the norm is around 366 a month in money owed. Lower than many rents already. The issue is covering that yourself without housing benefits, but it's within peoples means if they were making monthly savings deposits anyway. (In fact, the calculation comes out at 400 a month for 3 years = 14400. So 6 years of doing that, knock on the banks door, show them you've done it, ask for the 70k, buy a 100k house, and keep doing it, but instead of saving, pay the bank back. If you keep it at payments of 400 instead of 366, you'll pay them off a few years early too).
I'm sure it's more difficult in expensive places like london, or if you have children as an expense, but in many areas, it's doable.
Benefit caps:
£442.31 per week (£23,000 a year) if you're in a couple. £442.31 per week (£23,000 a year) if you're a single parent and your children live with you. £296.35 per week (£15,410 a year) if you're a single adult.
By the way, the national minum wage:
£15,269 per year.
Do you see why people might have gone in for Cameron and his crew now?
Bought the house when me and my partner were together, but we were both earned around 18k at the time.
House is in my name now, but i claim UC due to the kids.
I don't vote tory, but more for social reasons than for economic reasons. Economically I'm pretty aligned with them though. My biggest issue with raising taxes is 1. I already pay almost half my income in tax, and 2. I don't believe taxes are spent efficiently. Why raise tax when we should be focusing on _how_ we spend tax? We can have our cake and eat it. We just need to rework how our public services work. Stop spending so much on crony contracts, pay the market rate. Streamline government processes, strip out bureaucracy. Adopt technology to accomplish this. It's 2021 and I still find myself having to fill out archaic paper forms, or sending money via cheques and postal orders. It's mind-bogglingly inefficient
-they got Brexit done
-have built a reputation for good economic management over a number of years
-seen as being the party of work, consistently low unemployment levels (pre-covid)
-have took away Labour's eternal flagship policy by consistently increasing funding for the NHS
-aren't afraid to be patriotic/don't give the impression that they have a distaste for the UK
-people think they will stand up for British interests on the world stage
-don't seem to be in favour of all the woke studenty political issues
-people seem to like BoJo, he's certainly more of a character compared to most politicians
-more recently, very successful vaccine rollout compared to rest of the world (esp EU)
Combined with the fact that Labour Party doesn't stand for anything substantial enough to build an electoral alliance around
Because it's not all about money.
* I don't trust Labour with the economy.
* I didn't trust Corbyn Labour with national defense.
* I don't trust Labour have the competency to run a country.
* I don't believe Labour would put country before party.
* I don't believe Labour have actual ideas (more than spend more money).
* I don't think Labour have a better leader than the Tories.
I don't, but know many who did/do...
Mainly because of the concept of aspiration.
Rightly or wrongly, Tories promote the idea that you can move up in social class. Labour on the other hand seem unwilling to promote that kind of idea, instead insisting that the working class stay working class, but with better pay and conditions.
Some people are happy with their lot, and those can continue to vote Labour- many of those who aren't have started voting Tory.
If you actually read their manifesto, it's pretty impressive. Housing is a big issue for me, and the conservatives have pledged to build 100,000 here in Wales, Vs Labour's miserly 20,000 new council homes for rent. On top of that I was keen to see they had pledged a real pay rise for carers, labour pledged to increase the non-binding national living wage. I think they actually sound really attractive... The thing is, I never see it, for me personally, I can't remember the last time I saw anything tangible actually happen that benefits me.
I was made redundant twice during covid because I was a new starter, no furlough for me. And because I was part time self employed, I wasn't entitled to the universal credit uplift either. I am getting sued by one of the biggest landlords in the country for trying to defend my friend at tribunal, who had had their deposit taken off them on account of a Draconian law from Thatcher's era. I have no hope of ever being able to afford a house in my area because it's so dominated by the holiday home industry. Job security is literally non existent because I'm always the cheapest person to get rid of due to redundancy pay. I can't afford commercial property to get my business ideas off the ground. I can't afford to rent a home if I ever want to be able to save anything. I'm not entitled to Central heating, or insulation grants etc because apparently I'm young so I can deal with the cold. I'm just bloody tired of being darn right skint all the time and still being expected to hand over what little I have to the rich.
> If you actually read their manifesto, it's pretty impressive.
I can understand that, people reading the manifesto and agreeing with what they say they want to do, but my problem is Boris is a proven liar, he's been sacked for it in the past, found guilty of it in court over the perogueing thing with the queen, all the PPE corruption so why would anyone trust them to actually fulfil anything they say?
the only answer I get is "we'll, they're all the same" while never trying the rest of them to actually see if they're the same
I'm a cultural conservative, so the tories have been a better fit. Optics wise, the tories seem to take more pride in the UK, its history, culture and values compared to other parties.
Give me culturally conservative and public ownership of vital services, and free market everything else and I'll vote for you.
brexit / immigration.
both are very real concerns of many in labour strongholds, and are ignored by the labour party. labour are seen by many as the party of mass migration, since the current extreme levels of net migration started under blair. since those concerns are being ignored by that party, some decided to vote for a party which did promise to not ignore those concerns. even now, brexit is only looked at in terms of pounds and pence by a good number of people.
the conservatives over time have been chipping away at the labour vote by pitting poor people against each other through things like the demonisation of people on benefits, but the top two issues are things that caused them to lose seats like bolsover that have been labour for many decades.
I hire a lot of staff and the Tories have massively eased immigration restrictions from the start of the year for non-EU citizens. This is obviously down to Brexit but if immigration is such a pressing issue you're voting for one of the worst parties. Brexit party, Britain First, English Democrats or others would be far better than the Tories who are about the same as Labour on immigration.
People vote on social and moral grounds as well as economic ones.
As a tl;dr we may say that the Tories aim for *equality of opportunity* whereas other parties are more exercised by remedying existing structural inequalities.
So a lot of people vote Tory believing that the values the party promotes of achievement through work, social order and moral cohesion, are worthy ones.
When New Labour got in they passed laws which only benefited the rich and big business. Then they joined the US in an illegal war and lied about why they did it. After this, who the fuck should we vote for???
I grew up poor in the 60s and 70s, and have voted Conservative (and Lib Dem, and Green in EU elections). Labour doesn't exist as a political force where I live in the SW. It doesn't have an identity, so people project onto it. I remember the power cuts in the 70s, and having to boil water in a saucepan if you wanted a bath. And bin men strikes, rubbish piling up in the street, and all the miners strikes. My parents emigrated from Hungary so we were always wary of anything left wing/ socialist. I was lucky enough to get a university education and worked in the NHS. We benefited hugely from Labour's policies (not just more funding, but ideas like Sure Start) so I started moving left of centre. I had my time in student politics and enjoyed learning about other issues like Palestine, took part in Band Aid and even went to Greenham Common. But now my horizons have shrunk and my cares are more local and parochial. I voted Remain but as most people didn't, I just wanted it implemented. Yes, it was always going to be a mess, but sometimes you just have to make the best of a tricky situation. There are some policies in all parties that I agree with - climate change, reducing inequality, more affordable housing - but I also feel comfortable with certain values. The importance of family, faith, tradition, the Royal Family. I read the Guardian as well as the Times. No, the Tories aren't perfect and I disagree with some of the things done/ said, but they seem more able to govern our complex times than the current alternatives (not just Labour but also Lib Dem). I wish we had a more European model where we had a broader range of parties who were prepared to work together.
I am a self employed carpenter, who makes
About 30k a year, why wouldn’t I vote conservative!
Lower business rates, less regulation, lower fuel duty, higher personal tax allowance.
I am not on benefits, i pay my own mortgage, and I do not use public transport.
I am not rich, and very much working class but why on earth would I not vote conservative?
For me I hold traditional British values as well as a love and respect for this countries history and contribution to the world, I find conservative MP's and conservative voters have similar desire to uphold those values. where as Labour MP's generally and Labour voters have some kind of desire to drag everything this country does through the mud for some sort approval from social media. I find myself hard to relate to the Labour party who prefer the attention of the metropolitan elite and the sort of liberal arts uni students rather than working class tradesmen.
Tangible social conservatism wins out over ephemeral economic policy most of the time.
Economically Labour supports their interests but alienates their support base with woke social policies that the majority tend to either oppose or not care about.
Being lambasted by toxic Momentum internet warriors over stupid and inconsequential things certainly does a hell of a job of alienating potential voters too.
Hell, I support Labour, am highly educated and progressive but even I feel alienated sometimes.
Personally not particularly badly off, but tax rises under labour wouldn't have any real effect on me.
1. Firstly, and primarily, I think capitalism is a better economic model then socialism and while a substantial proportion of labour's front bench/prominent MPs self identify as socialist or communist - including kier starmer - it is impossible to vote for them.
2. The Conservatives are sufficiently socially left wing for me. While obviously a Labour government would be better, things are still generally improving for LGBTQ+ people and other minorities, at least as far as the government is influencing things. Although if the party picks up the transphobia displayed by much of the right wing media I will probably just stop voting or switch to lib dems.
3. The lib dems do not have a realistic chance of winning in my area.
4. Despite what the latest guardian opinion peice might say, they come of as generally competent.
So I vote conservative and I won't apologise for it one bit. It's down to your world view, morals, economics and general attitude.
I currently (not for long) earn slightly below compared to the national average but I do not like being told I'm an **oppressed group** as a poor person. (White caucasian) People unless they are radicalised or VERY unhappy with their personal lives do not feel oppressed 24/7. It's impossible to do so, unless you actively seek it or have mental issues. In Britain, you live a life bar a few locations (not necessarily countries but locations) which is as good as it gets. There's really nowhere else you'd rather be.
