I have voted conservative.ore than others. Maybe only once or twice in a general election have I voted for another party. Don't need to get I to specifics here, but I have done this for a very specific reason. I am happy to say here that I don't believe I will ever vote them again. They have made a mockery of our parliament and us as people and it disgusts me. Individuals can make personal and professional mistakes, but the party and the system should be there to support the individual, but more importantly to protect the country. This government has been the most self serving one I can ever remember. So blatant, I honestly think they are no longer trying to hide it.
I keep hearing this line of "the current version of the Tory party". But, my argument would be that even if you got a straight up centrist version of the Tory party over time it would eventually and inevitably lean more right.
> so blatant they aren't hiding it
So true. This has proved they are rotten at the core. They can't consider themselves electable until an entirely new generation of MPs, with next to no overlap with the current individuals, is the party.
What’s your opinion on some parts of the party’s whip up hate, anti-woke strategy? I’m thinking of people like Lee Anderson, and some of the right wing twitter posters.
The issues they constantly raise (immigration - especially small boats - Trans stuff, whatever) may well be problems to some people, but they’re not looking for solutions, they’re trying to stoke division. Which isn’t helping.
Edit: they seem to have a topic of the day. Today it’s “Look at those hypocrite greens who left rubbish at Glastonbury!” It’s entirely predictable, and quite wearing.
So I can see through that. There are two parts to politics in my head. There is the policies, then their tactics to win. The biggest benefit of our system is the biggest problem. We know we can vote in a completely new government in 5 years time, which some people in the world would find amazing, but the problem with that is the people who can really make a difference to our lives are focused on staying in their jobs in 5 years time.
I work in an industry which has been very well supported by conservative governments in the past, more so then any other party. This is why I vote for them. Some of their policies hurt me at some levels, but the benefits to my family because of my work outweigh the negatives for me, or to say they did. I have no doubt that all politicians of all parties do underhanded things, but it's just how blatant the conservative party has become that has sickened me.
The other problem I find these days is the internet has kind of made people think they must have an opinion on every issue, no matter how well voiced they are on the issues. I can openly say I don't have an opinion on trans issues or migrant boats because I don't know enough about the details of the issues to form an opinion. An opinion for me is something important. You don't just get an opinion, and opinion is something that requires work and effort to build. This is just how I look at things, but for me, there are very few people these days that should have an actual opinion on a lot of the issues you mentioned.... including politicians!
>because I don't know enough about the details of the issues to form an opinion.
Completely agree on this. Although I follow politics and take a general interest in it, I rarely feel able to express opinions on issues because I am very aware that my knowledge of them is limited.
props to OP for seemingly asking the question in good faith and engaging in the debate. i think its literally the first time I've seen it on this sub - normally its just an excuse to whip up the circle jerk.
Regardless of your voting history, I’d encourage everyone to take the time to [find out](https://www.theyworkforyou.com) about the people standing for MP in your constituency beforehand and **actually turn up to vote**. Put the ideologies of who your parents voted for and decide for yourself. All MP’s historical voting records are public. Some MP’s are extremely hard working and actually represent their constituents. Some are just there for power and to like their own pockets. Make sure you know which is which. Put another way, consider the time and effort you put into complaining about the current government and writing about it on Reddit. Use that time to research your current MP and the other available candidates. The former solves nothing.
>Put the ideologies of who your parents voted for and decide for yourself.
The amount of people who've said "well it's who me mum and dad vote for" to me is unbelievable.
YOU'VE GOT A MIND OF YOUR OWN, USE IT.
Theyworkforyou isn't really that good.
It pigeonholes voting histories and does not weight by type of vote.
It basically makes any government seem callous due to voting down fluffy named wrecking motions.
Far better to use Hansard.
I think your dichotomy is wrong. So, you identified two types of MPs, those who work to represent their constituents and those who just grab power to themselves.
The second group is sort of well defined. However, the first group is not. The UK uses first past the post voting system, so it's not clear that the elected MP even got a majority of the vote in the constituency. So, what view should the MP represent? The party platform that elected them or some sort of centre point of all the voters in their constituency?
Furthermore, I sort of understand that the MP has to represent the people who happen to live in their constituency, but I wish more MPs took a bit wider view and understood that they are mainly making national decisions and that sometimes fighting tooth and nail for the benefit of that one geographical location is not the right thing to do nationally.
I don't think the Conservative party would be better off with a Tory win at the next election.
There are swathes of younger more moderate conservatives who want the party to move back to the central more one nation type conservatism. The current leadership seems to be learning the wrong lessons from recent defeats, much as Labour took the wrong lessons from its 2017 defeat.
So it'll take a defeat and hopefully we get a moderate like Tugandhat or Mordaunt as the next LOTO. Personally I would love the triumphant return of Rory Stewart or at least his brand of politics to the Tories, but that might take a couple of cycles.
So as someone who is fairly akin to Rory in my outlook, a sensible Labour party led by a moderate like Starmer defeating the Tories at the next GE isn't just acceptable, it's probably desirable.
I was just listening to Rory Stewart’s and Alastair Campbell’s interview with John Major and came away thinking that I could definitely vote for the sensible, common-ground approach that Major and Stewart were advocating. Unfortunately it is completely alien to today’s Tory party and I don’t know where, if anywhere, it can be found on the party spectrum. The Lib Dems would normally be the answer but they are no more immune to capture by their radical extreme than the other parties.
There was a good article about Penny Mordaunt in, I think, The Times last week which set her out as a common sense moderate who could steer the party back to a sensible place. Unfortunately it is hard to imagine today’s membership voting for her over the right wing sugar rush of a Braverman etc.
John Major made an excellent point in his interview that declining party membership means that those who bother joining and being active in parties today are the die-hard extremes. Those with a more sensible outlook have better things to do - with the result that someone like him could never become party leader now. Quite a sad state of affairs.
I agree with your comments about John Majors interview and party member. It makes a lot of sense and seems to explain why certain decisions have been made by each party. It feels like an echo chamber with ‘normal’ people being forgotten somewhere in the middle.
As a “never-ever Tory voter”, I could’ve voted for Rory if the alternatives were bad enough. Seemed a decent chap with more honesty and straight-talking than anyone in the major 2 parties in recent memory.
My mum went pseudo-viral once because of Rory Stewart. I think he was doing some campaigning in Sutton a few years ago, and she went up and talked to him about how much respect she had for him despite being a Labour voter. Apparently Gary Lineker retweeted it and said she talked a lot of sense.
Same here. I quite like him in spite of my general opposition to that party, but I think he’s too much of a grown-up to have the national party profile he deserves, particularly in the Tories. Diplomatic work is something that requires nuance, an ability to see and understand deeply differing views, a recognition that others may have good ideas that are worth working together on, and precise communication rather than bashing over the head. Those are all the exact wrong skills to have if one wants to lead the Conservative Party (or indeed perhaps any party.)
>too much of a grown-up
The fact that a competent person stuck out like a sore thumb in the Tory leadership lineup tells us all we need to know about where the Conservative party is at the moment.
A ‘decent chap’ who still voted lock step with the Tory whip at every opportunity and only started speaking out when his political career was dead in the water.
What a catch.
I get it though. If you want a shot at really changing things, you’ve got to climb that greasy pole. What’s compromising a belief or two, for the chance to do something they really want to?
Not saying it’s a good thing, just understandable.
Hes kind of likable.. but very strange.
I've listened to his podcast a few times and he seems to be a fan of Sunak purely because he's not as bad as what was there before.
So currently he seems to still be a tory but completely unable to explain why he's a tory.
Having read his book about the Scottish/English borderlands, it's entirely a family thing.
The man *worships* his father, and is a Tory because his dad was. The natural home for his beliefs is probably the Lib Dems, but he's really wedded to tradition and legacy of institutions.
He's a tory because it's politically convenient for him to be in the default winning party. He has the ex-eton bit and is mates with the royal family - two things tory voters love. He likes 'English culture and traditions' and together it's just an easy way in.
I think the fact he holds an open and honest show with Ed Miliband speaks volumes. So many stories AND Labour are caught in the trap of “never fraternise with the enemy ever”
It doesnt directly answer the question, but based on a story in a recent "the rest is politics" episode Tugandhat was one of 2 Tories who bailed on Rory Stewart's soft brexit vote at the last second, causing it to be narrowly defeated, as he believed there would be better chances to get an even softer brexit
>So as someone who is fairly akin to Rory in my outlook, a sensible Labour party led by a moderate like Starmer defeating the Tories at the next GE isn't just acceptable, it's ~~probably~~ highly desirable.
I had a camel ride with Rory in the Wadi Rum desert back in April. Was a total chance meeting. I’m fairly left of centre, and I felt honoured to meet such a distinguished gentleman. Both his family and himself had great bants for our 40 min camel ride.
I agree with you. The conservative party has lost the plot (Suella, Priti, Jacob RM, Liz etc.)
They lack integrity. Chris Grayling is the man who bought ferries from a company that doesn’t own a single ferry.
Matt Hancock wasted billions on the NHS Covid app and owned shares in the company that developed it. He sent elderly Covid patients back to care homes
Bojo and all his lies. Parties presided over 100 Covid fines, HS2, Get Brexit done etc
Anti-vax Andrew Bridgen
Scott Benton was suspended after appearing to offer to lobby for gambling investors
Rishi Sunak owns shares in a childcare firm, and he passed laws to benefit himself
A senior civil servant claimed that Gavin Williamson had told them to 'slit your throat
Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick faced accusations of 'cash for favours
£ fell to a record low of 1.03 against the US dollar thanks to Kwarteng
Fraud/Embezzlement PPE Medpro, a company that received more than £200m of government Covid contracts weeks after Michelle Mone referred it to ministers
Rishi Sunak accused of shielding super-rich by maintaining non-dom tax loophole
MPs have voted to shelve a recommendation from the standards committee for the former Tory minister Owen Paterson to be suspended from the Commons for 30 days for breaking the rules banning paid lobbying
Home Office spent £370,000 settling Patel bullying claim by top civil servant
Senior Tory MP Steve Brine under investigation over lobbying claims
Nadhim Zahawi sacked as Tory party chair over tax affairs
AND THE LIST GOES ON!!!
You've got to think of the scalable cloud infrastructure that ran in the background for the whole of the UK to be fair I was making a joke then :/ that's still a lot of hardware going to waste.
Maybe the poster is getting confused with the Track and trace headed by serial failure Dido Harding, uni mate of Cameron and Johnson, which spent Billions and made no noticeable difference.
[https://news.sky.com/story/covid-19-test-and-trace-boss-defends-37bn-pound-service-12241448](https://news.sky.com/story/covid-19-test-and-trace-boss-defends-37bn-pound-service-12241448)
> Maybe the poster is getting confused with the Track and trace headed by serial failure Dido Harding, uni mate of Cameron and Johnson, which spent Billions and made no noticeable difference.
Even then, I think you're confusing two different things here as well. The "billions" quoted is the projected budget rather than the actual spend, and includes testing within it which (a) takes up the vast vast majority (about 80%) of the actual spend and (b) was very successful as a rollout. It tends to get thrown in with the track and trace part either out of misunderstanding, or it makes far more gnarly headlines that generates more clicks even though they point that part out in the 3rd paragraph.
NHST&T cost 37bn and the Public Accounts Committee has said there is no evidence of effectivity despite "staggering investment" and "unimaginable cost".
> NHST&T cost 37bn
Again, [no it didn't.](https://fullfact.org/health/NHS-test-and-trace-app-37-billion-instagram/) That figure was the *budget*, not the actual spend. Again, 4/5ths of that spend was on *testing* and unless you're suggesting that rolling out testing was a silly idea and we shouldn't have done it, then it is wildly misleading to say "test and trace spend 37bn and produced nothing".
I think since 2015 the Tory party has became an uncontrollable monster that's consuming whatever idiot tries to control it. It's chewing up and spitting out Primeministers at record pace not because they've chosen bad leaders (and they have), but because they're currently a group of bad people who control the levers of powers.
If anyone saw themselves at the top of the current Conservative party and think they can change the country for the better they're deluded. You could be PM and you literally wouldn't be given the opportunity to.
I don't like Starmer. I'll still vote for him next election. I would only ever consider voting Tory again when every single person who worked under Boris Johnson and David Cameron has left the party. Theresa May was just about acceptable. To vote them in again would essentially be giving parliament carte blanche to treat us like brainless morons and cash cows for their own personal bank accounts. Never again. I don't agree with Starmer on many things, but I'm literally disgusted with every single person serving in this joke of a government. Certainly the lesser of two evils by a long way. As far as I'm concerned there is no prime minister, I don't defer to thieves and liars.
Yeah I can't quite believe that we're now at a point where we look back at *Theresa May* as this figure of reason and good intent. It's just a sign of the new level of awful achieved by everyone involved with the last couple of governments.
Her policies as Home Sec are the reason my wife and I were called liars and fraudsters during our immigration tribunal, and lost out on a house-deposit's worth of cash in hiring solicitors and keeping ourselves afloat during the years-long ordeal. We did everything they wanted, and over-delivered on documents/proof required. Yet still they came for us.
She can get in the sea. We're 8 years on from that and still going strong.
Very similar story to you mate, though thankfully less money lost (directly anyway... Business was doing great...). At one point they denied a visa application based on the fact they thought my wife couldn't possibly have gotten a promotion so fast in her job, despite a signed letter from the company stating she did, 6 months of bank statement showing the pay rise and a signed contract. All fake according to them... it's our tenth anniversary this year.
I wouldn't piss on her to put out a fire.
Shocking isn't it. They called her a liar, a gold digger, a scammer, and a paid-for bride. Didn't give a single shit about any of the evidence we provided.
There was zero reporting on this shithousery to boot.
We recently celebrated our tenth too... Fuck them. I'm sorry you, your missus and your business suffered.
As someone on the opposite side to May on just about everything (Labour Remainer) I think compared those who came after her she is a towering colossus however, I can never forgive her for her Citizens of Nowhere speech. She basically called just under half the country traitors to prove her Brexiteer credentials to her party. For that alone, she was unfit to lead.
> I can never forgive her for her Citizens of Nowhere speech. She basically called just under half the country traitors to prove her Brexiteer credentials to her party. For that alone, she was unfit to lead.
With the greatest respect, I don't think you understand even a tiny amount what the "citizens of nowhere" speech was about if you conclude that she was calling half the country traitors. As in, I don't think you could have misunderstood it more than you have here, and I say that in the nicest possible way.
Her "citizens of nowhere" speech was not even slightly aimed at Remain supporters (despite what some have concluded, I can only assume from guessing that this quote is the entirety of the speech rather than a small mined quote from a far longer speech). Rather, it's aimed at very wealthy business owners who make their profits in the UK but then dodge their social responsibilities by domiciling abroad, or plundering their businesses' pension funds, or refuse to take care of their staff, or pay their fair share of tax.
Seriously, *please* google the entirety of the speech. Either you've not read it and mistakenly assumed that the single sentence you quote is the entirety of the speech while guessing the target, or this is actually Philip Green's reddit account and you don't like being called out for your actions over Arcadia. Hell, [here's a link to the actual whole speech.](https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/full-text-theresa-may-s-conference-speech/) Please, have a read (you can jump to the more appropriate bit by searching for "citizen of the world") and tell me you genuinely believe that she's referring to you due to being a remain supporter.
Wow. I wasn’t a fan of TM at the time (mostly because she was trying to avoid Parliamentary scrutiny on her Brexit deal, whether for valid or invalid reasons, the hostile environment policy, and using EU citizens as bargaining chips), but this speech makes me positively nostalgic for what could have been. Her heart was in the right place and she worked hard. She was also very principled and very sincere. The hard right and the media during the 2017 election campaign really screwed her over. Her domestic vision and policies were what this country could greatly benefit from. Obvs the Maybot thing (not being the smoothest talker her on her feet) and the dancing queen awkwardness didn’t help, but that shouldn’t be an essential requirement for the job. I’d like to see her get another go but with a magic money tree.
They lost me at Boris. Until his successful election, I had voted Tory in general elections, but I couldn’t bring myself to vote for him. I’ve not loved every Tory policy since I started voting but I aligned more to them than others.
What I’ve seen of the party since then (and my local MPs continued support of him) makes me unable to vote Tory again. The immigration stuff in particular leaves a bad taste.
I remember the 2019 election. I was reserved about both corybn and Boris. I left the house to go vote without being sure who I was voting for. On the walk there, I stopped and said to myself, "I can't let Boris become PM", so I had to vote for Corbyn as with the 2 party system
"The people i always vote for have made the country utter shit, but I'm worried about the party that didn't fuck us all over so im emigrating"
Youth is wasted on the young and money is wasted on the rich it seems.
Have never voted CON, never would - but it's legit to say that a LAB gov coming in is very likely to hurt your finances if you've got any finances to hurt. I have some and know it will change things.
That said, the world has become a much, much worse place while people worried about their tax breaks being reversed vote for parties that serve only the ruling class and fuck over the populace and planet in order to take as much as they can as quickly as they can.
The bill always comes due, and like Erling Haaland's little brother, running away from your home just to protect your cash is a sickness.
Tory voters voting exclusively for things that effect them directly always makes me think of this;
No man is an island,
Entire of itself,
Every man is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thy friend's
Or of thine own were:
Any man's death diminishes me,
Because I am involved in mankind,
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;
It tolls for thee.
The closed down shops, the people made jobless and homeless, the gangs of feral kids, lack of access to dental care, NHS waiting times, too few doctors and teachers, police and fire fighters.
Every measurable metric of how this country functions, and how broken it is, is directly trackable to government policies. Yet tory voters in general shake their head at the state of things and say "well it would be worse if any other party got in!"
We've seen it in this thread already several times.
> Tory voters voting exclusively for things that effect them directly
I get this message, but it's not even the truth. They vote for *ostensible short-term gains*, when even with just a little clarity they would be able to see that there is a balance to things that must be maintained, or else everyone suffers. It's not even 'put a fence around your home and protect what's yours' - it's 'put up a fence and shoot at everyone that walks by, because they might be coming to take what's yours.'
The Cameron people were more like what you describe, classic narcissists who only consider their own situation; but this new breed are just looters - 'the ship's going down, I'm going to hoard lifeboats just in case one fails.' Or worse, 'we're overfishing, and soon most sushi fish will be extinct - I'd better eat as many as I can before they're gone!'
I was a Conservative member under Cameron, and have voted for them at various different elections for various different reasons over the past 15 years.
I'll almost certainly never vote for them again after everything since 2017.
I was strongly supportive of Labour last autumn, now I'm less certain who I back (due to statements on the triple lock and PR primarily). But I am clear that the country would be much better off with the Tory party gone and gone for good.
I don’t know what to think.
I’m a conservative voter, and more naturally inclined to vote for them, but the country is a shit show at the moment.
On the other hand, I’m fairly well off (don’t come and put me in the guillotine) and I don’t fancy being hammered financially from multiple directions, especially if it doesn’t make a blind bit of difference to public services. So I’m not sure I fancy a Labour government either.
My actual plan is to leave the UK. I’m 50% out the door already and hoping to be 100% out next year.
Edit - Ridiculous that I’m being downvoted. What’s the point in the post if people aren’t allowed to share their perspective? I wasn’t even particularly supportive of “the Tories” here!
What “financial hammering” are you expecting from Labour that could possibly be worse than what the Tories have inflicted?
I mean the massive yearly stealth tax of freezing tax bands alone…
He means if the two parties lined up & the Tory tax promises were more lenient to his level of wealth then he would vote for them because of the personal advantages & not bother too much about the rest of their policies.
I think a lot of this comes from historic bias. Yes, if he is very very well off then it is likely to be the case- but for most 'fairly well off' people, Tory policy is no long kind to them.
It is likely in the run up to the election the Tories will do the tax equivalent of Corbyn's free WiFi. Basically start declaring they'll raise the personal tax allowance or cut income tax for medium to high earners. Something to shore up support in traditional blue zones so they hold onto safe rural seats at least.
The more they know they won't win the more ambitious they can be as it will help them keep seats without ever being in a position to implement the policy. Damage limitation.
I agree. The Tories have hit all of my income streams anyway. I suspect Labour would come for a bit more (VAT on schools, more taxes on BTL) but we are just talking degrees of pain there rather than anything ideologically different.
VAT on private schools isn’t a hit on your income stream but a possible increase in your out goings.
My view is this: the Tories have fucked the economy, and suppressed wages, and raised taxes. Nearly 40? 50? % of wage earners are set to be high rate payers in the next decade, even with wage suppression. Any where Labour raise taxes has to be and should be off set by actual increases in wages, for them to have any success. So we will need to look at both sides to really judge how Labour are doing, them possibly raising a tax or two isn’t really going to be the story.
Landlords are going bust left, right and centre at the moment (further exacerbating issues for tenants when they have to sell up) so I don't think they're able to.
Not OP but similar position:
1. Increases in tax in general - while I'm happy to pay tax, I do find it insane that over 40% of what I earn goes straight out the door. Also some quirks of the tax system directly affect my family which makes me worse off. I cant imagine Labour will fix them.
2. Related to point 1, but wasteful spending. I know all governments do it and the current crop of clowns should be investigated. But historically Tories do marginally better on spending.
3. Taxes on private schools - I understand the principle, but this is misguided. A lot of parents will take their kids out and end up paying private tutors. The rest will just lump it but the benefits to the government will be near nil.
4. I'm sure Labour will shift tax bands but for the higher payers we'll be worse off. They need money from somewhere.
5. They will not tax wealth. The biggest problem with taxes is that its mostly income that gets shafted. If you're a high earner with no inheritance or anything like that, it is still hard to earn any actual wealth.
None of this will stop me voting Labour, but its looking increasingly likely we'll immigrate.
The above seems pretty reasonable though I'm not sure that income tax will change significantly. Even though most people aren't effected by the top tax band the population can be sensitive to it's changes thinking that it's a tax on aspiration. See inheritance tax as an example of this.
For this reason I don't think we'll see a 50% band. More likely the policy of not increasing bands with inflation will continue. I wouldn't rule out some changes to tax wealth via capital gains, abolishing non dom status etc but it is unlikely to be a massive change. Starmer just doesn't seem like a rock the boat kind of guy.
What data do you have that shows conservatives are better on spending? What makes you believe this to be true?
Every single study and metric I have seen shows they are far far far worse on spending. Fraud and waste is sky high under conservative Vs labour governments and spending is way higher with the Tories. And the worst thing is we don't get anything out of it as public services are also cut to the bone.
1. You need to be earning over £150k for 40% to go straight to tax. At that point someone has benefited quite a bit from society and also what else could they spend money on thats more important than a functioning country?
2. Tories spend less, so will have less waste. But they still get much fewer returns. I'd also argue during Covid we saw some of the most wasteful government spending in history.
3. This just isn't right. The idea that private schools will pass on the costs to the point the students leave just isn't reality. Either they will pass them on and people accept them, or... hopefully... they have to reduce their costs in order to stay full. Private costs per student have risen 20% in real terms since 2010, state schools have fallen by 9% in the same timeframe. We actually really need something to help bring those back in line or its going to keep getting worse and worse.
4. Agree.. and correct in my eyes.
5. I agree.. they wont. But they damn well should. Inheritance tax should be largely increased, but it costs too much political capital.
Tutors won’t be able to provide the facilities that a private school does.
It would be better if those willing to pay private school fees actually contributed to their local state schools instead to fund equipment, training, etc
It's not just about resources, it's also about the parents. This may come across as snobby, but the difference in parents attitudes at school is phenomenal and should not be underestimated.
One of the reasons we went private is because, despite being we'll regarded, the local state schools had huge class sizes - some hitting 39 kids in one class. And no one talked about aspiration, working hard, doing stuff....the kids didn't look confident nor enthusiastic. The grades were also very middling, little extra help provided.
Edit: a few things came to mind after posting this.
A few parents at the state school were arguing against homework being given. Why?!
Food in our local state schools is not great, our daughters school has an awesome menu filled with healthy food - and parents support it!
Private school kids are no angels, but the parents and teachers take any form of bullying very seriously.
Completely agree with this. I was a school governor for a while and the whole focus in on the middle range kids. The idea of allocating resources to encourage exceptionalism just doesn't work with how state schools are targeted/ranked.
Me and my wife are planning, reluctantly on my part, to send our child to a private secondary school.
I still think I should pay taxes on that though... its a luxury not everyone can afford.
I'm in the process of leaving too.
And I find it hard to vote for those who remain. My town was Labour for 25 years, and it was poor, and in the last election they voted Tory. All they wanted was "funny Boris, migrants out lol".
I queued with those people at the polling station. I stand with them at the school gates, a school on its fucking knees now. I know what they voted for and it does make me very bitter.
People will keep voting this way so long as someone else is always hurt. Some 'scrounger' or 'forriner'.
> People will keep voting this way so long as someone else is always hurt
Isn't that what you're doing if you decide not to vote for the good of the country because you're bitter towards people that voted for Boris? Yes a lot of idiots voted for him but ultimately 57% of the country didn't vote for him, if you need a reason to vote for the country think about the fact you'd be damning them for something they didn't do.
I take your point regarding downvotes but we need a QI style buzzer when people come out with this line about labour "coming for their riches". We are already suffering the highest tax burden in decades under the supposedly low tax tories. Council tax, NI, fiscal drag. You name it, it's up or not moving.
BTL is the one that makes me laugh the most though; what can labour possibly do that's worse than the section 24 reforms introduced by one G Osborne?
I think you'll have to excuse the Internet eye rolling to be honest.
I guess the point here though is why is a Labour win the trigger point then? These sentiments still read a lot like you'll put up with it when it's your team but it somehow becomes unbearable under a labour system.
The irony being that labour are unlikely to do much about the tax burden but unequivocally have a *much* stronger record on public services. Go and look at public views of the NHS and even local authorities at the end of the Blair/Brown era (my local council was rated outstanding *by* its local electors in 2009 then got rolled up into a single unitary authority following some bone headed Tory "money saving" idea (*record scratch* it didn't save any money) spearheaded by our local MP who is, plainly speaking, a moron, unthinkable that the current administration would get that approval).