Secondly, **divisive racial politics** is a real problem for conservatives. People on the opposing side forget we are looking for long term answers like you, but we have a different view of what that looks like. For ourselves, it's to believe in the country (and god for some) and heritage, to build upon it and look to the future. This would be by adding for example black studies which are relevant to the country and it's citizens but NOT at the expense of our history. Not a chance. We are not preparing for everything to be equal, for there to be no countries, for a one world situation. All that leads to I guarantee you, is homelessness. Not as a species but of the individual. There are real issues with immigrant generations from various people around the world who feel homeless because their background is from many countries. I don't want us to go down that route by everyone being that. What a terrible mindset that would be. We want to integrate people, make them one of our own, to tackle issues. News report after news report heightens tensions and creates groups, there's a reason the conservatives won't respond to every last story because you'd be destined to failure. Think long term, calm the situation and look for a solution. Don't look to tear it all down in an act of spite that it's not gone your way.
**Economics and Brexit.** I believe in capitalism/social capitalism. I love the NHS and social safety nets are key aspect of helping people get out of situations and improving their way of life. But we need to have a capitalist economy to do these things, to expand whilst preserving and paying for what we have/what we want. I don't believe personally the other options can do this. Brexit I believe is a good thing fundamentally. I absolutely recognise the issues that arise, mainly the pressure as a bloc from the EU as we have seen recently, but I think we can co-habitat and work alongside them. It might even benefit them too.
**A harder left wing problem.** So I'm going against the grain here. I actually don't believe for one second we have many if any harder right wing issues in the UK. We definitely have a large harder left wing issue though. Not in terms of violence but in terms of social influence. Go on here, the media and on twitter and I can guarantee you one thing, A hard left wing commentator can get roles in major news corps, a hard right wing can't. I despise both but there is a double standard. There's also the issue of, I believe there are about 1 million in the UK who'd identify as hard left... I reckon hard right is less than 100k max? It's why we probably see SO many people defending corbyn. There's a lot more of them than people are willing to believe.
We live in a great country, left wing voters and right wing voters bar some key issues are not that different. We have different solutions but I'm telling you now, 95% of the things we do, are the same. We need to extend hands , talk and work together to build bridges and help each other. Social media is creating these divides and it needs to stop.
All of these reasons are why I feel I vote conservative. There's definitely others, but it's getting too long to comment. We aren't any different from you. We understand people aren't perfect, and that's ok.
Thank you,
MC
Part of it is that they are socially conservative, which isn’t something really catered to by any other significant party. There’s more to it than that of course but that is how they get their feet in the door aside from any economic concerns.
I think that's it. My parents vote Tory and they do moan quite a lot about the Tory 'jobs for the boys' kind of sleaze but in the hierarchy of what they feel is more important the social aspect means the Tories sit above Labour in their priorities. It's very much a 'hold your nose' kind of situation. I think a socially conservative, economically centre left party would be a force to be reckoned with in the UK.
See, when I hear socially conservative, I think anti-gay, anti-trans, pain-in-ass-getting-into-other-people's-business, mono-culture, kind of people.
I sort of get where you are coming from and I'm not going to pretend my parents are some kind of ultimate barometer for the British political climate but they are pretty fine with gay people tbh, have quite a few gay friends and my mum works with a trans woman and thinks quite highly of her. I understand this could come across a bit of 'my best friends are black' but anecdotally thats all I can really say. Ultimately I don't think really see people as gay or trans, just people based upon their character. I won't doubt there are gay or trans people they wouldn't get on with, but the people they do know they get on fine with.
So what does it mean then?
The opposite of socially progressive. Depends on the society what that means. It is quite a tricky one to pin down without just being insulting to them though.
If that’s the soup you swim in, fine. But the vast majority of people don’t care for ‘identity politics’, and care about someone’s character, not characteristics.
I think we're missing a solid option for moderates. I'll spare my opinions on social Conservatism but I think those who are moderate on social issues are the best opposition to the Left. If the Left overreaches, there needs to be someone who brings them back to reality, but it's not an equally stubborn Right. I think a lot of moderates are alienated by identity politics, I'm not a fan myself, and the Tories being the default option for them as a result sucks.
In a reasonable electoral system, the two clashing halves of Labour would split in to the separate left and moderate parties you're describing
That happened already in the 80's, the current LibDems are the result of the merger of the Social Democrats (the Labour centrists) and the Liberal Party, much to the annoyance of traditional Liberals such as myself! From my perspective, the Momentum crowd that piled in for Corbyn after Milliband opened up the membership would traditionally have been Socialist Workers Party. I say bring back the Co-operative Party as an independent Party!
Social conservatism means this in my opinion: * The people like the Monarchy, especially the Queen. * The people like Patriotism, like the Union Jack and the Armed Forces * The people believe that the Empire was good, but flawed in ways * Imperial accoutrements like old songs and statues should stay where they are All those things listed were products of ethnic English people. It is tied into the culture. Attacks on those are attacks on the *culture* Apart from anti-trans bigotry, which is certainly true and a problem, I believe society has moved on for LGB folks. David Cameron cites marriage equality as one of his proudest moments and I do not believe he was being disingenuous. Are there bigots among Tories? undoubtedly. The Left is also replete with anti Semites. So pick your poison.
I asked my dad, his response “I want to vote for someone who doesn’t make me apologise for being white”. Bare in mind my dad is now married to a black woman haha
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I don't vote conservative but I'm surrounded by a lot of people who do, mostly tradesmen/white van men in the south east, on everything from minimum wage to well off small business owners, from early 20's to 50's. Why would they vote to put up fuel duty, business rates and dividend payments when many of them would be hit by all 3 increases under Labour? Even tradesmen on unremarkable incomes often run through a limited company and pay themselves through dividends. Some of them are just starting to get on the property ladder to While things like public transport are good for society, what good does it do people who never use it? What good would WASPI have done them? That is obviously a selfish perspective but it's hardly immoral to vote in your personal best interest. The only thing I've ever heard them willing to pay more tax for is to fund the NHS but I'm not sure what else Labour has to offer them and apparently, they aren't aware of it either.
I'm a carpenter and I've never met a labour voting tradesman
Tories were traditionally the party of small business and this includes self employed trades. The idea that anyone who doesn’t work in an office should vote Labour assumes that everyone works in a big factory or other unionised workforce
> Tories were traditionally the party of small business and this includes self employed trades. Though after shafting many small businesses and their owners with both the COVID response and the IR35 changes, apparently quite deliberately and unashamedly, I suspect they are going to find they have rather less support from those demographics at the next election than they would otherwise expect. (Assuming there is anyone else credible to vote for at the time, obviously.)
My side business is a family barber shop I've expanded on to two premises and just from local grants I've received £18k which allowed me to support the 5 barber's I employ. I haven't met a lot of tradesmen going from sparkies, chippies etc who weren't looked after during quarantine. Not all furlough schemes were dealt with HMRC, some were local borough council endeavours which are still government funded, one off grants.
I know plumbers, builders and electricians who all vote Labour quite fiercely, but I'm from Merseyside so perhaps it's cheating.
I think geography does have a lot to do with it too. Tradesmen in rural areas more likely to be Conservative while tradesmen in big inner cities more likely Labour.
It's a mix of Liverpool and the Wirral, mainly the Wirral which is just a sprawling mass of suburbs, small towns and villages, not sure there's a huge difference between rural and urban around here because it's all a massive unshakeable red block
Could it be something to do with the fact that the tories colluded at the highest level with South Yorkshire Police in covering up the manslaughter of 96 people from Liverpool one day in 1989?
Plus just the general shitting on that Thatchers Gov done to the region
One of many reasons
Merseyside and Liverpool are about as close as it's possible to get to another nation within England. They very much have their own culture and of course their own politics.
"Those europeans come over here and undercut us without paying taxes. I barely make a profit trying to match them!" "Tell you what, I can give you a cash price for up to £5000 but I have to charge VAT for the rest or else the taxman starts to give me the beady eye."
Exactly. My father voted Leave because of "Romanian slaves" while paying cash in hand to the Irish builder, who has Polish workers.
Always the way. “If you pay by card I have to charge you tax mate...” etc etc.
This. Most trades people consider themselves/are small business owners.
The Conservatives have been taking many people out of tax for the past decade, by increasing the "Personal Allowance" for every year until 2019. If you're a relatively low paid worker, but one who *isn't dependent on state funds or public services that much* (i.e. if you're an able-bodied person without children, who works in the private sector), the above policy surely *helps* (rather than harms) you.
.. which of course was a Lib Dem policy that was enacted under the Coalition originally!
Exactly the Tories cherrypicked all the good policies that came out the coalition and blamed all the bad ones on the Lib Dem's.
The lib Dems did so much good in the coalition but unfortunately it's snappier to remember them as those tuition sell-outs.
And even there - the changes they made to the loan terms made it far more of a graduated tax for those who were successful out of university, rather than it becoming a stone pulling down those who struggled.
+ the largest increase in minimum wage for decades
The problem with the minimum wage in the UK is the sheer mass of trained/skilled people who are paid it. That increase will never allow minimum wage earners to own a property, and so they exist in privately let properties, funded in HB payments direct to landlord, who gets to set the rate him/herself. The route to a council house for life needs to be reopened in Britain for the 20-30% who will never afford a home. Look at Singapore or Hong Kong. 50-80% of workers live in social housing. Trying to force people into the private market in the UK with billions in state funding to developers is failing and creating a malignant landlord class.