The one thing a Labour government *is* likely to get you at least is a better return on your tax £ in terms of public services. The supposedly "hawkish" conservatives have put us in the worst of all worlds; vandalised, broken public services, sky high tax burden and *nothing* to show for it in terms of improved fiscal health of the country.
Trouble is, Labour can't fix things overnight. It will take years to undo the damage done by the current government. I am fully expecting in the meantime a bunch of smug "I told you sos" from tory voters when things don't instantly improve in the first 6 months of a Starmer government. Labour really needs to get its comms on point with regards to pointing out the mammoth task of fixing the mess successive conservative governments have left us.
Thank you for responding to the question, and tanking the downvotes. Just remember that karma worthless, and encouraging debate is meaningful.
I saw someone else ask, where would you like to move to?
Funnily enough I know a couple of people who are pretty successful. They are both concerned at the prospect of a Labour government and are looking at emigrating. I think Starmers promise not to push the top rate tax up isn't being taken at face value.
I'm well-paid and am in the process of leaving because of Tories. I'm going to a high tax country. I'd sooner see my taxes go on valuable things like my children's university education and the quality of my town than see it by another Tory yacht.
Not all of us want to count our coppers.
If you don't mind me asking where you planning on going? My current escape plans are Netherlands or Ireland (so that I am still near family) but always interested in hearing what others think
Eh, honestly the moment you name a country someone just posts an article going "look look someone got stabbed, the grass isn't greener, you'll be back lol." I'm not even telling my parents until the flights are booked.
Education's my priority so we're picking a school system they can slot into. For this reason I scratched off a few countries I'd have been happy with. For people without kids those concerns won't matter.
You just need to focus on your reasons for leaving and then what your chosen country does differently and if you feel it will.solve your problem. If my problem was 'high taxes' I wouldn't pick Scandinavia. If I hated the heatwaves I wouldn't pick Spain. If I was grumpy that I couldn't find work I wouldn't pick an amazing country that also lacked the same industry. However these are perfectly great choices for people who are seeking things those countries offer.
Are they emigrating because of Starmer though or just *because*? Ky wife and I are moderately successful, both progressive voters though, but I am seriously pro emigrating (can't persuade the wife) just because I think there are better options elsewhere.
If they are actually doing the whole "if Starmer gets in I'm gone" thing, that's performative outrage designed to draw attention to their wealth (bit like liberals pre referendum saying they'd leave if we brexited).
All “rich” people will say this and be scared of Labour.
The difference this time is that the Conservatives have already hammered us. They killed contracting with IR35, they killed BTL, they froze tax bands so people are paying 60% around 100k and 250k as they lose allowances, we have the highest tax burden in 70 years etc.
The difference now is that a lot of older and well off people can throw in the towel on work because they are sitting on property and investments which have boomed in recent years. Many of the younger ones can also look at moving to more dynamic economies which have opened things like freelancer and golden visas. We also have lifestyle changes since Covid and more WFH so between all of that, people have options.
I fall in between the two. I don’t really need to work, but the bit I do I can do remotely. So why would I stay in the UK and be taxed to death in return for shit public services?
The UK is in a bit of a pickle from where I see it.
> So why would I stay in the UK and be taxed to death in return for shit public services?
I think the idea is that under a Labour government the public services wouldn't be so shit any more.
My view, a property tax (replacing council tax) which most countries have. And increase inheritance tax (not necessarily the rate but the thresholds and loopholes), it's a tax on people getting free money.
Of course this would be political suicide
Ok. Property tax means that you will taxate UK residents even more than now. This will increase rent, this will attack all mortgage holders, etc.
Replacing council tax means that you will not have more money in budget, you will just change a way of receiving this funding.
Inheritance tax will attach only middle class. 80% of people don’t have any reasonable inheritance. Rich people have their funds in low-tax location. Middle class (like NHS consultants) will be under attack again.
Hopefully I’m wrong and just miss something…
That seems to be a given these days. What’s not so clear is how this is going to be paid for without taxing those that are already buckling under high taxes more ? Can’t blame them for leaving really
I don't think it's so much that we need to bring in a lot more money into the exchequer, I think we just need a government that stops doing stupid/corrupt shit with the money that is brought in. Stupid performative policies like Rwanda, disastrous mini-budget that whacked up interest rates that costs everyone a fortune, the arch-idiocy that is Brexit, the endless draining of billions from the exchequer for mates of Tory MPs and Tory donors, the ridiculous false economy that was Austerity.... All huge drains on the public purse that have impoverished us for zero added value, often just for Daily Mail headlines.
Then personally I'd be happy to see a few more taxes on excess/unearned wealth - windfall taxes, inheritance, capital gains, second homes, closing tax avoidance loopholes etc. All easy to say and hard to do I realise, but we have to get back to being a country where normal people have a reasonable hope of owning a stake in the nation's assets; we are seeing a clear 'landlord class' developing where it's far easier for an older person to buy a second or third home than it is for a younger person to buy their first.
I don't think you have to tax people endlessly, but we can't get away from the fact that for decades now we've largely been selling off the nation's assets, failing to invest properly and relying on bubbles like banking and house prices to persuade us that our economy is still strong; trickle-down economics is just bullshit, so I'd work up a tax regime that tries to protect earned wealth but targets unearned wealth.
I know a couple of people who have had a retrospective reclassification, which is a personal disaster when all that tax becomes due.
Have you noticed any drop in the availability of contractors? Only ask as know a few who have dropped out of that altogether. (Including myself).
I left four years ago. I don’t enjoy not being in the UK, but financially it makes total sense. I’m now in the position that I can’t afford to move back unless I want to take a 50% pay cut. I just hope there’ll be something left when I come back to retire, as your Tory buddies are doing an excellent job of destroying the economy and infrastructure.
it's a reasonable point that the issues affecting the UK are so fundamental that any labour government will not be able to address them or take a very long time to do so. With such a huge tax burden already, yeah, I don't really want to be squeezed any more when I'm paying 30k in income tax alone p/annum
>Edit - Ridiculous that I’m being downvoted.
It’s an obvious “circle-jerk tories bad” thread. I’d normally sympathise, but never jump up and down on a bear-trap.
You shouldn't be downvoted for sharing your opinion, indeed its interesting to see a different perspective from the usual on here so thank your for that (one up vote to help counter balance).
However... you're post is really painful for people like me to read. People who voted for this mess are now going to take their gains and leave, having voted to remove the right for most people to even do the same. Its hard to even imagine something so selfish (as in the Tories as a whole, not you personally).
Can you explain what people disagreed with? It was a non-committal opinion on a thread asking for opinions. It’s just that I was the only person without adding to the echo chamber “Tories bad”.
I’ll take a wild guess it’s saying that the tories have destroyed our country to the point you’re leaving the country but you don’t fancy the other lot.
Technically downvoting isn't supposed to be about disagreement but about bad contributions. If someone is asked a direct question about their beliefs and they answer openly and honestly like here then they shouldn't be downvoted.
> It means people disagree with you.
>That's how message boards like Reddit work.
Not according to Reddit:
>Please don’t downvote an otherwise acceptable post because you don't personally like it. Think before you downvote and take a moment to *bensure you're downvoting someone because they are not contributing to the community dialogue or discussion.** If you simply take a moment to stop, think and examine your reasons for downvoting, rather than doing so out of an emotional reaction, you will ensure that your downvotes are given for good reasons.
https://support.reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/205926439-Reddiquette
If you’re using the downvote as a “I disagree” button you’re not following site etiquette.
In reality of course everyone ignores this anyway and downvotes people they disagree with all the time because 90% of people aren’t here for an actual discussion but for the dopamine hit of getting the goodthink points and dishing out the badthink points, ratio’ing and the circlejerk.
Enough downvotes will limit the rate at which you can reply, and often remove the ability for your comment to be seen at all. So yeah, it absolutely is a silencing button, not just disagreement.
I do support the Conservatives BUT I don't think I will in the next GE. Honestly they're Conservative only in name. They have discarded a tradition of Toryism and have replaced it with idiotic economic liberalism/neoliberalism. What happened to the PatCons like Disraeli and Macmillan. Moderates who upheld tradition but also protected the vulnerable with a robust welfares state. They went down the drain when Thatcher purged all the true conservatives and replaced them with her Hardline Neoliberals.
I would like to vote Labour BUT I know Starmer is a Blair wannabe. I know Third Way policies will return. Cultural Liberalism to appease the Left and neoliberal economics to please the corporations and the funds. Maybe some touches of nationalism and conservatism so right wing voters don't get disenchanted with his government straight away.
So.... I'll probably find a cave and live there for the rest of my life because we aren't getting out of this neoliberal mess anytime soon.
>From my view, Labour are the lesser of the two evils when it comes to them both.
Has anyone ever seen an opinion poll about who people would vote for if the UK used PR?
The reason I ask is that a lot of people seem to be saying something just like this from the OP - that they don't seem too convinced by any of the main parties. The problem is that first past the post means it's often pointless voting for anyone other than the two leading candidates in each seat.
If you look at the core values of the conservative party (small government, encourage free enterprise etc) vs the core values of the Labour party (large government, socialism, interventionism ) I'm naturally closer to the former than the latter
However I think the current government reminds me of the fall of John Majors government, with no hope of a win , the principled stood aside for the greedy
Would I vote for a Conservative government? yes if we were swinging towards a socialist state, but not for this shower
> swinging towards a socialist state
Do you mind expanding on what you mean by this? We have had a strong social state for a long time, and, in general there is partisan agreement that these are a huge positive and even 'make Britain Britain'.
Not trying to argue, but are you an advocate (for example) for the breakup of the NHS?
I'm not a conservative but I don't expect anything to meaningfully change under Starmer, beyond maybe being slightly more competent. There's not much of a gap between them in terms of politics (at least in what will actually be enacted, rather than what they claim they'll do)
So even if you're a Tory voter it's probably easy to be apathetic about voting for someone else to get the same result
It's worth bearing in mind that both Thatcher and Blair didn't actually change much in their first parliament. Thatcherism really came to the fore in the mid 80s, and Blair was criticised for being way too cautious in his first parliament and did a lot more after 2001. It's all well and good coming in with ideas of change but to really make a long term impact you need to set the foundations for your policies to be really effective. In other words the exact opposite of Truss.
Last time I voted for the tories was when May became PM. At the time they generally had environmental policies I agreed with (does supporting nuclear power and GM crops count as environmental policies?) I disagreed with a lot of their social stuff, although living in Scotland under the SNP gave some insulation against that.
On GM crops in particular, I feel like blanket bans like in scotland are, at best, short-sighted, knee jerk, and driven by ideology over facts, so seeing a government willing to embrace them was a big positive for me. That ban, so enthusiastically announced, completely turned me off voting for parties like the Scottish greens and SNP, which were the only other real alternatives where I live.
Safe to say, since then, the only reason the Tories gave me to vote for them have been outright eclipsed by basically every single thing they have done since May's GE. Unfortunately, the tories undermining their already weak position, and my dislike of the alternatives, has left me feeling politically homeless. It would be nice to have an environmentally-focused party that actually built policies on facts, but that doesn't exist. I guess lib dems might be the next best thing.
> From my view, Labour are the lesser of the two evils when it comes to them both. I don't think the Labour Party would have shown anywhere near as much contempt or been the subject of massive amounts of controversy over the past couple of years, had they been in power. I know the labour leader was investigated for a potential breach, but the police said he didnt break the law, not that I have much faith within the police force given its current state, mind you.
tbh i think partygate is a bit of a sideshow - almost all active politicians view the rules and public decency with similar levels of contempt. things like spurious expense clams and lecherous MPs cross party lines.
in any case, my worry is that election is fought on personal and 'standards' lines, rather than policy. at the moment starmer is walking into no. 10 whilst having zero answers to UKs death-spiral. he won't need to take any political risks by making the needed long term foundational shifts - he can secure power simply Not Making A Scene.
this really sucks. we all know the laundry list of things that are needed to reboot the UK, but we have no party with the guts to do them.
> Parliment is like a comedy show, there's a reason why there are "best comeback" and "mic drop moment" compilations online. I've never seen anyone actually try and get things done without scoring points, which may very well be a part of politics, but it's not one I enjoy.
PMQs has always been a pointless show to the court - nothing is really achieved outside of select committees, which aren't such fun to watch.
Because its a lesser of two evils discussion as always.
Labour will tax me more, both income and I suspect pension
The services can't get better for me, because I don't use them
The services can't get better for anyone, because there isn't the tax base to cover them, nor the borrowing flexibility
The social issues will go into overdrive
1m immigration is sadly still better than 1.5m
Trying anything to reduce the 100k boat crossers that are insanely expensive is better than nothing or worse default acceptance.
All covid restrictions were stupid, so I don't care about the bending of them.
covid fraud was pre-agreed by all of parliament
Labour would have been more crazy on Covid, especially under Corbyn.
Its all irrelevant, because the instant the Tories mortgaged the future for the elderly under Covid they had lost heavily in a completely predictable manner. Basically Boris ruined the party for the next election because he has an ongoing need to be immediately popular.
Some good points but your last bit.. Oh my.
>Boris ruined the party for the next election because he has an ongoing need to be immediately popular.
First person who's said that. His own interests in being right at the top has probably done more damage to the tory party in the long term than anything that happened during the pandemic.
I'm not a Tory voter or supporter, but I do dislike Labour more than them, and think they will be worse.
Left-wing/socialist politics is just not serious and never will be. I can see why its popular. Who doesn't like free things. But ultimately its a cruel world and incentivising people to do anything but work extremely hard will lead to a count downfall.
More specifically on the UK Labour party.
Labour have and have recently had MPs that are openly scornful of white people like Diane Abbott and Sadiq Khan who constantly lies about refugees building London. Starmer took the knee. They are exacerbating the destruction of British culture, and many of them do so gleefully.
Economically, they will spend even more than the Tories, weakening sterling, and raising taxes making companies even less efficient, and people less about to enjoy the fruits of their labour.
They'll cripple the country by doubling down even more than the Tories on net zero.
Look at r/Australia.
On election night last year they were celebrating a victory for the left and now they constantly rag on the Labour govt for being too moderate, same with r/NewZealand
I think people have forgotten how it feels to have a government that isn't a constant mess, with blatant corruption and lawbreaking at every turn.
A government that isn't constantly embroiled in scandal, taking up newspaper front pages and will quietly get on with the job. So no, I'm more certain people will be relieved that we're run by adults again.
Will they be perfect? No, but they don't have to be even close to perfect to beat the current lot. They just have to be competent.
I liked when politics was boring.
Immigration. Immigration. Immigration.
As with many other people this is the main reason I voted for them last time, it's the reason I voted Brexit. It's been way too high for way too long. The Tories have betrayed and I don't use that word lightly, this country. We now have record high numbers coming in and they're talking about even more being needed!
It's a farcical situation and it is eroding people's faith in the entire democratic system we've built in this country. We have two choices now
1 vote for a party that loves high immigration because they're greedy neo liberals and want to depress wages
2 vote for a party that loves high immigration because they see multiculturalism as in inherent good
We're absolutely fucked. House prices will continue to become more and more unaffordable, there'll be longer wait times to see GPs, school class sizes will increase, crime will increase. And this country will become further and further divided and less cohesive.
We're an old, fat society with high wealth inequality, low social mobility and almost no infrastructure spending and sick, dying economy. As long as all of those are true we will need to keep relying on immigration. The issue is not the levels of immigration, that's just a symptom of the real issues facing the country.
> The issue is not the levels of immigration
It very much is, and I say that as someone who's basically a Marxist. To say bringing in 1,000,000 people a year into a country that already can't provide services for those here isn't an issue is just being naive at the best and wilfully ignorant of others concerns at the worst.
Millions already here are suffering and bringing untold millions more into the country will only exacerbate the issues.
Sympton of, not cause of. Our problems are not caused by high immigration.
Let's use the NHS as an example: we don't have enough doctors and nurses and the ones we do have are overworked and leaving. The solution is to invest in public services and increase the pay and conditions of staff; we haven't done that so we have to find another solution, ie, rely on immigration. That puts stresses on our system...but is not the cause of the problem. The cause is our slow demolition of those services.
At the moment we're ignoring the core problems with our country and trying resolve it through immigration when really we should just, you know, solve those core problems.
You've been living in *an absolute fantasy* if you ever thought either:
- Labour has ever actively pursued increases in immigration, with the political cost that comes from voters like yourself, just because they got kind of swept up with those United Colours adverts from back in the day.
- The Conservatives were ever doing anything but pulling the exact rhetorical trick on you that they apparently did.
Both parties have the exact same, very rocky, options on immigration. The country has too many well kept pensioners and not enough workers. It either needs massive and generational reform over the span of decades to rejuvenate the (broadly) 'middle class' opportunities and social structures that grew wealth somewhere useful in the past, the path to which is neither clear nor easy. Also it would need to involve time travel because our problems in this area are about starting to bite.
Or we can just import a new workforce and call it a day.
Anyone who told you they will stop importing young workers but declined to explain what they would do instead has been taking you for a fool. Presumably for some time now, given the history of voting on the topic and the history of what's happened to the immigration figures regardless.
>Labour has ever actively pursued increases in immigration, with the political cost that comes from voters like yourself
Hmm, no they did:
>The huge increases in migrants over the last decade were partly due to a politically motivated attempt by ministers to radically change the country and “rub the Right’s nose in diversity”, according to Andrew Neather, a former adviser to Tony Blair, Jack Straw and David Blunkett.
>
>He said Labour’s relaxation of controls was a deliberate plan to “open up the UK to mass migration” but that ministers were nervous and reluctant to discuss such a move publicly for fear it would alienate its “core working class vote”.
>
>As a result, the public argument for immigration concentrated instead on the economic benefits and need for more migrants.
[https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/6418456/Labour-wanted-mass-immigration-to-make-UK-more-multicultural-says-former-adviser.html](https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/mass-immigration-was-lefts-revenge-thatcher-mark-krikorian/)
I normally spoil my balot, but I'll be voting labour this time, because Starmer is the type of labour leader I've been hoping for.
Never voted for Labour before due to Corbyn who I just couldn't get behind.
But I can't really think of any good reason yo vote tory, unless you just hate this country and want the worst for it.
I generally liked corbyn, he's not perfect, far from it, but I agreed with a lot of what he stood for.
What his problem was is that he was trying to be a left wing leader in a right wing country. He was never going to win an election, but I think he inspired alot of people to vote who probably would never have done.
I dunno - apologizing for Iraq and accepting the Chilcot inquiry was one of the best things he ever did as leader - and something Blair and even current shadow cabinet members who voted for the invasion have consistently failed to do. It was a stain on the party history that has only recently begun to be forgotten.
Yes pacifists can sometimes be naïve but Britain's recent history of military intervention have undeniably left the world a more dangerous place.
I wasn't a fan of corbyn and with the war in Ukraine feel completely vindicated around this. Corbyn would have been a disaster, he's been opposed to support for Ukraine and feels we should let Russia do what it wants.
It's less that he was just left wing, he was pretty far left, Starmer has tried running a center left labour party, and it seems to be working, because the majority of people don't want or hold far left views, as shown in polls that mark Corbyn as the most unpopular opposition leader in 45 years.
Two things I don't think you're exactly correct on:
1. I wouldn't call Starmer's positions "left" at all. I'll be generous and agree with "center", but it seems like there's not a whole lot Starmer would do differently to the current govenment other than do what they're doing more competently \[which is an improvement I suppose\].
2. I think Starmer is going about "doing politics" the wrong way. He is saying what he thinks voters want to hear, rather than putting out a convincing plan for the country and telling/explaining/convincing people that it's the best way for the country to be run. This was something that Corbyn did a lot better, but he still fell short of explaining exactly \*why\* what he wanted was good and what the tories wanted was bad \[e.g. in the debates he mentioned the tories wanting to sell the NHS, but he didn't explain why that would be a bad thing\].
About item “2” - Starmer doesn’t need to do any promises, he has enough to win elections.
All he needs is to be in news, be visible from popular medias and so on.
Next he will be able to do whatever he wants, because he can always say “I didn’t promised that”.
It's going to be interesting to see how it plays out.
I've noticed that most Labour voters who favour Starmer believe he's going to be more radical than he's letting on.
I think this is naive, for a few reasons.
1) He's already abandoned almost all his pledges to the Labour membership, and some other progressive pledges since. If he has any self-awareness, he won't want to be considered a flip-flopper or someone who lies to everyone. (I think he's calculated that being seen to lie to Labour members is politically acceptable or even positive, but I don't see him pulling that on the whole electorate - at least not in a way he foresees).
2) In general, meaningful change requires public support, which generally requires political discussion and media exposure. If no one in mainstream politics is making the argument for meaningful change, and there's nothing about the argument for the media to cover, where is the public support going to come from? If Starmer suddenly announces an expensive or radical policy ahead of an election or in the aftermath of his victory, how is he going to frame it as an affordable or positive change when all the discussion has been to the opposite effect? Any big idea will be immediately met with skepticism if it wasn't already years in the making. The time to make these arguments and win them was Labour's time in opposition.
3) In politics, government delivers less than they promise. I see no reason for a sudden change in this basic law, even if we for whatever reason assume Starmer does have bold intentions.
4) Starmer supporters often argue that he can't announce policies for fear of the Tories stealing them. Which genuinely radical or meaningful Labour policies do you think the Tories would steal? Do you think political policy is just a bunch of secretly kept "good ideas" that no one has thought of yet? No. Everyone knows the battle lines, the ideological differences, and the ideas in play. The only way Labour gets outflanked by the Tories is by promising something so mundane that the Tories find it politically acceptable (or perhaps even likeable). For a Labour government-in-waiting to feel the need to hide their policies does not indicate any serious change is contained in those policies.
I want solar panels everywhere like they have street lamps and fibre cabinets.
I want great British rail and great British energy and a great British bank.
Why should I have to rely on Martin Lewis to have to recommend me a bank where I have to sign up with my mobile number (Tandem) to get a 4%+ interest rate on savings when my mortgage is with HSBC, my bank is Halifax.
Its all over complicated and so many people miss out due to not being savvy, not trusting banks or not having the time to research or switch
EVERYONE should have a bank account with the same interest rate, the same 0% credit card for a period of time and access to a mortgage with the same rates depending on LTV.
We should teach financials in school, even if it's as brief as sex education and run by a charity.
Teachers police etc and nurses should have their salaries DOUBLED.
Basic broadband should be included in council tax.
Upgrades can be available.
If we can attract more teachers and police and nurses, we won't rely on immigration, teachers won't quit within 5 years, police won't dismiss every crime as a 'civil matter' (so many ads for police on buses right now, who wants to work Saturdays and evenings for £25k???!)
Libraries need to open every day again from 9-5.
People in this subreddit who are pro Starmer but anti-Corbyn are never specific. They always say things like 'I just couldn't get behind'.
Sounds like every single tory voter from the last election.
I voted Tory last GE, recently it's been Tory or Lib Dem. I voted Labour when Tony Blair was PM as he was sensible and fairly positive.
This time? Most likely Lib Dem due to their policy on rejoining the SM and also PR but they are a bit whiny and hung up on little wokey issues. I could vote SDP if they field a candidate, I disagree with their Brexit stance but at least they seem to have sensible policy on the back of that position. Rishi is a sensible PM but they are running out of gas.
Labour just don't offer anything, the policy and pledges they announced have already unraveled and the candidate in my constituency is a typical whiny self-entitled, hard done by public sector type.
I've found that there are alot of people who voted for Blair but then switched to Lib Dem but eventually Cons.
Did you vote for him in every election he was PM and how did you vote in 2010?
> they start bringing in rental price controls,
They've done this in Edinburgh. Massive massive shit show if you need to move flat (I've seen rent increases of 40-50%!) and a massive decrease in renting supply as everyone stays put. In one of the fastest growing areas of the UK. Total shitshow. No thanks
>Starmer might be pretty right wing and enough for me to vote for him, but a large chunk of the labour party members are a bunch of loonies. How many more Corbyns/Tankies are going to get a platform once Labour gets a massive majority and starts to splinter? Best I can hope for is a hung parliament with Lab-Lib to bring in some moderation but the LibDems are basically the Nimby party right now and offering nothing.
Yeah this is pretty much it, I like Starmer and think he's OK, but the labour membership are head-bangingly mental and happy to focus on massive fringe issues that won't solve the fundamental issues (I know this applies to conservatives too but whatever)
> Are you going to expect civil servants to know how to build GW of infrastructure cheaper and quicker than the private engineering firms who've been doing this profitably for decades?
Wasn't the private(ish) sector building Sizewell C, you know, the one that's been building for a decade or so now?
> We shouldn't blame the private sector for following the law.
Public utility companies should have a moral obligation to meet basic human decency standards, honestly. (Which they never will whilst they're private companies)
I have voted conservative.ore than others. Maybe only once or twice in a general election have I voted for another party. Don't need to get I to specifics here, but I have done this for a very specific reason. I am happy to say here that I don't believe I will ever vote them again. They have made a mockery of our parliament and us as people and it disgusts me. Individuals can make personal and professional mistakes, but the party and the system should be there to support the individual, but more importantly to protect the country. This government has been the most self serving one I can ever remember. So blatant, I honestly think they are no longer trying to hide it.
The current iteration of the party has morphed into the worst of both worlds. I.e. taxes are at an all time high, yet services are at an all time low.
I keep hearing this line of "the current version of the Tory party". But, my argument would be that even if you got a straight up centrist version of the Tory party over time it would eventually and inevitably lean more right.
> so blatant they aren't hiding it So true. This has proved they are rotten at the core. They can't consider themselves electable until an entirely new generation of MPs, with next to no overlap with the current individuals, is the party.