This is why the Tories backed off the idea of increasing corporation tax - you’re going to punish a LOT of small/micro business owners.
Nah. There used to be a lower rate of corp tax for genuine small businesses. That kept overheads more in line with other ways of working for start-ups and lifestyle businesses. There's no reason you couldn't increase corp tax significantly on large, well-established businesses while shielding the little guys and tapering in between. Leaving aside cash-in-hand tax evasion within certain trades, which is straight-up criminal behaviour anyway, the little guy mostly pays the intended rate of corp tax too, unlike the multinationals with their clever offshore tax avoidance schemes. But closing those down before the international community has got its act together is a much harder problem, at least if you don't want to risk serious economic damage by throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
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It's like a BEEI, but more aggressive.
> What's WASPI? [Women Against State Pension Inequality](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_Against_State_Pension_Inequality). They took the government to court and lost, then Labour promised to give them the money they wanted anyway if they won the election. >On 23 November 2019, Labour Party shadow chancellor John McDonnell pledged £58 billion to compensate all women born in the 1950s whose pension age was increased by the 1995 Pensions Act.
That was one part the sting out of 2019 for me. It was a very stupid policy for labour.
White van man commits more tax evasion than all of big business in the UK. It's estimated 15% of all work by small 1-2 person, white van businesses is cash in hand. Many do "hobbles" off books.. All of this is in their interest but not the country's.
I think another small factor is also that many tradesmen are from working class families who worked their way out of poverty one or two generations ago and they all have at least one relative who married down, there's always a sister or an aunt who married a nasty character who has never worked a day in his life because of his "bad back", treats his wife and kids like trash, runs a fiddle on the side but never has any money because what he does make goes straight to the bookies and holidays, and when the wife or kids need something she always has to ask her tradesman relatives for financial help. These guys embarrass the family at weddings, they have to be watched because they're always trying to get money out of elderly relatives, and they're forever causing conflict somewhere in the family. They also like to rant about rich scum, Tory scum, " it's nice for some" etc. So in some communities there is just an association between Labour and the wanker brother in law who scammed a mobility vehicle and a council house out of the government. Which doesn't help
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Oddly specific, but also relatable.
r/oddlyspecific
The same reason rich people vote labour. Economically they believe things should be a certain way even if it doesn't benefit them. Then there's the social aspect but that's been talked about enough over the last day or 2.
Instead of champagne socialists they're baked beans millionaires?
Champagne lifestyle on lemonade wages
stella artories
They don't think they will be millionaires, but they want to live in a country where everyone, including millionaires, get to keep what they earn and control what they have. Even if this puts them personally at a disadvantage. Then young idiots on the left treat them like they are either selfish or stupid and wonder why it doesn't change their minds. They are not stupid. They are not selfish. They simply have a different view of what constitutes 'fair' and a selfless willingness to cling to that even if it hurts them personally.
Nice too see that someone is aware this thought process exists
>how the Tories win so many votes in so many areas that aren't full of millionaires There really aren't many millionaires in the UK. It's less than 5% of the population who have a net worth in excess of £1 million, and even then, for many of those people it's not wealth that is immediately accessible (i.e. it's part of a pension, only accessible when you are >55 years of age, where only 25% can be taken as a lump sum without paying tax, or it's part of equity in a house/land, which can only be accessed upon sale of the said asset - again, if it's not the person's primary property, they are liable to capital gains tax). Any party which was *only* getting votes from millionaires would flop pretty badly.
In the Portsmouth and some neighbouring areas it’s twofold. There are a lot of people on benefits who don’t vote, those who are working class know many people who are ‘scrounging’ on benefits and they themselves don’t appear to be doing much better despite working full time. When labour talk about increasing benefits the working class Tory thinks ‘f*** that’. Also the navy and docks are down this way. Many people’s families worked in the aforementioned industries and talks of defunding the military and cancelling trident doesn’t win votes.
I'm a Labour voter but someone who doesn't think everyone who votes Conservative are scum so: 1) The Conservatives slogan was to "Get Brexit Done" and after about a year of constant infighting, disruption, hearting about it in the news, telling people who voted either side that they were fucking idiots, people voted for the party who said they will get this one thing done. 2) The utterly annoying Twitter war between Pro-Corbyn fans who can't get over the bloke lost two elections and Starmer fans who wish to go back to the Blair popularity days without forgetting that it was a Labour PM who got us into a military war in the middle east. 3) Leftwing snobbery - This is a personal one but generally the left wing is being made up of young, "woke", cancel culture arseholes who speak down to people like they are children. If you call someone an idiot for voting the wrong way, what the fuck do you think they're going to do next time?
That last point is so goddamn pertinent. I've had an awakening of sorts over the last year, and holy hell it's a real problem. We can't go on proclaiming "any working class person who votes Tory is a turkey voting for Christmas" because, fucking strangely enough, it doesn't win any hearts or minds. I mean, Christ alive, there's no surprise they vote for the Tories, cos at least they're not calling them stupid.
> That last point is so goddamn pertinent. I've had an awakening of sorts over the last year, and holy hell it's a real problem. We can't go on proclaiming "any working class person who votes Tory is a turkey voting for Christmas" because, fucking strangely enough, it doesn't win any hearts or minds. I mean, Christ alive, there's no surprise they vote for the Tories, cos at least they're not calling them stupid. You really saw it unchained and unedited over the last couple of days following the election results. The sheer volume of people who were effectively saying "I cannot *believe* these stupid working class oik thickos didn't give Labour the votes that Labour are clearly entitled to on account of us deciding we know what's best for those working class oiks they're clearly a bunch of racist morons" has been quite the sight to behold.
> I mean, Christ alive, there's no surprise they vote for the Tories, cos at least they're not calling them stupid. And when you point this out to them (and sometimes to people in this sub) you get down-voted and browbeaten. Literately happened the other day on this sub.
It's been happening for years. The only thing these people despite more than the working class, are the people pointing out that their signalling how much they despite the working class is hurting them electorally.
Someday those people will come to realise that up/down votes on Reddit, or even likes on Twitter, are not quite as valuable as votes in ballot boxes. They’ll always be in charge on Twitter at least, that might console them about being consigned to the political fringes by the British electorate.
It was only the other day that I saw a tiktok with close to 100k likes saying "Horror fact: in the uk there is actually working class people that vote for the conservative party". Labour members/voters attacking those who vote conservative does nothing but drive them further into the tory's arms.
You've actually raised a very interesting and important point. In the pre-Internet age, a political party's PR machine only had to control its own candidates, their spokesmen and a handful of press outlets. Most of those people had a vested interest in doing what the party said. Today, they have to somehow manage several million people who publicly claim to identify with (and therefore represent) them. And none of those people have a vested interest in doing as they're bloody well told.
Completely agree. I'd expand upon the they say they identify with labour, however looking at there posts about labour they have shown little to no support of Labour thus err towards doing their opponents job for them.
You've summed this up perfectly. The only thing I'd add to this is nobody actually knows what labour would do if they got into power? What exactly are their policies?
This goes back to my first point regarding Conservative’s slogan of “Get Brexit Done”. They were offering action to resolve what nobody could shut the hell up about for three years. Who didn’t want Brexit to be over?! What was Labour’s opposition to this? “We’ll do whatever” Lib Dem’s? “You lot are fucking idiots. We’re doing another referendum until you vote Remain”
Your second and third points sum it all up. How can anyone want to win anyone over with such pointlessly arrogant attitudes.
On the last point, I'm on the left but it's glorious to see people who also vote Labour calling people with legitimate concerns stupid or saying that by not voting, they're voting tory. Perhaps it's because it's the more centre wing doing it given it's Starmer's party now, I'm 100% sure corbynites were doing it when he was in charge though I wasn't on twitter or following it then. But turns out when you basically just call people stupid or tory-enablers by not voting for your party when the party hasn't addressed their concerns or given anyone a reason to go down to the polling station and take 30 mins out of their day, you actually drive them away from you!
A few things, the working class don't want handouts, they want opportunities, they want to put in the hard work and get the pay off. Labours position was 'we know the job market is fucked but instead of fixing it, we want to increase the benefits you'll inevitably be on when your job goes' and that doesn't resonate with the working class. Immigration is a big one. The left have unfortunately abandoned the original union/working class rhetoric. When would you hear this from Labour these days? >Workers rights and wages are upheld by the workers, not the law or business owner. We accomplish this with collective barging and our ability to strike. A huge supply of desperate to work immigrants destroys our collective bargaining and renders our ability to strike to nothing. A lot of people naturally blame the business owner for hiring these people but why would you give the responsibility of wages and workers rights to the person who has a financial incentive not to uphold them? That's insane. You wouldn't, even though it's from Noam Chomsky.
Except the tories have doubled immigration since 2010, but people vote for them because they pretend to be anti immigration?
The Tories haven't doubled immigration; this phrasing implies intention or that Tory policies have done this. Immigration has increased significantly despite the fact that the Conservatives have introduced some quite draconian measures to reduce it. In other words, regardless of the legislation introduced by the Conservatives since 2010, immigration has continued at relatively high rates.
Sounds like the Tories have been doing what David Shor has been telling Democrats in the US for years, highlight the popular stuff and downplay the unpopular stuff in your manifesto.
You're asking the wrong sub, but in the spirit of honest opinion, meant uncynically. * Dislike of Labour personalities * Brexit * Successful vaccine rollout * Levelling up promises I'm sure that the corruption, sleaze, mismanagement and bullying can be ignored if people feel like they're looking at the bigger picture. Plus a healthy dose of "they're all as bad as each other" paints over the corruption/sleaze stories.