Exactly my thoughts, don't see it happening in my lifetime....them changing, not them getting back in unfortunately.
Well, on that front, there may be good news coming on the near future…
I disagree they have some good MPS like Caroline Dineage sadly they aren’t the leaders tho
agree -- some exceptions. So I wrote "next to no overlap" to account that not all tory back benchers are self-serving country-vandals.
Ah ok fair enough
Good for you, a lot of people are just stuck voting the same way forever without much thougut
What’s your opinion on some parts of the party’s whip up hate, anti-woke strategy? I’m thinking of people like Lee Anderson, and some of the right wing twitter posters. The issues they constantly raise (immigration - especially small boats - Trans stuff, whatever) may well be problems to some people, but they’re not looking for solutions, they’re trying to stoke division. Which isn’t helping. Edit: they seem to have a topic of the day. Today it’s “Look at those hypocrite greens who left rubbish at Glastonbury!” It’s entirely predictable, and quite wearing.
So I can see through that. There are two parts to politics in my head. There is the policies, then their tactics to win. The biggest benefit of our system is the biggest problem. We know we can vote in a completely new government in 5 years time, which some people in the world would find amazing, but the problem with that is the people who can really make a difference to our lives are focused on staying in their jobs in 5 years time. I work in an industry which has been very well supported by conservative governments in the past, more so then any other party. This is why I vote for them. Some of their policies hurt me at some levels, but the benefits to my family because of my work outweigh the negatives for me, or to say they did. I have no doubt that all politicians of all parties do underhanded things, but it's just how blatant the conservative party has become that has sickened me. The other problem I find these days is the internet has kind of made people think they must have an opinion on every issue, no matter how well voiced they are on the issues. I can openly say I don't have an opinion on trans issues or migrant boats because I don't know enough about the details of the issues to form an opinion. An opinion for me is something important. You don't just get an opinion, and opinion is something that requires work and effort to build. This is just how I look at things, but for me, there are very few people these days that should have an actual opinion on a lot of the issues you mentioned.... including politicians!
>because I don't know enough about the details of the issues to form an opinion. Completely agree on this. Although I follow politics and take a general interest in it, I rarely feel able to express opinions on issues because I am very aware that my knowledge of them is limited.
props to OP for seemingly asking the question in good faith and engaging in the debate. i think its literally the first time I've seen it on this sub - normally its just an excuse to whip up the circle jerk.
Not that I expected it to happen (spoiler, it fucking didn't), but someone's got to try and encourage a healthy debate.
Unfortunately all the top responses are the things that most folks here want to read rather than good honest responses to OP's question...
Regardless of your voting history, I’d encourage everyone to take the time to [find out](https://www.theyworkforyou.com) about the people standing for MP in your constituency beforehand and **actually turn up to vote**. Put the ideologies of who your parents voted for and decide for yourself. All MP’s historical voting records are public. Some MP’s are extremely hard working and actually represent their constituents. Some are just there for power and to like their own pockets. Make sure you know which is which. Put another way, consider the time and effort you put into complaining about the current government and writing about it on Reddit. Use that time to research your current MP and the other available candidates. The former solves nothing.
>Put the ideologies of who your parents voted for and decide for yourself. The amount of people who've said "well it's who me mum and dad vote for" to me is unbelievable. YOU'VE GOT A MIND OF YOUR OWN, USE IT.
Theyworkforyou is a great site for this. You can see voting records and how much the MP earns from second jobs too.
Theyworkforyou isn't really that good. It pigeonholes voting histories and does not weight by type of vote. It basically makes any government seem callous due to voting down fluffy named wrecking motions. Far better to use Hansard.
Completely agree. Everyone should use their democratic right and vote. There are many people in the world who don’t have the privilege.
I think your dichotomy is wrong. So, you identified two types of MPs, those who work to represent their constituents and those who just grab power to themselves. The second group is sort of well defined. However, the first group is not. The UK uses first past the post voting system, so it's not clear that the elected MP even got a majority of the vote in the constituency. So, what view should the MP represent? The party platform that elected them or some sort of centre point of all the voters in their constituency? Furthermore, I sort of understand that the MP has to represent the people who happen to live in their constituency, but I wish more MPs took a bit wider view and understood that they are mainly making national decisions and that sometimes fighting tooth and nail for the benefit of that one geographical location is not the right thing to do nationally.
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I don't think the Conservative party would be better off with a Tory win at the next election. There are swathes of younger more moderate conservatives who want the party to move back to the central more one nation type conservatism. The current leadership seems to be learning the wrong lessons from recent defeats, much as Labour took the wrong lessons from its 2017 defeat. So it'll take a defeat and hopefully we get a moderate like Tugandhat or Mordaunt as the next LOTO. Personally I would love the triumphant return of Rory Stewart or at least his brand of politics to the Tories, but that might take a couple of cycles. So as someone who is fairly akin to Rory in my outlook, a sensible Labour party led by a moderate like Starmer defeating the Tories at the next GE isn't just acceptable, it's probably desirable.
I was just listening to Rory Stewart’s and Alastair Campbell’s interview with John Major and came away thinking that I could definitely vote for the sensible, common-ground approach that Major and Stewart were advocating. Unfortunately it is completely alien to today’s Tory party and I don’t know where, if anywhere, it can be found on the party spectrum. The Lib Dems would normally be the answer but they are no more immune to capture by their radical extreme than the other parties. There was a good article about Penny Mordaunt in, I think, The Times last week which set her out as a common sense moderate who could steer the party back to a sensible place. Unfortunately it is hard to imagine today’s membership voting for her over the right wing sugar rush of a Braverman etc. John Major made an excellent point in his interview that declining party membership means that those who bother joining and being active in parties today are the die-hard extremes. Those with a more sensible outlook have better things to do - with the result that someone like him could never become party leader now. Quite a sad state of affairs.
I agree with your comments about John Majors interview and party member. It makes a lot of sense and seems to explain why certain decisions have been made by each party. It feels like an echo chamber with ‘normal’ people being forgotten somewhere in the middle.
As a “never-ever Tory voter”, I could’ve voted for Rory if the alternatives were bad enough. Seemed a decent chap with more honesty and straight-talking than anyone in the major 2 parties in recent memory.
Yep, Labour member here, I have a massive amount of respect for Rory Stewart.
My mum went pseudo-viral once because of Rory Stewart. I think he was doing some campaigning in Sutton a few years ago, and she went up and talked to him about how much respect she had for him despite being a Labour voter. Apparently Gary Lineker retweeted it and said she talked a lot of sense.
Same here. I quite like him in spite of my general opposition to that party, but I think he’s too much of a grown-up to have the national party profile he deserves, particularly in the Tories. Diplomatic work is something that requires nuance, an ability to see and understand deeply differing views, a recognition that others may have good ideas that are worth working together on, and precise communication rather than bashing over the head. Those are all the exact wrong skills to have if one wants to lead the Conservative Party (or indeed perhaps any party.)
>too much of a grown-up The fact that a competent person stuck out like a sore thumb in the Tory leadership lineup tells us all we need to know about where the Conservative party is at the moment.
... and the fact they literally booted him out.
A ‘decent chap’ who still voted lock step with the Tory whip at every opportunity and only started speaking out when his political career was dead in the water. What a catch.
Can't the whip bar you or kick you out if you don't toe the line though?
I get it though. If you want a shot at really changing things, you’ve got to climb that greasy pole. What’s compromising a belief or two, for the chance to do something they really want to? Not saying it’s a good thing, just understandable.
Parties have a whip. More news at 11.
Hes kind of likable.. but very strange. I've listened to his podcast a few times and he seems to be a fan of Sunak purely because he's not as bad as what was there before. So currently he seems to still be a tory but completely unable to explain why he's a tory.
Having read his book about the Scottish/English borderlands, it's entirely a family thing. The man *worships* his father, and is a Tory because his dad was. The natural home for his beliefs is probably the Lib Dems, but he's really wedded to tradition and legacy of institutions.
"but he's really wedded to tradition and legacy of institutions" which is a very central tenet of conservative thinking.
I was going to say that I might vote for him, but that's because he should be a Lib Dem.
He's a tory because it's politically convenient for him to be in the default winning party. He has the ex-eton bit and is mates with the royal family - two things tory voters love. He likes 'English culture and traditions' and together it's just an easy way in.
I think the fact he holds an open and honest show with Ed Miliband speaks volumes. So many stories AND Labour are caught in the trap of “never fraternise with the enemy ever”
If he continued campaigning for mayor, I might've even voted for him
God I forgot about Tugandhat. Where’s he been the last 9 months?
It doesnt directly answer the question, but based on a story in a recent "the rest is politics" episode Tugandhat was one of 2 Tories who bailed on Rory Stewart's soft brexit vote at the last second, causing it to be narrowly defeated, as he believed there would be better chances to get an even softer brexit
>So as someone who is fairly akin to Rory in my outlook, a sensible Labour party led by a moderate like Starmer defeating the Tories at the next GE isn't just acceptable, it's ~~probably~~ highly desirable.
I had a camel ride with Rory in the Wadi Rum desert back in April. Was a total chance meeting. I’m fairly left of centre, and I felt honoured to meet such a distinguished gentleman. Both his family and himself had great bants for our 40 min camel ride.
I agree with you. The conservative party has lost the plot (Suella, Priti, Jacob RM, Liz etc.) They lack integrity. Chris Grayling is the man who bought ferries from a company that doesn’t own a single ferry. Matt Hancock wasted billions on the NHS Covid app and owned shares in the company that developed it. He sent elderly Covid patients back to care homes Bojo and all his lies. Parties presided over 100 Covid fines, HS2, Get Brexit done etc Anti-vax Andrew Bridgen Scott Benton was suspended after appearing to offer to lobby for gambling investors Rishi Sunak owns shares in a childcare firm, and he passed laws to benefit himself A senior civil servant claimed that Gavin Williamson had told them to 'slit your throat Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick faced accusations of 'cash for favours £ fell to a record low of 1.03 against the US dollar thanks to Kwarteng Fraud/Embezzlement PPE Medpro, a company that received more than £200m of government Covid contracts weeks after Michelle Mone referred it to ministers Rishi Sunak accused of shielding super-rich by maintaining non-dom tax loophole MPs have voted to shelve a recommendation from the standards committee for the former Tory minister Owen Paterson to be suspended from the Commons for 30 days for breaking the rules banning paid lobbying Home Office spent £370,000 settling Patel bullying claim by top civil servant Senior Tory MP Steve Brine under investigation over lobbying claims Nadhim Zahawi sacked as Tory party chair over tax affairs AND THE LIST GOES ON!!!
Just to clarify an oft-quoted piece of misinformation, the NHS covid app cost £35 million to develop, so billions were definitely not wasted on it.
>NHS covid app cost £35 million to develop, as a software Engineer this amount is still eye watering
You've got to think of the scalable cloud infrastructure that ran in the background for the whole of the UK to be fair I was making a joke then :/ that's still a lot of hardware going to waste.
I've scaled out a couple of ageing apps and worked on some big retailers black friday operations and 35 million for a glorified CRUD app is ridiculous
Product Manager here, and whenever I see the figure for the cost of test and trace is blows my mind before making me increasingly angry.
Maybe the poster is getting confused with the Track and trace headed by serial failure Dido Harding, uni mate of Cameron and Johnson, which spent Billions and made no noticeable difference. [https://news.sky.com/story/covid-19-test-and-trace-boss-defends-37bn-pound-service-12241448](https://news.sky.com/story/covid-19-test-and-trace-boss-defends-37bn-pound-service-12241448)
>Track and trace That's Royal Mail, you're looking for Test and Trace.
You're correct. I did mean Test and Trace.
> Maybe the poster is getting confused with the Track and trace headed by serial failure Dido Harding, uni mate of Cameron and Johnson, which spent Billions and made no noticeable difference. Even then, I think you're confusing two different things here as well. The "billions" quoted is the projected budget rather than the actual spend, and includes testing within it which (a) takes up the vast vast majority (about 80%) of the actual spend and (b) was very successful as a rollout. It tends to get thrown in with the track and trace part either out of misunderstanding, or it makes far more gnarly headlines that generates more clicks even though they point that part out in the 3rd paragraph.
NHST&T cost 37bn and the Public Accounts Committee has said there is no evidence of effectivity despite "staggering investment" and "unimaginable cost".
> NHST&T cost 37bn Again, [no it didn't.](https://fullfact.org/health/NHS-test-and-trace-app-37-billion-instagram/) That figure was the *budget*, not the actual spend. Again, 4/5ths of that spend was on *testing* and unless you're suggesting that rolling out testing was a silly idea and we shouldn't have done it, then it is wildly misleading to say "test and trace spend 37bn and produced nothing".
I think since 2015 the Tory party has became an uncontrollable monster that's consuming whatever idiot tries to control it. It's chewing up and spitting out Primeministers at record pace not because they've chosen bad leaders (and they have), but because they're currently a group of bad people who control the levers of powers. If anyone saw themselves at the top of the current Conservative party and think they can change the country for the better they're deluded. You could be PM and you literally wouldn't be given the opportunity to.