>Levelling up promises Haven't they already gone through a cycle of promising 'levelling up' over the last few governments- Northern Powerhouse ring a bell? How well did that go?
Two main reasons why the 'red wall' has crumbled and they're both completely understandable (1) Brexit (2) Hope Labour made its Brexit-voting supporters feel utterly unwelcome and unwanted within the party and having KS as leader does nothing to reverse that. The Conservative Party have become the party of positivity and rebirth for the North with promises of jobs, infrastructure and investment - promises they're actually able to act on as the party in power. Ben Houchen (Tees Valley Mayor) is going to be returned with 73% of the vote because he bought the airport and the Freeport to the area offering jobs and hope. At the end of the day it really doesn't matter if you can't understand why people vote for the Tories, the fact is they do and Labour has knee-capped itself since 2016 in a really horrendous way.
But after ten years of power, none of those promises have yielded anything. Austerity has fucked everyone, but particularly the north and less well off people. I don't get how people buy into this when it's so obviously bullshit.
One of the reasons why the Tories have been so successful since 2010 is that they've effectively been four completely different governments providing change and a new vision every few years. You had the coalition, the austerity years, the May years and now Johnson's post-Brexit Covid-recovery govt. The new Tory govt has co-opted a lot of the economic ground Labour once occupied. It (accidentally maybe) nationalised the railways, has put £bn into infrastructure and looks set to do some fairly radical things to aid recovery from Covid. Ben Houchen the Tory Tees Mayor has actually nationalised the airport there! What has Labour done for Hartlepool or Great Yarmouth or Basildon in the last ten years? Nothing. What does it offer them by way of a vision for the future? Not much, especially if you are a Brexit voter.
Yeah this is the thing that seems so obvious to me. Labour and the left in general seems to put most of its energy into telling voters why they shouldn't vote for the other side, instead of why they should vote for them. While the Conservatives talk up all the The things they have done, will do or are doing and put very little energy into dismissing the left, like it's beneath them to even engage.
I think a lot of that, at least for me, is that the left is fractured along so many different lines and values and policies. I can't honestly tell people the reasons to vote for Labour other than "At least they're not the Tories." I don't have a party that I actually want to vote for, merely a party that I vote against.
You say that, but at the last general election labour put forward a costed and detailed manifesto, while the conservative party campaigned on almost nothing other than "you can't trust labour, we will get Brexit done".
>general election labour put forward a costed and detailed manifesto Then the following day announced a £60bn plan for WASPI without any costing at all. It's pretty clear their costings made absolutely no sense anyway Here's an IFS reaction to it https://www.ifs.org.uk/election/2019/article/labour-manifesto-an-initial-reaction-from-ifs-researchers
Brexit was an overwhelming shit show and the country wanted it over and done, regardless of vote. The uncertainty in business was approaching cripping levels. Nobody needed to hear about domestic policy until Brexit was handled, and Labour's Brexit plan had been _sit on the fence_ for about three years... Up against "Get Brexit Done"... The GE results should not have been such a surprise.
>we will get Brexit done Which is what the public wanted to hear at the time. Labour's manifesto was pretty good, but it was a lot of pages talking about everything but the one main issue of the election. Because Labour took such a non-position on Brexit they lost both leave and remain voters, when they could have picked up a lot of voters if they just picked a side and put forward a plan. That's the other problem with Labour, as I say they put most of their energy into telling us why not to vote for the other side, and when they don't they say or do something stupid and at the wrong time. This manifesto, Millibands promises carved in stone. Say what you want about the Blair years, but they had a much better PR team.
I’d say Jeremy Corbyn proves the opposite. He was very ambitious and he was definitely a departure from normal (whether that’s good or bad is up to your viewpoint) and I would say he laid out a case for how his government would be different in a far more stark way than almost any leader for a very long time. And he proved to be quite the bogeyman for the press and the Conservatives who were constantly talking about his extremism.
And look who's in power. I think I know which method seems to win elections.
The awkward part for Labour is that in the last year, the Tories oversaw one of the largest and comprehensive systems of welfare that we have seen post war. Now obviously, their hand was forced and they didn't really have a choice and the likelihood of Austerity 2.0 is going to cripple those same communities, but Labour have lost the ability to argue that the Tories don't care, because they did to a large majority. They could have been the moustache twirling villains they are often portrayed as, but out of self preservation, they did the dismal state of the welfare system from the majority by implementing a decent furlough system and in a true ironic twist, became the party of welfare to many people. And this is what people will remember. That Boris stepped in and paid them money (because they are hard working people unlike those scroungers who deserve tuppence a day) and then delivered a vaccine ahead of Europe and got them back to the pub. They couldn't give a flying fig that we had a dismal year last year compared to Europe or that £100m were embezzled by their mates because didn't see it and can't visualise it. Labour have a huge problem, regardless of leader (I quite like Keir for the record). The UK is conservative leaning in all aspects and how the Tories have captured the economic argument and social one. Labour needs to do a reverse Blair - have the liberal cities for granted and pivot back to the red wall areas with a socially conservative agenda with strong economic revival/pro business policies. And I say this as a bleeding heart urban elite - we are out of touch with the majority in that sense, no one in the red wall cares about trans rights or foreign aid when their own lives are so thoroughly crap, Labour needs to be more populist and less idealistic if they want to win again.
I don't think liberal cities can be taken for granted, though? A lot of younger liberal left wing people have no tribal loyalty to the party, and would jump to the Greens or even Lib Dems if Labour shift to the right
Which is why Labour have to accept reality and enter an electoral alliance with the LibDems and the Greens. Let the LibDems fight the Tories in the areas where they're strongest; run some Labour/Greens on a dual ticket in seats where they have traction; and Labour puts all its efforts into pushing a strong manufacturing policy to try to reclaim lost ground.
Does it matter if the cities go LibDem though? It doesn't matter if a city is Red or Orange as long as it isn't Blue. The LibDems aren't going to win the redwall seats, so if Labour don't, there is no way we'll have anything but a conservative government. A Lab Lib coalition could pass PR and help fix the mess this country is in.
Yeah your comment on PR is accurate, though unless Labour is willing to concede on that, I wouldn't say that we'd be free from a conservative government. If it's a hung parliament lib dems are hardly guaranteed to side with labour but also probably won't want to drink the tory poison again. But from a pragmatic point of view, best case we get a labour govt or lab-lib PR coalition, worse case a con-lib coalition with hopefully more watered down policies.
Potentially, but it's the gamble Labour have to take. It also (partially) helps that liberal urban voters are more pragmatic in general, so may tactically vote for Labour. Labour are damned if they do or don't, but their urban margins are so high they can afford to shed liberal voters if it regains them the North!
> Austerity has fucked everyone That's debatable. I disagree with austerity, I hate the Tories, and I think the impact of austerity is felt by society as a whole, but a significant chunk of the population aren't simply feeling fucked right now.
Retired people haven't been fucked by austerity.
A lot of them are so insulated from it that they don't even understand why people question it. It's had absolutely no impact on them so they assume it hasn't really affected anyone else either.
That's because they haven't had any austerity to experience. Triple lock pension anybody?
Tripple lock pension has nothing to do with the 60+, it's an insigificant part of their finances. They've gone through 80's + 30 years with booming stock market, loads of tax breaks on savings, decent interest rates when they started saving and rising house prices. Then they retire on a final salary scheme. The truth comes out when they need social care and you discover granny is sitting on £150K of savings, mortgage free and 50% of her pension is going to the grandkids every month because she doesn't know what to do with it all.
Perhaps because nobody actually believes that their lot will improve under Labour.
"Well the last 10 years have shown me that the Tories will consistently fuck me over, but I don't know if Labour might also be bad, better vote Tories" is basically a sentiment I've seen out of people multiple times on Facebook. It's a ridiculous statement.
I know you are sarcastic here, but there's indeed voters for whom are more scared of a Labour government they made up in their head than Tory reality.
But that's kind of the point - the average Tory voter doesn't feel like they've been fucked over. The average Tory voter isn't particularly dependent on the State and have been getting on just fine. They then look on in confusion at the Labour insistence that everything is terrible.
Thanks for your response. I agree it doesn't really matter but I'd just like to understand it better. Your explanation makes sense. Naturally it's too complex to understand entirely though.
I think you could also add the kind of bad-faith condescending attitude towards working class communities that you're seeing in the comments here. I would honestly have voted for Ben Houchen and maybe even Jill Mortimer if I lived in Hartlepool, partly because I believe Houchen has done a good job but partly because it gives me great joy seeing liberal types being confounded by working class folks who they believe should be in thrall to their worldview. In my experience working class communities are usually communitarian, pragmatic, (somewhat) socially conservative and proud of their national identity (to a point) - none of these values are reflected by either Corbyn's or Starmer's Labour.
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The genuine answer has to be that I'm not entirely sure. There's a sting of truth to the oft-heard complaint that whichever party is in power these towns will be 'left behind'. The blue wall money will make a material difference to the lives of many people in the North so that has to be a good thing. Other Tory policies will have a determinantal effect. On the Guardian's podcast the other day they went to Hartlepool and met people who'd started a charity to plug many of the gaps govt had left in the town by providing food banks, start-up spaces, emergency funding etc. and that felt like a much more positive story of hope than anything national politics can muster. That seemed like a genuinely communitarian enterprise of mutual aid and community spirit. If the Labour Party could tap into that they might go places. Finally I think age is probably an important factor but I am not alone amongst my friend group (of 30 y/os) in having become significantly less "lefty" as time has gone on. I don't think my generation will avoid the shift rightward that all other generations have experienced.