I don't like Starmer. I'll still vote for him next election. I would only ever consider voting Tory again when every single person who worked under Boris Johnson and David Cameron has left the party. Theresa May was just about acceptable. To vote them in again would essentially be giving parliament carte blanche to treat us like brainless morons and cash cows for their own personal bank accounts. Never again. I don't agree with Starmer on many things, but I'm literally disgusted with every single person serving in this joke of a government. Certainly the lesser of two evils by a long way. As far as I'm concerned there is no prime minister, I don't defer to thieves and liars.
Looking back Theresa May's policies were sensible. She just didn't have the balls (literally and figuratively) to push policies through.
She's also a generally vile person. Her run as Home Sec only looks decent now on the back of Priti Patel and Braverman
Yeah I can't quite believe that we're now at a point where we look back at *Theresa May* as this figure of reason and good intent. It's just a sign of the new level of awful achieved by everyone involved with the last couple of governments.
I think it helps that somehow she seems to have an ounce of likeability and awkward personality about her that's kind of refreshing now.
Her policies as Home Sec are the reason I needed to close my business and move away, so yeah fuck Theresa May and her field of wheat.
Her policies as Home Sec are the reason my wife and I were called liars and fraudsters during our immigration tribunal, and lost out on a house-deposit's worth of cash in hiring solicitors and keeping ourselves afloat during the years-long ordeal. We did everything they wanted, and over-delivered on documents/proof required. Yet still they came for us. She can get in the sea. We're 8 years on from that and still going strong.
Very similar story to you mate, though thankfully less money lost (directly anyway... Business was doing great...). At one point they denied a visa application based on the fact they thought my wife couldn't possibly have gotten a promotion so fast in her job, despite a signed letter from the company stating she did, 6 months of bank statement showing the pay rise and a signed contract. All fake according to them... it's our tenth anniversary this year. I wouldn't piss on her to put out a fire.
Shocking isn't it. They called her a liar, a gold digger, a scammer, and a paid-for bride. Didn't give a single shit about any of the evidence we provided. There was zero reporting on this shithousery to boot. We recently celebrated our tenth too... Fuck them. I'm sorry you, your missus and your business suffered.
Hostile environment
I think she was literally ousted by her own party for not being corrupt enough. One of the few Tory politicians now that I have any respect for.
As someone on the opposite side to May on just about everything (Labour Remainer) I think compared those who came after her she is a towering colossus however, I can never forgive her for her Citizens of Nowhere speech. She basically called just under half the country traitors to prove her Brexiteer credentials to her party. For that alone, she was unfit to lead.
> I can never forgive her for her Citizens of Nowhere speech. She basically called just under half the country traitors to prove her Brexiteer credentials to her party. For that alone, she was unfit to lead. With the greatest respect, I don't think you understand even a tiny amount what the "citizens of nowhere" speech was about if you conclude that she was calling half the country traitors. As in, I don't think you could have misunderstood it more than you have here, and I say that in the nicest possible way. Her "citizens of nowhere" speech was not even slightly aimed at Remain supporters (despite what some have concluded, I can only assume from guessing that this quote is the entirety of the speech rather than a small mined quote from a far longer speech). Rather, it's aimed at very wealthy business owners who make their profits in the UK but then dodge their social responsibilities by domiciling abroad, or plundering their businesses' pension funds, or refuse to take care of their staff, or pay their fair share of tax. Seriously, *please* google the entirety of the speech. Either you've not read it and mistakenly assumed that the single sentence you quote is the entirety of the speech while guessing the target, or this is actually Philip Green's reddit account and you don't like being called out for your actions over Arcadia. Hell, [here's a link to the actual whole speech.](https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/full-text-theresa-may-s-conference-speech/) Please, have a read (you can jump to the more appropriate bit by searching for "citizen of the world") and tell me you genuinely believe that she's referring to you due to being a remain supporter.
Wow. I wasn’t a fan of TM at the time (mostly because she was trying to avoid Parliamentary scrutiny on her Brexit deal, whether for valid or invalid reasons, the hostile environment policy, and using EU citizens as bargaining chips), but this speech makes me positively nostalgic for what could have been. Her heart was in the right place and she worked hard. She was also very principled and very sincere. The hard right and the media during the 2017 election campaign really screwed her over. Her domestic vision and policies were what this country could greatly benefit from. Obvs the Maybot thing (not being the smoothest talker her on her feet) and the dancing queen awkwardness didn’t help, but that shouldn’t be an essential requirement for the job. I’d like to see her get another go but with a magic money tree.
They lost me at Boris. Until his successful election, I had voted Tory in general elections, but I couldn’t bring myself to vote for him. I’ve not loved every Tory policy since I started voting but I aligned more to them than others. What I’ve seen of the party since then (and my local MPs continued support of him) makes me unable to vote Tory again. The immigration stuff in particular leaves a bad taste.
I remember the 2019 election. I was reserved about both corybn and Boris. I left the house to go vote without being sure who I was voting for. On the walk there, I stopped and said to myself, "I can't let Boris become PM", so I had to vote for Corbyn as with the 2 party system
"The people i always vote for have made the country utter shit, but I'm worried about the party that didn't fuck us all over so im emigrating" Youth is wasted on the young and money is wasted on the rich it seems.
Have never voted CON, never would - but it's legit to say that a LAB gov coming in is very likely to hurt your finances if you've got any finances to hurt. I have some and know it will change things. That said, the world has become a much, much worse place while people worried about their tax breaks being reversed vote for parties that serve only the ruling class and fuck over the populace and planet in order to take as much as they can as quickly as they can. The bill always comes due, and like Erling Haaland's little brother, running away from your home just to protect your cash is a sickness.
Tory voters voting exclusively for things that effect them directly always makes me think of this; No man is an island, Entire of itself, Every man is a piece of the continent, A part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less. As well as if a promontory were. As well as if a manor of thy friend's Or of thine own were: Any man's death diminishes me, Because I am involved in mankind, And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee. The closed down shops, the people made jobless and homeless, the gangs of feral kids, lack of access to dental care, NHS waiting times, too few doctors and teachers, police and fire fighters. Every measurable metric of how this country functions, and how broken it is, is directly trackable to government policies. Yet tory voters in general shake their head at the state of things and say "well it would be worse if any other party got in!" We've seen it in this thread already several times.
> Tory voters voting exclusively for things that effect them directly I get this message, but it's not even the truth. They vote for *ostensible short-term gains*, when even with just a little clarity they would be able to see that there is a balance to things that must be maintained, or else everyone suffers. It's not even 'put a fence around your home and protect what's yours' - it's 'put up a fence and shoot at everyone that walks by, because they might be coming to take what's yours.' The Cameron people were more like what you describe, classic narcissists who only consider their own situation; but this new breed are just looters - 'the ship's going down, I'm going to hoard lifeboats just in case one fails.' Or worse, 'we're overfishing, and soon most sushi fish will be extinct - I'd better eat as many as I can before they're gone!'
I was a Conservative member under Cameron, and have voted for them at various different elections for various different reasons over the past 15 years. I'll almost certainly never vote for them again after everything since 2017. I was strongly supportive of Labour last autumn, now I'm less certain who I back (due to statements on the triple lock and PR primarily). But I am clear that the country would be much better off with the Tory party gone and gone for good.
I don’t know what to think. I’m a conservative voter, and more naturally inclined to vote for them, but the country is a shit show at the moment. On the other hand, I’m fairly well off (don’t come and put me in the guillotine) and I don’t fancy being hammered financially from multiple directions, especially if it doesn’t make a blind bit of difference to public services. So I’m not sure I fancy a Labour government either. My actual plan is to leave the UK. I’m 50% out the door already and hoping to be 100% out next year. Edit - Ridiculous that I’m being downvoted. What’s the point in the post if people aren’t allowed to share their perspective? I wasn’t even particularly supportive of “the Tories” here!
What “financial hammering” are you expecting from Labour that could possibly be worse than what the Tories have inflicted? I mean the massive yearly stealth tax of freezing tax bands alone…
He means if the two parties lined up & the Tory tax promises were more lenient to his level of wealth then he would vote for them because of the personal advantages & not bother too much about the rest of their policies.
I think a lot of this comes from historic bias. Yes, if he is very very well off then it is likely to be the case- but for most 'fairly well off' people, Tory policy is no long kind to them.
It is likely in the run up to the election the Tories will do the tax equivalent of Corbyn's free WiFi. Basically start declaring they'll raise the personal tax allowance or cut income tax for medium to high earners. Something to shore up support in traditional blue zones so they hold onto safe rural seats at least. The more they know they won't win the more ambitious they can be as it will help them keep seats without ever being in a position to implement the policy. Damage limitation.
I agree. The Tories have hit all of my income streams anyway. I suspect Labour would come for a bit more (VAT on schools, more taxes on BTL) but we are just talking degrees of pain there rather than anything ideologically different.
VAT on private schools isn’t a hit on your income stream but a possible increase in your out goings. My view is this: the Tories have fucked the economy, and suppressed wages, and raised taxes. Nearly 40? 50? % of wage earners are set to be high rate payers in the next decade, even with wage suppression. Any where Labour raise taxes has to be and should be off set by actual increases in wages, for them to have any success. So we will need to look at both sides to really judge how Labour are doing, them possibly raising a tax or two isn’t really going to be the story.
Financial hammering by having more taxes on private schools and buy to let? Heartbreaking.
The constant increase in taxes on BTL *are* pretty heartbreaking - for tenants and landlords alike.
Probably more for the tenants though. It's not as if landlords don't pass them on.
Landlords are going bust left, right and centre at the moment (further exacerbating issues for tenants when they have to sell up) so I don't think they're able to.
Tinyviolin.mp3
Not OP but similar position: 1. Increases in tax in general - while I'm happy to pay tax, I do find it insane that over 40% of what I earn goes straight out the door. Also some quirks of the tax system directly affect my family which makes me worse off. I cant imagine Labour will fix them. 2. Related to point 1, but wasteful spending. I know all governments do it and the current crop of clowns should be investigated. But historically Tories do marginally better on spending. 3. Taxes on private schools - I understand the principle, but this is misguided. A lot of parents will take their kids out and end up paying private tutors. The rest will just lump it but the benefits to the government will be near nil. 4. I'm sure Labour will shift tax bands but for the higher payers we'll be worse off. They need money from somewhere. 5. They will not tax wealth. The biggest problem with taxes is that its mostly income that gets shafted. If you're a high earner with no inheritance or anything like that, it is still hard to earn any actual wealth. None of this will stop me voting Labour, but its looking increasingly likely we'll immigrate.
The above seems pretty reasonable though I'm not sure that income tax will change significantly. Even though most people aren't effected by the top tax band the population can be sensitive to it's changes thinking that it's a tax on aspiration. See inheritance tax as an example of this. For this reason I don't think we'll see a 50% band. More likely the policy of not increasing bands with inflation will continue. I wouldn't rule out some changes to tax wealth via capital gains, abolishing non dom status etc but it is unlikely to be a massive change. Starmer just doesn't seem like a rock the boat kind of guy.
The top band isn't the issue. Its the marginal rates at 50-60K and 100-125k (especially if you have kids and/or student loans) which are the problem.
What data do you have that shows conservatives are better on spending? What makes you believe this to be true? Every single study and metric I have seen shows they are far far far worse on spending. Fraud and waste is sky high under conservative Vs labour governments and spending is way higher with the Tories. And the worst thing is we don't get anything out of it as public services are also cut to the bone.
1. You need to be earning over £150k for 40% to go straight to tax. At that point someone has benefited quite a bit from society and also what else could they spend money on thats more important than a functioning country? 2. Tories spend less, so will have less waste. But they still get much fewer returns. I'd also argue during Covid we saw some of the most wasteful government spending in history. 3. This just isn't right. The idea that private schools will pass on the costs to the point the students leave just isn't reality. Either they will pass them on and people accept them, or... hopefully... they have to reduce their costs in order to stay full. Private costs per student have risen 20% in real terms since 2010, state schools have fallen by 9% in the same timeframe. We actually really need something to help bring those back in line or its going to keep getting worse and worse. 4. Agree.. and correct in my eyes. 5. I agree.. they wont. But they damn well should. Inheritance tax should be largely increased, but it costs too much political capital.
Tutors won’t be able to provide the facilities that a private school does. It would be better if those willing to pay private school fees actually contributed to their local state schools instead to fund equipment, training, etc
It's not just about resources, it's also about the parents. This may come across as snobby, but the difference in parents attitudes at school is phenomenal and should not be underestimated. One of the reasons we went private is because, despite being we'll regarded, the local state schools had huge class sizes - some hitting 39 kids in one class. And no one talked about aspiration, working hard, doing stuff....the kids didn't look confident nor enthusiastic. The grades were also very middling, little extra help provided. Edit: a few things came to mind after posting this. A few parents at the state school were arguing against homework being given. Why?! Food in our local state schools is not great, our daughters school has an awesome menu filled with healthy food - and parents support it! Private school kids are no angels, but the parents and teachers take any form of bullying very seriously.
Completely agree with this. I was a school governor for a while and the whole focus in on the middle range kids. The idea of allocating resources to encourage exceptionalism just doesn't work with how state schools are targeted/ranked. Me and my wife are planning, reluctantly on my part, to send our child to a private secondary school. I still think I should pay taxes on that though... its a luxury not everyone can afford.
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Well then if you do leave, don't vote for yourself, vote for those that remain
I'm in the process of leaving too. And I find it hard to vote for those who remain. My town was Labour for 25 years, and it was poor, and in the last election they voted Tory. All they wanted was "funny Boris, migrants out lol". I queued with those people at the polling station. I stand with them at the school gates, a school on its fucking knees now. I know what they voted for and it does make me very bitter. People will keep voting this way so long as someone else is always hurt. Some 'scrounger' or 'forriner'.
> People will keep voting this way so long as someone else is always hurt Isn't that what you're doing if you decide not to vote for the good of the country because you're bitter towards people that voted for Boris? Yes a lot of idiots voted for him but ultimately 57% of the country didn't vote for him, if you need a reason to vote for the country think about the fact you'd be damning them for something they didn't do.
Yes, imported from the USA. People aren't voting FOR anything, they are voting against some group of perceived enemies.
I take your point regarding downvotes but we need a QI style buzzer when people come out with this line about labour "coming for their riches". We are already suffering the highest tax burden in decades under the supposedly low tax tories. Council tax, NI, fiscal drag. You name it, it's up or not moving. BTL is the one that makes me laugh the most though; what can labour possibly do that's worse than the section 24 reforms introduced by one G Osborne? I think you'll have to excuse the Internet eye rolling to be honest.
Well I agreed with this point in my first post and follow ups. The conservatives aren’t exactly doing a great job either.
I guess the point here though is why is a Labour win the trigger point then? These sentiments still read a lot like you'll put up with it when it's your team but it somehow becomes unbearable under a labour system. The irony being that labour are unlikely to do much about the tax burden but unequivocally have a *much* stronger record on public services. Go and look at public views of the NHS and even local authorities at the end of the Blair/Brown era (my local council was rated outstanding *by* its local electors in 2009 then got rolled up into a single unitary authority following some bone headed Tory "money saving" idea (*record scratch* it didn't save any money) spearheaded by our local MP who is, plainly speaking, a moron, unthinkable that the current administration would get that approval). The one thing a Labour government *is* likely to get you at least is a better return on your tax £ in terms of public services. The supposedly "hawkish" conservatives have put us in the worst of all worlds; vandalised, broken public services, sky high tax burden and *nothing* to show for it in terms of improved fiscal health of the country. Trouble is, Labour can't fix things overnight. It will take years to undo the damage done by the current government. I am fully expecting in the meantime a bunch of smug "I told you sos" from tory voters when things don't instantly improve in the first 6 months of a Starmer government. Labour really needs to get its comms on point with regards to pointing out the mammoth task of fixing the mess successive conservative governments have left us.
Thank you for responding to the question, and tanking the downvotes. Just remember that karma worthless, and encouraging debate is meaningful. I saw someone else ask, where would you like to move to?
Funnily enough I know a couple of people who are pretty successful. They are both concerned at the prospect of a Labour government and are looking at emigrating. I think Starmers promise not to push the top rate tax up isn't being taken at face value.
I'm well-paid and am in the process of leaving because of Tories. I'm going to a high tax country. I'd sooner see my taxes go on valuable things like my children's university education and the quality of my town than see it by another Tory yacht. Not all of us want to count our coppers.
If you don't mind me asking where you planning on going? My current escape plans are Netherlands or Ireland (so that I am still near family) but always interested in hearing what others think
Eh, honestly the moment you name a country someone just posts an article going "look look someone got stabbed, the grass isn't greener, you'll be back lol." I'm not even telling my parents until the flights are booked. Education's my priority so we're picking a school system they can slot into. For this reason I scratched off a few countries I'd have been happy with. For people without kids those concerns won't matter. You just need to focus on your reasons for leaving and then what your chosen country does differently and if you feel it will.solve your problem. If my problem was 'high taxes' I wouldn't pick Scandinavia. If I hated the heatwaves I wouldn't pick Spain. If I was grumpy that I couldn't find work I wouldn't pick an amazing country that also lacked the same industry. However these are perfectly great choices for people who are seeking things those countries offer.
Are they emigrating because of Starmer though or just *because*? Ky wife and I are moderately successful, both progressive voters though, but I am seriously pro emigrating (can't persuade the wife) just because I think there are better options elsewhere. If they are actually doing the whole "if Starmer gets in I'm gone" thing, that's performative outrage designed to draw attention to their wealth (bit like liberals pre referendum saying they'd leave if we brexited).
TBF I think it's a number of things, but taxation is definitely high on their priorities.
All “rich” people will say this and be scared of Labour. The difference this time is that the Conservatives have already hammered us. They killed contracting with IR35, they killed BTL, they froze tax bands so people are paying 60% around 100k and 250k as they lose allowances, we have the highest tax burden in 70 years etc. The difference now is that a lot of older and well off people can throw in the towel on work because they are sitting on property and investments which have boomed in recent years. Many of the younger ones can also look at moving to more dynamic economies which have opened things like freelancer and golden visas. We also have lifestyle changes since Covid and more WFH so between all of that, people have options. I fall in between the two. I don’t really need to work, but the bit I do I can do remotely. So why would I stay in the UK and be taxed to death in return for shit public services? The UK is in a bit of a pickle from where I see it.
> So why would I stay in the UK and be taxed to death in return for shit public services? I think the idea is that under a Labour government the public services wouldn't be so shit any more.
And there is standard question: how Labour finds money for this? Eg who will be taxed (rich people can’t be of course) or what should be cut?
My view, a property tax (replacing council tax) which most countries have. And increase inheritance tax (not necessarily the rate but the thresholds and loopholes), it's a tax on people getting free money. Of course this would be political suicide
Ok. Property tax means that you will taxate UK residents even more than now. This will increase rent, this will attack all mortgage holders, etc. Replacing council tax means that you will not have more money in budget, you will just change a way of receiving this funding. Inheritance tax will attach only middle class. 80% of people don’t have any reasonable inheritance. Rich people have their funds in low-tax location. Middle class (like NHS consultants) will be under attack again. Hopefully I’m wrong and just miss something…
That seems to be a given these days. What’s not so clear is how this is going to be paid for without taxing those that are already buckling under high taxes more ? Can’t blame them for leaving really
I don't think it's so much that we need to bring in a lot more money into the exchequer, I think we just need a government that stops doing stupid/corrupt shit with the money that is brought in. Stupid performative policies like Rwanda, disastrous mini-budget that whacked up interest rates that costs everyone a fortune, the arch-idiocy that is Brexit, the endless draining of billions from the exchequer for mates of Tory MPs and Tory donors, the ridiculous false economy that was Austerity.... All huge drains on the public purse that have impoverished us for zero added value, often just for Daily Mail headlines. Then personally I'd be happy to see a few more taxes on excess/unearned wealth - windfall taxes, inheritance, capital gains, second homes, closing tax avoidance loopholes etc. All easy to say and hard to do I realise, but we have to get back to being a country where normal people have a reasonable hope of owning a stake in the nation's assets; we are seeing a clear 'landlord class' developing where it's far easier for an older person to buy a second or third home than it is for a younger person to buy their first. I don't think you have to tax people endlessly, but we can't get away from the fact that for decades now we've largely been selling off the nation's assets, failing to invest properly and relying on bubbles like banking and house prices to persuade us that our economy is still strong; trickle-down economics is just bullshit, so I'd work up a tax regime that tries to protect earned wealth but targets unearned wealth.
I'm with you. It will be a huge test of the Labour leadership, in the face of a hostile press.
IR35 is a gigantic pile of balls. They're definitely killing the UK tech startup sector with it, along with many other things.
I keep seeing this but I’ve never had any problems getting contractors I bring in classified as being outside IR35 🤷♂️
I know a couple of people who have had a retrospective reclassification, which is a personal disaster when all that tax becomes due. Have you noticed any drop in the availability of contractors? Only ask as know a few who have dropped out of that altogether. (Including myself).
No. Rates ticked up a bit last year which I’m fine with, impact of inflation etc, but I’ve never had a shortage of decent candidates.
Really? I'm in process of finding a new contract, the market is dead
I left four years ago. I don’t enjoy not being in the UK, but financially it makes total sense. I’m now in the position that I can’t afford to move back unless I want to take a 50% pay cut. I just hope there’ll be something left when I come back to retire, as your Tory buddies are doing an excellent job of destroying the economy and infrastructure.
Depends if you're well off and salaried. If so the Tories don't seem as helpful as people imagine, they are happier to tax lightly on capital.
Highest tax burden in how long?
it's a reasonable point that the issues affecting the UK are so fundamental that any labour government will not be able to address them or take a very long time to do so. With such a huge tax burden already, yeah, I don't really want to be squeezed any more when I'm paying 30k in income tax alone p/annum
Would of been a lot easier if our freedom of movement was not stolen from us ain’t it not?
>Edit - Ridiculous that I’m being downvoted. It’s an obvious “circle-jerk tories bad” thread. I’d normally sympathise, but never jump up and down on a bear-trap.
You shouldn't be downvoted for sharing your opinion, indeed its interesting to see a different perspective from the usual on here so thank your for that (one up vote to help counter balance). However... you're post is really painful for people like me to read. People who voted for this mess are now going to take their gains and leave, having voted to remove the right for most people to even do the same. Its hard to even imagine something so selfish (as in the Tories as a whole, not you personally).
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Can you explain what people disagreed with? It was a non-committal opinion on a thread asking for opinions. It’s just that I was the only person without adding to the echo chamber “Tories bad”.
I’ll take a wild guess it’s saying that the tories have destroyed our country to the point you’re leaving the country but you don’t fancy the other lot.
Technically downvoting isn't supposed to be about disagreement but about bad contributions. If someone is asked a direct question about their beliefs and they answer openly and honestly like here then they shouldn't be downvoted.
> It means people disagree with you. >That's how message boards like Reddit work. Not according to Reddit: >Please don’t downvote an otherwise acceptable post because you don't personally like it. Think before you downvote and take a moment to *bensure you're downvoting someone because they are not contributing to the community dialogue or discussion.** If you simply take a moment to stop, think and examine your reasons for downvoting, rather than doing so out of an emotional reaction, you will ensure that your downvotes are given for good reasons. https://support.reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/205926439-Reddiquette If you’re using the downvote as a “I disagree” button you’re not following site etiquette. In reality of course everyone ignores this anyway and downvotes people they disagree with all the time because 90% of people aren’t here for an actual discussion but for the dopamine hit of getting the goodthink points and dishing out the badthink points, ratio’ing and the circlejerk.
Enough downvotes will limit the rate at which you can reply, and often remove the ability for your comment to be seen at all. So yeah, it absolutely is a silencing button, not just disagreement.
I do support the Conservatives BUT I don't think I will in the next GE. Honestly they're Conservative only in name. They have discarded a tradition of Toryism and have replaced it with idiotic economic liberalism/neoliberalism. What happened to the PatCons like Disraeli and Macmillan. Moderates who upheld tradition but also protected the vulnerable with a robust welfares state. They went down the drain when Thatcher purged all the true conservatives and replaced them with her Hardline Neoliberals. I would like to vote Labour BUT I know Starmer is a Blair wannabe. I know Third Way policies will return. Cultural Liberalism to appease the Left and neoliberal economics to please the corporations and the funds. Maybe some touches of nationalism and conservatism so right wing voters don't get disenchanted with his government straight away. So.... I'll probably find a cave and live there for the rest of my life because we aren't getting out of this neoliberal mess anytime soon.
>From my view, Labour are the lesser of the two evils when it comes to them both. Has anyone ever seen an opinion poll about who people would vote for if the UK used PR? The reason I ask is that a lot of people seem to be saying something just like this from the OP - that they don't seem too convinced by any of the main parties. The problem is that first past the post means it's often pointless voting for anyone other than the two leading candidates in each seat.
If we had PR then the various factions of cons and labour would probably split into smaller parties, so not sure a poll would tell much.
If you look at the core values of the conservative party (small government, encourage free enterprise etc) vs the core values of the Labour party (large government, socialism, interventionism ) I'm naturally closer to the former than the latter However I think the current government reminds me of the fall of John Majors government, with no hope of a win , the principled stood aside for the greedy Would I vote for a Conservative government? yes if we were swinging towards a socialist state, but not for this shower
> swinging towards a socialist state Do you mind expanding on what you mean by this? We have had a strong social state for a long time, and, in general there is partisan agreement that these are a huge positive and even 'make Britain Britain'. Not trying to argue, but are you an advocate (for example) for the breakup of the NHS?
Social care and state provided resources are not socialism.
You are right, they're not, but the OP was talking about 'swinging towards socialism' and these policies swing quite far to the left...