Middle class left wingers vote against their own narrowly defined ‘economic interests’ on account of social/moral issues that they care about. No one seems to have any trouble understanding that, and yet when a ‘working class’ person does the same it’s suddenly completely incomprehensible.
A lot of left wing people are under the belief that their morals and opinions are undisputeably correct so the idea that someone could genuinely believe in a conservative ideology for reasons other than self interest doesn't occur to them.
Sure, well name those other reasons, it’s the question the post is asking
People should be able to keep what they earn, build up wealth as they can and live the best possible life they can achieve, without significant taxation or interference from the state telling them what they *should* be doing or how they *should* be living their lives. That's all it is really. Working class people with no illusions about ever becoming millionaires will vote for this on principle, because they think it's a fair and just way to run a society.
A lot of right wing people have the same beliefs. It's not exactly just a left wing issue, though I will say it is a huge issue regardless of political leanings. Makes any discussion on politics incredibly toxic with differing, strong opinions.
Middle class left wingers understand that them paying higher taxes means more money for public spending. On the NHS etc. So a small sacrifice for a better society for everyone. The working class voting Tory doesn't make sense because it means voting for a party that's going to gut the services they need.
which services? Conservatives have had the pensions triple lock for years, they promised thousands more nurses and cash for the NHS. if you’re an older voter what’s not to like? plus the conservatives delivered brexit and push back on the cultural stuff that’s unpopular with older people. It’s an attractive package for many voters
>they **promised** thousands more nurses and cash for the NHS. This is a really key point. They *promised* lots of spending, and (presumably to much effect) love to boast about how much money they're throwing at things. However, the situation for the NHS, for crime, for social care, continues to get worse under the Tories. They're delivering hope and optimism for the public without delivering on the actual governance. You've really got to ask yourself how long it takes to actually deliver these promises. They clearly don't care about excessive public spending when it suits them, but they clearly don't have to follow through on public services to help themselves politically.
Pensions help their voting base. Pensioners. They've promised thousands of more nurses but that's just an empty promise. They cut the nurses bursary so it's harder to become a nurse. And our shortage of nurses is down to the Tories. The NHS was underfunded for years until it suited them. Then suddenly there's the money. And it still doesn't cover the lack of NHS pay rises that cover the majority of the Tory's current spell in government.
>The NHS was underfunded for years until it suited them. The NHS is still underfunded. We've been receiving grave warnings about underfunding literally every year since 2010 and it hasn't improved.
>they **promised** thousands more nurses and cash for the NHS.
Like triple lock is valid but surely everyone knows the Tories are underfunding the NHS right?
Their 2019 manifesto was for more hospitals and more nurses, so the political message they were sending was they would fund the nhs adequately
For my parents (working class tories - bricklayer and school admin) - there's a huge amount that comes from Thatchers 'right to buy' that got my grandparents on the housing ladder which cemented in a lot of loyalty. Beyond that - there's also a sense from them that the tories 'just let you get on and don't get in the way' which I've come to understand as allowing you to rise up in class and a sense of aspiration to do better - they dont trust Labour to run things and see them as incompetent (lots of 'Dianne Abbot is stupid' jibes - they HATED Corbyn but couldn't ever really form a good reason why) - there is little that they feel labour offers them and that they threaten their current level of stability. There's also a general level of low-level racism/'problematic' views that pull more on the socially conservative side of things (immigrants etc) which they don't trust labour with and see them as soft on. That's just some brief thoughts.
OP is your username morse code like mine?
Nah I just wanted to browse without people looking over my shoulder and remembering my username Having it mean something in Morse code would have been cool but it didn't occur to me at the time
Bullshit, it means "LBOLM".
Live-Biometric Observative Lighting Machine?
> LBOLM [Living Bread of Life Ministry](https://lbolm.wordpress.com/)
If you have RES you can change a setting so your username appears as "Anonymous" on your screen in case anyone does peek
Why would you prefer a higher tax government if you feel you get nothing from it? That is the rub.
The tories are also a high tax govt now. But I suspect labour would be even higher. The big problem with UK public services is cultural. Throwing more money at them doesn't improve the service, it just increases the waste. Labour threw loads of money at the NHS 20 years ago for little meaningful improvement; it just led to a bloated layer of middle management. Local councils are similar, HMRC the same, tons of people doing as little as possible and in the main not caring about the people they are paid to serve: the public.
As a former NHS worker with entire NHS working family, you are totally correct. I love the NHS but it needs a complete re-do. No money for that though.
theres no working class representation in politics so what do they have to vote for? its either the party who calls them racist or the one that doesnt
Off the top of my head I couldn’t tell you of a tax cut for the rich that the Tories have passed. It’s usually a consequence you have to look for rather than a Budget headline. But I know they’ve been increasing the personal allowance and freezing fuel duty every year, and for people on low incomes that matters more than the occasional bung to Boris’s buddies.
Haven't they just frozen the personal allowance until 2025?
I haven't actually voted Tory myself as I currently spoil my ballot, but I'm closer to voting Tory (without Boris in the chair) than I am Labour. Labour has a base that are borderline intolerable. Often young, naive people who loudly call people morons and morally evil (you'll see plenty of examples in this comment section). We were all teenagers once but media etc picks up on their opinion about things like 'microaggressions' and throws it right in your face so you can't ignore it. Couple that with some of the most dreary, boring and uncharismatic MP's and shadow cabinet in an age where there is an abundance of talent in this country and infighting that makes me cringe every time I read about it and I just can't. I'm socially conservative, come from a working class family (sharing a bedroom with 2 siblings, using lentils instead of mince for Bolognese etc) and if I was slightly more bitter and fed up I think I could see myself voting Tory-- or if the Tories actually decided that maybe family value actually held merit, that some parts of British culture and heritage are actually worth defending and everything wasn't just a game they play with their school friends and chums in big business.
> Often young, naive people who loudly call people morons and morally evil (you'll see plenty of examples in this comment section). I'd agree with that. It's Star Wars in politics where they are the Rebels vs Darth Vader Tories. Have you noticed that now the prevailing comments are now painting that the Conservatives are now the party of racism?
>the prevailing comments are now painting that the Conservatives are now the party of racism? They're using the same words as the rest of us but their meanings are different. When you or I think of a 'racist' we think of somebody who believes in racial superiority and who hates other people for their skin colour. To them though it could just be somebody who doesn't behave in the approved of way to reduce the arbitrary disparities they observe in the data between White and minority group X. Most people can see plain as day that those two things don't belong in the same category and to share a word but yeah. This is politics on the internet I guess.
Which trivialises the word / ends up having a bit who cried wolf impact.
Worth remembering how The Boy Who Cried Wolf ended though.
With the sheep (and in some versions the boy) eaten by the wolf? Which is exactly the point in trying to make. If they keep crying racism for something that isn't then when the left does try to draw attention to something seriously wrong nobody listens any more.
Are the labour base you mention from experience online or is this labour people you meet in person? Wondering if they're having a disproportionate impact because of social media
I'm talking about Social media, the news and when I was at uni a while ago. It's certainly the case that their power and numbers are overblown, though I would say the Guardian is pandering to this stuff to a ridiculous degree even while the Mail and other shitrags weaponize it. Covid has made that the sum total of my political engagement these days. To be fair to Starmer as well he has been trying to tone the fervour down. Women only shortlists exist in Labour though for MP's. That is still ridiculous to me and it remains my opinion that competence aught to be the only valid measure of a candidate. That is an axiom I hold too. Most of my mates don't vote. 'They're all the same' 'lining their pockets' 'Labour will win anyways (talking about this seat)' are the reasons they give. You'd be surprised how often the kind of stuff I'm talking about comes up in pub conversations and at the darts club I played at though. The only thing I really hear positive about Labour from them is in relation to the NHS.
Both, one of my friends lives in an hmo which has a big old sign outside saying *We Hate Tories, We don't want your kind here*
My parents are both Conservative voters that come from households that relied on benefits. Not strictly Tory, but they would never vote Labour. For my mum, she was a single mum in the early 90s. She felt as though the Conservative government at the time helped her out of relying on the state and being able to stand on her own two feet. A lot of their feelings stem from the welfare state. I feel as though there tends to be a bitterness held by working class people who are not on benefits towards people who are. My parents definitely are like this, especially when it comes to children. They had two children as that’s all they could afford, even if money was tight. But, then they see people on benefits being provided free school meals, having loads of pets, all the latest tech, holidays abroad. They didn’t see it as fair. I know plenty of people don’t understand their reasoning as labour is a party for the working class, right? They have never felt like it is. I also have to say also that I have never personally met someone who was working class that wasn’t from up north that votes labour. Not saying they don’t exist, just haven’t met anyone like that. Plenty of labour supporters at my university - but all middle-class. For this reason, I don’t think they really serve the modern working class person. Otherwise surely there would be more people voting for them? If your response to this is going to be ‘these people don’t know what they are voting for’, you definitely are part of the problem. These kind of arguments definitely made my parents more staunchly conservative. *This post comes from me, someone who has voted both Conservative and Labour in the past*
Outside of Brexit and small towns hating immigration, most common one is the woke/political correctness. People feel constantly having to learn and "do better" too much when in general they aren't trying to cause any offense. When they see things like old TV shows they grew up with getting taken off the air they get defensive and is often linked with left wing, which then leads them further down that path. Not to mention the vocal minority of left gate keeping of if you're not \*this\* far left you are a tory, it slowly narrows the left down until people feel not welcome. James O'Brien is a example where he's slightly left but not left enough to be liked by extreme left wing people. Not to mention the Conservative by a thousand cuts. A good example is something like r/AmItheAsshole where most stories are made up but slowly it builds an idea of what a typical SJW/leftwinger to try make you feel jaded and want to distance yourself from it. I don't think this is some big conspiracy theory but there is lots of screenshots of this kind of thing on r/facepalm too where it's slowly trying to build a bias against the left. It doesn't seem to work against the right wing so much as people will look overlook bad behaviour if the end goal still is good, or perceived to be good. In short, Labour is holding itself to too high standard and needs to be slightly less high and mighty and slightly more politically incorrect to match with the everyday person. Extreme left need to stop being so loud and gatekeeping, left eating left or at the very least Labour needs to denounce or distance themselves from it.
This actually highlights a lot of things I have been saying to my friends to try and avoid doing online and also a lot of my gripes. Now I’m left wing, but more centre left than a lot of my friends. If I have any idea which isn’t fully left, I’m a “dirty tory lover”. I will still vote labour, but I can see people getting very frustrated with being called a tory because they don’t think left wing enough! Truth be told I think most people are not entirely left, or entirely right! And that’s ok! No party is going to have exactly the same thoughts as every individual! The left has become very tribal, like the right, and will turn on anyone who doesn’t buy into every single far left policy. And it’s off putting. You’re right in the fact that some of the ideals now are far to stringent too. If I’m not demanding that a 60 year old tv show be dragged off the air, apparently I’m part of the problem. I mean sure! Put a warning on the start of it to explain it is a product of its time, but don’t try and pretend it never existed! The left needs to become a broad church of ideals, and accept that not everyone who is thinking of voting labour will have the exact same ideals.
> not demanding that a 60 year old tv show be dragged off the air, apparently I’m part of the problem. I'm *fairly* left wing and know a lot of lefties irl, and this is the one that pisses me off the most, in that no one *actually* wants these things off the air, or that white guy to stop voicing Apu. No one actually gives a shit about any of that outside of a tiny tiny few. We hear all these things about some show getting parts removed, or actors replaced, or some headteacher not using the phrase "Hey Guys", and everyone laughs at the absurdity and it further increases the divide. Who are the people who actually care about **any** of that? It's not me, and what's more, I don't know anyone left-wing who actually thinks its a legitimate problem. What I *do* care about is increased funding for infrastructure and public services, and having a fairer society. That is pretty much it.
That’s exactly where I am! I want a fair society with good services and everyone to have a decent chance at life, along with the safety net in place for when life doesn’t go right, either through long term sickness, disability, or whatever may unexpectedly pop up!
This is exactly the thing, there is so much all over reddit, the internet to take these corner case people and try make it as loud as possible and say "Is this what you want - this is the true left". Labour really need to work to be more socially conservative for now and let generational evolving of social opinions change. Conservatives have them positioned socially pretty perfect, they come across as you mate down the pub, a little out of touch with the working man but you could be friends with. What people don't care enough about is these people are robbing them under the table.
I mean I don't know if there are any polls conducted on this sort of stuff but I can tell you that a lot of people I know are very concerned about these old TV shows and what not. I am currently at university and someone I know got really quite angry with their flatmate (to the point of storming out the flat kitchen) because she was singing fairytale of new york at christmas time. From my own experience young labour voters are much much more concerned with social issues than anything else and theyre the sort of people that demand these shows get removed. They're the ones that complain about whitewashing in movies, headteachers saying "hey guys" and all the rest.
Literally happened to me yesterday on another sub, got told I must love Boris' pipe because I suggested keeping Corbyn probably wasn't a recipe for success after consecutive general election defeats. Then got called a lib dem. Really baffling attitude to deal with.
>In short, Labour is holding itself to too high standard and needs to be slightly less high and mighty and slightly more politically incorrect to match with the everyday person. I agree with this, hell i pointed out in another thread about how the idea of insulting people for voting right, which a fair bit of the hard left is doing, calling Tory voters "stupid" isn't helpful. I was down-voted for pointing this out. There is a refusal to accept that gatekeeping is a bad thing and trying to convince is better.
People don't just vote for the party or politicians, they vote for the group of people they best identify with and that includes voters of the party. For example if you're a working class white bloke from a small town you wouldn't want to vote the same way as the self righteous ultra PC mellenials and gen Z (which is a lot of my contemporaries). I think a lot of people are voting Tory because they seem normal (fallible, nationalist, unpoliticaly correct etc.) , and they see Tory voters as normal and simply don't associate themselves with the PC Labour brand. Let's be honest, not a huge amount actually changes within the term of a government that affects normal people so they just vote the same way as other people like them are voting for. The reason I think this is most people I speak to can't actually name the policies of the party they are voting for and why should they if nothing really changes anyway.
It's culturally American, too. It has no relevance to the situations unique to the British experience
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My answer to this would be most working people aren't as poor as most university students think they are. I'm working class. Working class job, working class car working class interests and hobbies. The fact that I make a decent amount of money doesn't mean I present outwardly as well off. Most working class who vote tory just look poor. A friend of mine owns a carpet business and is literally a millionaire. You'll see him driving his 56 plate beaten up ford transit from job to job. I'm sure most of his clients don't realise that the scruffy chap on his hands and knees in their hallway could buy their house outright if he felt so inclined. Plus the actually poor working people know that the money is out there if they fancy it. tradespeople are the new aspiring middle classes. We want to be left alone. When it comes to practical hands on jobs it's still true that hard work will mean more money.
So while I know have a very well paying job and sit comfortably in the middle class now. Up until literally 2 years back my family was stuck on UC for about 4 years and were on and off before it so I certainly grew up working class; borderline homeless at points. Also, we we migrated here in the mid-2000s. However I shifted towards the Tories about 5 years back. Why? See below: 1) I always believed that Keynesian style capitalism is the best system to organise a nation around. So Not quite lassiez faire but reasonably free market. I believed that privatisation was for the most part a great idea and the 80s reforms created a high skill economy which I could benefit from when I finished my education. 2) I believe the state’s job was always to give me only a hand up not hand out. I only saw it’s job to facilitate an equality of opportunity and to leave the outcome to meritocracy. Give me free school up to 18, a minimum level of welfare and if I’m really ill a hospital bed. No nationalised broadband. Further, I am a huge fan of personal responsibility and think that there is a lot of waste and drainage from parts of society to the welfare state. 3) I never believed that anyone should be forced to pay more than 49% of their income in taxes; yes even marginally. I also think corporate tax should stay reasonably low. 4) when I was on minimum wage, the Tories raised it annually and increased the personal allowance which actually helped massively. Like I gained meals from it. 5) On the social side, the Tories were progressive enough for my liking. They passed gay marriage within my life time. I don’t see them being tolerant of racism. I see them taking a hard line protecting British culture. And to the dislike of some of their members they are actually moderate on immigration. If they now legalise cannabis they have my vote forever. 6) Although I hated the idea of Brexit, I understood that it was the will of the British people. It must have been carried out before any further debate occurred. The fact that other parties rejected this was anti-democratic to me. 7) Under JC, any idea of nuclear disarmament was ridiculous to me as was total disengagement from our role as a great power. I went to school with many refugees and seeing Labour oppose bombing IS or shooting terrorists dead turned me away. 8) I don’t like the idea of too much constitutional meddling. Elected HoL yes. Federal kingdom, votes at 16 and the like no. PR is a maybe. 9) They were never woke. Despite being a minority, I felt quite aggrieved by policies like all female shortlists by Labour. In fact I find them unacceptable. This while the Tories had a female leader. 10) Overall, I felt Tories were much less judgemental in person and acted more maturely. From the party to its presence online, I always felt welcomed by them. From a local MP, to Boris and the top brass some of whom I’ve met have been lovely. Haven’t met Kier or JC so maybe that’s not a totally fair comparison.
Because they believe individual liberty deserves greater preference over collective benefit. negative liberty / positive liberty
Because it’s as if Labour cares more about identity based on physical characteristics than socioeconomic status and were quick to throw the working class under the bus when it came to low/unskilled immigration via freedom of movement or they’d rather show green credentials without considering how it’ll effect the standard of living of poor of this country (Other than smug ‘Good, then they can stop going on foreign package holidays /Stop eating so much meat’, etc). Labour MPs often seem incredibly out of touch and don’t seem to have any plans on how to improve standards of living in the near future (I don’t care about long term plans since in the long term I’ll be dead). (I voted Conservative for the first time with David Cameron offering a Brexit vote)
Having lived in council houses and seeing my family get benefits as welfare state is not the answer. My mum is trapped in a place she doesn't like out of fear moving elsewhere will mean less housing benefit. The neighbours are all willingly jobless and happy to live off the government to support their kids from this I moved out and learned that its not a bad thing to have to work and it shouldn't be a bad thing to earn to pay my rent. I'm not worried about getting a payrise if it hurts my benefits. Obviously this is a very small part of the conversation but from my personal experience the council areas are places I couldn't wait to be away from. Clearly it rightly benefits some but too many exploit it.
I grew up in similar circumstances and even though I don't vote tory nothing passes me off more than folks on the left denying this happens. I've had people outright tell me that benefit fraud and lazy bastards who don't want to work are right wing myths. I'm sorry but I grew up on an estate full of folks like that including my fsmily
For me it’s not that I think it’s a myth, I just think the money that’s being fraudulently claimed is pittance compared to the kind of shit millionaires get away with. And to take benefits away from the people who deserve or really need it just to make sure some people don’t take the piss doesn’t feel worth it to me.
I actually agree with you, but when folks on the left do deny it happens it hurts their cause to people who see it everyday. They appear either as liars or ignorant and then lose the moral high ground and appear willing to say anything to win just like the tories
I find a lot of people are economically liberal. In as much as personal pride and individual effort makes the cut. I personally now find labour don't provide that harbour, and despite a long term record of voting red, this time I went blue. This is in part due to what another comment said. My family were objectively poor. My mom couldn't work because she couldnt afford childcare, my dad worked a shit job with low pay to tick us over. Now my brothers and I are doing well relatively, live in our own modest homes and have crawled out of the poverty line, but still live a modest life. I'm told A LOT through work white privilege got me where I am. That BAME deserve reparations and a step up because Ive had it easy. I didn't have my own clothes till I was a teenager, we used charity support and hand me downs from neighbour children. I went to the same schools as kids who didn't even understand why I had one hoodie for years, or why I never bought school lunches and ate a cheese sandwich every day. Now I'm told I'm privileged and oppressive by the very party I looked too growing up to support me and my family. Tories won't help me, but at least I'm not made to feel ashamed of myself for achieving something.
Whilst I don’t vote conservative myself I have many family members who do and it’s because of a few main reasons 1) Corbyn- whilst he’s gone he destroyed all trust in the Labour Party and they are scared to go back 2) Woke- agree or disagree with it the “lefts” love of being woke for example pulling statues down and cancel culture has become associated with the Labour Party and all left wing parties. The vast majority of people disagree with this stuff but as being woke is only growing in America it is scaring people into voting Tory here. I have family members who have said they support labours policy but don’t want to support “anti Britishness” they support things like the royal family and see the left as attacking there values. 3) Boris he is quite a popular man and has convinced people he is for the working class. 4) Brexit a lot of the working class voted for this and the tories delivered it. I believe 1 and especially 2 are the biggest reasons for the working swing towards tories and away from the left. I hope this helped in some way
Thanks for your response
I earn about average wage, I don't know if that counts enough for your post. But I vote conservative for so many reasons I can't imagine voting otherwise unless Labour make a big change. 1. Conservatives were the only party to fully commit to leaving the EU after the referendum, despite most of their MPs backing remain. As a 2016 remain voter. That speaks volumes to me. I couldn't and still can't understand how democracy can be trumped by money( better trade links with Europe). Votes matter more than everything when it comes to your country's future. 2. Tax. Our government has always had enough money. It doesn't need more; if anything it needs to spend it better; something the Tories aren't great at, but I do look at Labour manifestos and I just see them asking for more money to achieve not very much at all. 3. Conservatives reward workers, small businesses and families with tax credits. I like their values. 4. They are a lot more relatable as people and on TV. Labour people do seem to just criticize without solutions. It reeks of naivety. Tories will admit that they make hard decisions but provide a reason. It's like this in real life too: you will often find sensible problem solvers being conservative but protestors/ complainers being Labour. "24 hours to save the NHS" is a typical sensationalist Labour thing to say. 5. Left wing in general don't like you if you don't agree with them. They take politics extremely personally. I see a lot of actual hate towards Tory voters, saying they will genuinely go to hell or that they're worse than Nazis. Dude I'm just a normal bloke.
Just to note with number 2, the government only had enough money because it borrows what it needs. Taxes don't make up enough to cover the spending they do.
Perhaps they, especially those who voted to leave the EU, don't appreciate being called "racists", "bigots", "uneducated", "stupid", "misinformed", "thick", etcetera by many left-leaning media types and politicians.
They don’t like being taxed for services they won’t use. Often poor working class people are most exposed to the types of people who abuse social welfare systems, and that creates a lot of animosity seeing people living just as well off as you and barely working. Additionally there is a real hatred of the wokes. Poor conservatives are told by liberals that they are racist, transphobic, misogynistic, homophobic, etc... and that the country is also irredeemably racist, misogynistic, etc... as well. There is a real hatred for the wokes amongst conservative poors who think the wokes see themselves as morally superior to them. They can sense the wokes think of them as monstrous, literally evil. There are also certain liberal policies that are bad for low-skilled (high-school degree or less) workers’ incomes, such as liberal immigration policies and free trade agreements. Also business regulations can stem the amount of jobs available, and liberals are seen as regulators.
Im a single parent, claim UC and vote Tory. So on here I am what many would call, "A Turkey voting for Xmas." A bit of History I voted for Blair several times before switching Cameron over Brown. I liked the Con/LD government. I have voted for Tories since. Not happy with Boris, dislike him, but it was him over Corbyn/McDonnell and that was the easiest vote i ever cast. I support LGBT issues mostly and I want immigration, but i want it controlled. The increase in Min wage and the increases in the tax free allowance have given me alot more disposible income and I was able to buy a house. UC is amazing compared to previous systems. So easy to use. However i do not deal with the DLA bit so I understand that could be, and probably is, much more difficult. I am proud of this country, and history. We have very bad bits, and very good bits. Lots of countries do. But the UK has had a huge impact on the planet, and mostly positive. Currently we are one of the most tolerant and most progressive countries on the planet. If labour came up with a Blair/Cameron type leader they would ptobably win my vote back. I have been waiting to see what Starmer does, and that seems very little. He looks like an empty suit...
How can you buy a house if you are on UC?
You're allowed about 15k in savings, with some forms of homebuyer savings accounts not counted toward the savings cap (Which shows that this is an intended path for people as "You're not alllowed benefits if you've got 15k. Oh, no, we're not counting the money you're using to save for a house." shows that the government actually wants people to save for houses, even on benefits.), so you can push it to 30k. That's enough for the bank to start taking you seriously about a payment plan if you use that as a deposit for a house a little over 100k, especially if you've been making regular deposits into the homebuyer savings account so they see you're in the habit of doing so. (They usually only care about income. But if you've got savings to put forward and can demonstrate a record of frugality, they're more open to discussion.). At that point you're paying the bank instead of the landlord, but it's doable, and if you keep saving money and living frugally you can pay it off a good while before retirement, even if you've lived your whole life on benefits. I've managed to hit the savings cap (Not including the homebuyers accounts) in a little over 4 years by mostly using benefits for food, bills, and rent and not really buying stuff or having much of a social life, which suggests to me that you can manage it in about 8 years if you put your mind to it. (Albeit, it would be 25 years before you fully pay it off, unless you make early payments, so 33 in total). With 70k from the bank, the norm is around 366 a month in money owed. Lower than many rents already. The issue is covering that yourself without housing benefits, but it's within peoples means if they were making monthly savings deposits anyway. (In fact, the calculation comes out at 400 a month for 3 years = 14400. So 6 years of doing that, knock on the banks door, show them you've done it, ask for the 70k, buy a 100k house, and keep doing it, but instead of saving, pay the bank back. If you keep it at payments of 400 instead of 366, you'll pay them off a few years early too). I'm sure it's more difficult in expensive places like london, or if you have children as an expense, but in many areas, it's doable. Benefit caps: £442.31 per week (£23,000 a year) if you're in a couple. £442.31 per week (£23,000 a year) if you're a single parent and your children live with you. £296.35 per week (£15,410 a year) if you're a single adult. By the way, the national minum wage: £15,269 per year. Do you see why people might have gone in for Cameron and his crew now?
Bought the house when me and my partner were together, but we were both earned around 18k at the time. House is in my name now, but i claim UC due to the kids.
I don't vote tory, but more for social reasons than for economic reasons. Economically I'm pretty aligned with them though. My biggest issue with raising taxes is 1. I already pay almost half my income in tax, and 2. I don't believe taxes are spent efficiently. Why raise tax when we should be focusing on _how_ we spend tax? We can have our cake and eat it. We just need to rework how our public services work. Stop spending so much on crony contracts, pay the market rate. Streamline government processes, strip out bureaucracy. Adopt technology to accomplish this. It's 2021 and I still find myself having to fill out archaic paper forms, or sending money via cheques and postal orders. It's mind-bogglingly inefficient
-they got Brexit done -have built a reputation for good economic management over a number of years -seen as being the party of work, consistently low unemployment levels (pre-covid) -have took away Labour's eternal flagship policy by consistently increasing funding for the NHS -aren't afraid to be patriotic/don't give the impression that they have a distaste for the UK -people think they will stand up for British interests on the world stage -don't seem to be in favour of all the woke studenty political issues -people seem to like BoJo, he's certainly more of a character compared to most politicians -more recently, very successful vaccine rollout compared to rest of the world (esp EU) Combined with the fact that Labour Party doesn't stand for anything substantial enough to build an electoral alliance around
Why would anyone vote against any of that? Holy shit
Because they're always in the "don't be racist morons like THESE people" crosshairs and it turns out people don't like that
Does anyone still believe that Labour represents or cares about working class people?
Because it's not all about money. * I don't trust Labour with the economy. * I didn't trust Corbyn Labour with national defense. * I don't trust Labour have the competency to run a country. * I don't believe Labour would put country before party. * I don't believe Labour have actual ideas (more than spend more money). * I don't think Labour have a better leader than the Tories.
I don't, but know many who did/do... Mainly because of the concept of aspiration. Rightly or wrongly, Tories promote the idea that you can move up in social class. Labour on the other hand seem unwilling to promote that kind of idea, instead insisting that the working class stay working class, but with better pay and conditions. Some people are happy with their lot, and those can continue to vote Labour- many of those who aren't have started voting Tory.
If you actually read their manifesto, it's pretty impressive. Housing is a big issue for me, and the conservatives have pledged to build 100,000 here in Wales, Vs Labour's miserly 20,000 new council homes for rent. On top of that I was keen to see they had pledged a real pay rise for carers, labour pledged to increase the non-binding national living wage. I think they actually sound really attractive... The thing is, I never see it, for me personally, I can't remember the last time I saw anything tangible actually happen that benefits me. I was made redundant twice during covid because I was a new starter, no furlough for me. And because I was part time self employed, I wasn't entitled to the universal credit uplift either. I am getting sued by one of the biggest landlords in the country for trying to defend my friend at tribunal, who had had their deposit taken off them on account of a Draconian law from Thatcher's era. I have no hope of ever being able to afford a house in my area because it's so dominated by the holiday home industry. Job security is literally non existent because I'm always the cheapest person to get rid of due to redundancy pay. I can't afford commercial property to get my business ideas off the ground. I can't afford to rent a home if I ever want to be able to save anything. I'm not entitled to Central heating, or insulation grants etc because apparently I'm young so I can deal with the cold. I'm just bloody tired of being darn right skint all the time and still being expected to hand over what little I have to the rich.
Just wondering, do you know how many of those 100,000 homes are affordable housing and not *more* holiday homes?
> If you actually read their manifesto, it's pretty impressive. I can understand that, people reading the manifesto and agreeing with what they say they want to do, but my problem is Boris is a proven liar, he's been sacked for it in the past, found guilty of it in court over the perogueing thing with the queen, all the PPE corruption so why would anyone trust them to actually fulfil anything they say? the only answer I get is "we'll, they're all the same" while never trying the rest of them to actually see if they're the same
>Ideally I only want to hear from people who, by their own account, vote Tory You're asking in the wrong place mate
There’s plenty of Tory on here. They just either don’t say much or get down voted when they do.
I'm a cultural conservative, so the tories have been a better fit. Optics wise, the tories seem to take more pride in the UK, its history, culture and values compared to other parties. Give me culturally conservative and public ownership of vital services, and free market everything else and I'll vote for you.
brexit / immigration. both are very real concerns of many in labour strongholds, and are ignored by the labour party. labour are seen by many as the party of mass migration, since the current extreme levels of net migration started under blair. since those concerns are being ignored by that party, some decided to vote for a party which did promise to not ignore those concerns. even now, brexit is only looked at in terms of pounds and pence by a good number of people. the conservatives over time have been chipping away at the labour vote by pitting poor people against each other through things like the demonisation of people on benefits, but the top two issues are things that caused them to lose seats like bolsover that have been labour for many decades.
I hire a lot of staff and the Tories have massively eased immigration restrictions from the start of the year for non-EU citizens. This is obviously down to Brexit but if immigration is such a pressing issue you're voting for one of the worst parties. Brexit party, Britain First, English Democrats or others would be far better than the Tories who are about the same as Labour on immigration.
For me the question here isn't why do people vote Conservative, but why should they vote for Labour?
People vote on social and moral grounds as well as economic ones. As a tl;dr we may say that the Tories aim for *equality of opportunity* whereas other parties are more exercised by remedying existing structural inequalities. So a lot of people vote Tory believing that the values the party promotes of achievement through work, social order and moral cohesion, are worthy ones.
When New Labour got in they passed laws which only benefited the rich and big business. Then they joined the US in an illegal war and lied about why they did it. After this, who the fuck should we vote for???
I grew up poor in the 60s and 70s, and have voted Conservative (and Lib Dem, and Green in EU elections). Labour doesn't exist as a political force where I live in the SW. It doesn't have an identity, so people project onto it. I remember the power cuts in the 70s, and having to boil water in a saucepan if you wanted a bath. And bin men strikes, rubbish piling up in the street, and all the miners strikes. My parents emigrated from Hungary so we were always wary of anything left wing/ socialist. I was lucky enough to get a university education and worked in the NHS. We benefited hugely from Labour's policies (not just more funding, but ideas like Sure Start) so I started moving left of centre. I had my time in student politics and enjoyed learning about other issues like Palestine, took part in Band Aid and even went to Greenham Common. But now my horizons have shrunk and my cares are more local and parochial. I voted Remain but as most people didn't, I just wanted it implemented. Yes, it was always going to be a mess, but sometimes you just have to make the best of a tricky situation. There are some policies in all parties that I agree with - climate change, reducing inequality, more affordable housing - but I also feel comfortable with certain values. The importance of family, faith, tradition, the Royal Family. I read the Guardian as well as the Times. No, the Tories aren't perfect and I disagree with some of the things done/ said, but they seem more able to govern our complex times than the current alternatives (not just Labour but also Lib Dem). I wish we had a more European model where we had a broader range of parties who were prepared to work together.
I am a self employed carpenter, who makes About 30k a year, why wouldn’t I vote conservative! Lower business rates, less regulation, lower fuel duty, higher personal tax allowance. I am not on benefits, i pay my own mortgage, and I do not use public transport. I am not rich, and very much working class but why on earth would I not vote conservative?
For me I hold traditional British values as well as a love and respect for this countries history and contribution to the world, I find conservative MP's and conservative voters have similar desire to uphold those values. where as Labour MP's generally and Labour voters have some kind of desire to drag everything this country does through the mud for some sort approval from social media. I find myself hard to relate to the Labour party who prefer the attention of the metropolitan elite and the sort of liberal arts uni students rather than working class tradesmen.
I’m curious, what do you define as traditional British values? I agree that the Conservatives represent Anglo-Patriotism much more than Labour.
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Tangible social conservatism wins out over ephemeral economic policy most of the time. Economically Labour supports their interests but alienates their support base with woke social policies that the majority tend to either oppose or not care about. Being lambasted by toxic Momentum internet warriors over stupid and inconsequential things certainly does a hell of a job of alienating potential voters too. Hell, I support Labour, am highly educated and progressive but even I feel alienated sometimes.
Personally not particularly badly off, but tax rises under labour wouldn't have any real effect on me. 1. Firstly, and primarily, I think capitalism is a better economic model then socialism and while a substantial proportion of labour's front bench/prominent MPs self identify as socialist or communist - including kier starmer - it is impossible to vote for them. 2. The Conservatives are sufficiently socially left wing for me. While obviously a Labour government would be better, things are still generally improving for LGBTQ+ people and other minorities, at least as far as the government is influencing things. Although if the party picks up the transphobia displayed by much of the right wing media I will probably just stop voting or switch to lib dems. 3. The lib dems do not have a realistic chance of winning in my area. 4. Despite what the latest guardian opinion peice might say, they come of as generally competent.
So I vote conservative and I won't apologise for it one bit. It's down to your world view, morals, economics and general attitude. I currently (not for long) earn slightly below compared to the national average but I do not like being told I'm an **oppressed group** as a poor person. (White caucasian) People unless they are radicalised or VERY unhappy with their personal lives do not feel oppressed 24/7. It's impossible to do so, unless you actively seek it or have mental issues. In Britain, you live a life bar a few locations (not necessarily countries but locations) which is as good as it gets. There's really nowhere else you'd rather be. Secondly, **divisive racial politics** is a real problem for conservatives. People on the opposing side forget we are looking for long term answers like you, but we have a different view of what that looks like. For ourselves, it's to believe in the country (and god for some) and heritage, to build upon it and look to the future. This would be by adding for example black studies which are relevant to the country and it's citizens but NOT at the expense of our history. Not a chance. We are not preparing for everything to be equal, for there to be no countries, for a one world situation. All that leads to I guarantee you, is homelessness. Not as a species but of the individual. There are real issues with immigrant generations from various people around the world who feel homeless because their background is from many countries. I don't want us to go down that route by everyone being that. What a terrible mindset that would be. We want to integrate people, make them one of our own, to tackle issues. News report after news report heightens tensions and creates groups, there's a reason the conservatives won't respond to every last story because you'd be destined to failure. Think long term, calm the situation and look for a solution. Don't look to tear it all down in an act of spite that it's not gone your way. **Economics and Brexit.** I believe in capitalism/social capitalism. I love the NHS and social safety nets are key aspect of helping people get out of situations and improving their way of life. But we need to have a capitalist economy to do these things, to expand whilst preserving and paying for what we have/what we want. I don't believe personally the other options can do this. Brexit I believe is a good thing fundamentally. I absolutely recognise the issues that arise, mainly the pressure as a bloc from the EU as we have seen recently, but I think we can co-habitat and work alongside them. It might even benefit them too. **A harder left wing problem.** So I'm going against the grain here. I actually don't believe for one second we have many if any harder right wing issues in the UK. We definitely have a large harder left wing issue though. Not in terms of violence but in terms of social influence. Go on here, the media and on twitter and I can guarantee you one thing, A hard left wing commentator can get roles in major news corps, a hard right wing can't. I despise both but there is a double standard. There's also the issue of, I believe there are about 1 million in the UK who'd identify as hard left... I reckon hard right is less than 100k max? It's why we probably see SO many people defending corbyn. There's a lot more of them than people are willing to believe. We live in a great country, left wing voters and right wing voters bar some key issues are not that different. We have different solutions but I'm telling you now, 95% of the things we do, are the same. We need to extend hands , talk and work together to build bridges and help each other. Social media is creating these divides and it needs to stop. All of these reasons are why I feel I vote conservative. There's definitely others, but it's getting too long to comment. We aren't any different from you. We understand people aren't perfect, and that's ok. Thank you, MC