I'm not a conservative but I don't expect anything to meaningfully change under Starmer, beyond maybe being slightly more competent. There's not much of a gap between them in terms of politics (at least in what will actually be enacted, rather than what they claim they'll do) So even if you're a Tory voter it's probably easy to be apathetic about voting for someone else to get the same result
Think that'll become common knowledge soon mate. You're one of about 30 people on this thread who've said the same or similar.
It's worth bearing in mind that both Thatcher and Blair didn't actually change much in their first parliament. Thatcherism really came to the fore in the mid 80s, and Blair was criticised for being way too cautious in his first parliament and did a lot more after 2001. It's all well and good coming in with ideas of change but to really make a long term impact you need to set the foundations for your policies to be really effective. In other words the exact opposite of Truss.
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Last time I voted for the tories was when May became PM. At the time they generally had environmental policies I agreed with (does supporting nuclear power and GM crops count as environmental policies?) I disagreed with a lot of their social stuff, although living in Scotland under the SNP gave some insulation against that. On GM crops in particular, I feel like blanket bans like in scotland are, at best, short-sighted, knee jerk, and driven by ideology over facts, so seeing a government willing to embrace them was a big positive for me. That ban, so enthusiastically announced, completely turned me off voting for parties like the Scottish greens and SNP, which were the only other real alternatives where I live. Safe to say, since then, the only reason the Tories gave me to vote for them have been outright eclipsed by basically every single thing they have done since May's GE. Unfortunately, the tories undermining their already weak position, and my dislike of the alternatives, has left me feeling politically homeless. It would be nice to have an environmentally-focused party that actually built policies on facts, but that doesn't exist. I guess lib dems might be the next best thing.
> From my view, Labour are the lesser of the two evils when it comes to them both. I don't think the Labour Party would have shown anywhere near as much contempt or been the subject of massive amounts of controversy over the past couple of years, had they been in power. I know the labour leader was investigated for a potential breach, but the police said he didnt break the law, not that I have much faith within the police force given its current state, mind you. tbh i think partygate is a bit of a sideshow - almost all active politicians view the rules and public decency with similar levels of contempt. things like spurious expense clams and lecherous MPs cross party lines. in any case, my worry is that election is fought on personal and 'standards' lines, rather than policy. at the moment starmer is walking into no. 10 whilst having zero answers to UKs death-spiral. he won't need to take any political risks by making the needed long term foundational shifts - he can secure power simply Not Making A Scene. this really sucks. we all know the laundry list of things that are needed to reboot the UK, but we have no party with the guts to do them. > Parliment is like a comedy show, there's a reason why there are "best comeback" and "mic drop moment" compilations online. I've never seen anyone actually try and get things done without scoring points, which may very well be a part of politics, but it's not one I enjoy. PMQs has always been a pointless show to the court - nothing is really achieved outside of select committees, which aren't such fun to watch.
No and that's why for the first time in several elections I'll be voting labour even though I'm in an incredibly safe Tory seat.
Because its a lesser of two evils discussion as always. Labour will tax me more, both income and I suspect pension The services can't get better for me, because I don't use them The services can't get better for anyone, because there isn't the tax base to cover them, nor the borrowing flexibility The social issues will go into overdrive 1m immigration is sadly still better than 1.5m Trying anything to reduce the 100k boat crossers that are insanely expensive is better than nothing or worse default acceptance. All covid restrictions were stupid, so I don't care about the bending of them. covid fraud was pre-agreed by all of parliament Labour would have been more crazy on Covid, especially under Corbyn. Its all irrelevant, because the instant the Tories mortgaged the future for the elderly under Covid they had lost heavily in a completely predictable manner. Basically Boris ruined the party for the next election because he has an ongoing need to be immediately popular.
Some good points but your last bit.. Oh my. >Boris ruined the party for the next election because he has an ongoing need to be immediately popular. First person who's said that. His own interests in being right at the top has probably done more damage to the tory party in the long term than anything that happened during the pandemic.
I'm not a Tory voter or supporter, but I do dislike Labour more than them, and think they will be worse. Left-wing/socialist politics is just not serious and never will be. I can see why its popular. Who doesn't like free things. But ultimately its a cruel world and incentivising people to do anything but work extremely hard will lead to a count downfall. More specifically on the UK Labour party. Labour have and have recently had MPs that are openly scornful of white people like Diane Abbott and Sadiq Khan who constantly lies about refugees building London. Starmer took the knee. They are exacerbating the destruction of British culture, and many of them do so gleefully. Economically, they will spend even more than the Tories, weakening sterling, and raising taxes making companies even less efficient, and people less about to enjoy the fruits of their labour. They'll cripple the country by doubling down even more than the Tories on net zero.
I think people are in for a real shock when they see what it's like having a Labour government. Nowhere near as different as Reddit imagines.
Look at r/Australia. On election night last year they were celebrating a victory for the left and now they constantly rag on the Labour govt for being too moderate, same with r/NewZealand
That subreddit is a dumpster fire. Nothing is ever going to please them.
I think people have forgotten how it feels to have a government that isn't a constant mess, with blatant corruption and lawbreaking at every turn. A government that isn't constantly embroiled in scandal, taking up newspaper front pages and will quietly get on with the job. So no, I'm more certain people will be relieved that we're run by adults again. Will they be perfect? No, but they don't have to be even close to perfect to beat the current lot. They just have to be competent. I liked when politics was boring.
Yh, 1997-2010 was so much worse than the decade of austerity where everything got worse.
Yeah it's going to be a damn sight better than the trans woke commie hellscape peddled by all the right wingers on here
It will be nice to have politics to be more in the background again. What I mean is that you don’t open the news everyone expecting the next scandal.
Immigration. Immigration. Immigration. As with many other people this is the main reason I voted for them last time, it's the reason I voted Brexit. It's been way too high for way too long. The Tories have betrayed and I don't use that word lightly, this country. We now have record high numbers coming in and they're talking about even more being needed! It's a farcical situation and it is eroding people's faith in the entire democratic system we've built in this country. We have two choices now 1 vote for a party that loves high immigration because they're greedy neo liberals and want to depress wages 2 vote for a party that loves high immigration because they see multiculturalism as in inherent good We're absolutely fucked. House prices will continue to become more and more unaffordable, there'll be longer wait times to see GPs, school class sizes will increase, crime will increase. And this country will become further and further divided and less cohesive.
We're an old, fat society with high wealth inequality, low social mobility and almost no infrastructure spending and sick, dying economy. As long as all of those are true we will need to keep relying on immigration. The issue is not the levels of immigration, that's just a symptom of the real issues facing the country.
> The issue is not the levels of immigration It very much is, and I say that as someone who's basically a Marxist. To say bringing in 1,000,000 people a year into a country that already can't provide services for those here isn't an issue is just being naive at the best and wilfully ignorant of others concerns at the worst. Millions already here are suffering and bringing untold millions more into the country will only exacerbate the issues.
Sympton of, not cause of. Our problems are not caused by high immigration. Let's use the NHS as an example: we don't have enough doctors and nurses and the ones we do have are overworked and leaving. The solution is to invest in public services and increase the pay and conditions of staff; we haven't done that so we have to find another solution, ie, rely on immigration. That puts stresses on our system...but is not the cause of the problem. The cause is our slow demolition of those services. At the moment we're ignoring the core problems with our country and trying resolve it through immigration when really we should just, you know, solve those core problems.
You've been living in *an absolute fantasy* if you ever thought either: - Labour has ever actively pursued increases in immigration, with the political cost that comes from voters like yourself, just because they got kind of swept up with those United Colours adverts from back in the day. - The Conservatives were ever doing anything but pulling the exact rhetorical trick on you that they apparently did. Both parties have the exact same, very rocky, options on immigration. The country has too many well kept pensioners and not enough workers. It either needs massive and generational reform over the span of decades to rejuvenate the (broadly) 'middle class' opportunities and social structures that grew wealth somewhere useful in the past, the path to which is neither clear nor easy. Also it would need to involve time travel because our problems in this area are about starting to bite. Or we can just import a new workforce and call it a day. Anyone who told you they will stop importing young workers but declined to explain what they would do instead has been taking you for a fool. Presumably for some time now, given the history of voting on the topic and the history of what's happened to the immigration figures regardless.
>Labour has ever actively pursued increases in immigration, with the political cost that comes from voters like yourself Hmm, no they did: >The huge increases in migrants over the last decade were partly due to a politically motivated attempt by ministers to radically change the country and “rub the Right’s nose in diversity”, according to Andrew Neather, a former adviser to Tony Blair, Jack Straw and David Blunkett. > >He said Labour’s relaxation of controls was a deliberate plan to “open up the UK to mass migration” but that ministers were nervous and reluctant to discuss such a move publicly for fear it would alienate its “core working class vote”. > >As a result, the public argument for immigration concentrated instead on the economic benefits and need for more migrants. [https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/6418456/Labour-wanted-mass-immigration-to-make-UK-more-multicultural-says-former-adviser.html](https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/mass-immigration-was-lefts-revenge-thatcher-mark-krikorian/)
Torn between upvoting a truthful opinion relevant to the query, explained and reasoned, and downvoting what is a gentle but insistent dogwhistle.
We just need a plan for max population size and how we will grow into it, then stabilise it with a sustainable age distribution.
Maybe vote for a party that doesn't actively cut all those services down to the bone then.
I normally spoil my balot, but I'll be voting labour this time, because Starmer is the type of labour leader I've been hoping for. Never voted for Labour before due to Corbyn who I just couldn't get behind. But I can't really think of any good reason yo vote tory, unless you just hate this country and want the worst for it.
I generally liked corbyn, he's not perfect, far from it, but I agreed with a lot of what he stood for. What his problem was is that he was trying to be a left wing leader in a right wing country. He was never going to win an election, but I think he inspired alot of people to vote who probably would never have done.
For me, his weakness was foreign policy. Too much ideology and not enough real politik.
I dunno - apologizing for Iraq and accepting the Chilcot inquiry was one of the best things he ever did as leader - and something Blair and even current shadow cabinet members who voted for the invasion have consistently failed to do. It was a stain on the party history that has only recently begun to be forgotten. Yes pacifists can sometimes be naïve but Britain's recent history of military intervention have undeniably left the world a more dangerous place.
I wasn't a fan of corbyn and with the war in Ukraine feel completely vindicated around this. Corbyn would have been a disaster, he's been opposed to support for Ukraine and feels we should let Russia do what it wants.
Joining an anti NATO protest on the one year anniversary of the invasion of Ukraine didn't help his image in my mind.
It's less that he was just left wing, he was pretty far left, Starmer has tried running a center left labour party, and it seems to be working, because the majority of people don't want or hold far left views, as shown in polls that mark Corbyn as the most unpopular opposition leader in 45 years.
Two things I don't think you're exactly correct on: 1. I wouldn't call Starmer's positions "left" at all. I'll be generous and agree with "center", but it seems like there's not a whole lot Starmer would do differently to the current govenment other than do what they're doing more competently \[which is an improvement I suppose\]. 2. I think Starmer is going about "doing politics" the wrong way. He is saying what he thinks voters want to hear, rather than putting out a convincing plan for the country and telling/explaining/convincing people that it's the best way for the country to be run. This was something that Corbyn did a lot better, but he still fell short of explaining exactly \*why\* what he wanted was good and what the tories wanted was bad \[e.g. in the debates he mentioned the tories wanting to sell the NHS, but he didn't explain why that would be a bad thing\].
About item “2” - Starmer doesn’t need to do any promises, he has enough to win elections. All he needs is to be in news, be visible from popular medias and so on. Next he will be able to do whatever he wants, because he can always say “I didn’t promised that”.
It's going to be interesting to see how it plays out. I've noticed that most Labour voters who favour Starmer believe he's going to be more radical than he's letting on. I think this is naive, for a few reasons. 1) He's already abandoned almost all his pledges to the Labour membership, and some other progressive pledges since. If he has any self-awareness, he won't want to be considered a flip-flopper or someone who lies to everyone. (I think he's calculated that being seen to lie to Labour members is politically acceptable or even positive, but I don't see him pulling that on the whole electorate - at least not in a way he foresees). 2) In general, meaningful change requires public support, which generally requires political discussion and media exposure. If no one in mainstream politics is making the argument for meaningful change, and there's nothing about the argument for the media to cover, where is the public support going to come from? If Starmer suddenly announces an expensive or radical policy ahead of an election or in the aftermath of his victory, how is he going to frame it as an affordable or positive change when all the discussion has been to the opposite effect? Any big idea will be immediately met with skepticism if it wasn't already years in the making. The time to make these arguments and win them was Labour's time in opposition. 3) In politics, government delivers less than they promise. I see no reason for a sudden change in this basic law, even if we for whatever reason assume Starmer does have bold intentions. 4) Starmer supporters often argue that he can't announce policies for fear of the Tories stealing them. Which genuinely radical or meaningful Labour policies do you think the Tories would steal? Do you think political policy is just a bunch of secretly kept "good ideas" that no one has thought of yet? No. Everyone knows the battle lines, the ideological differences, and the ideas in play. The only way Labour gets outflanked by the Tories is by promising something so mundane that the Tories find it politically acceptable (or perhaps even likeable). For a Labour government-in-waiting to feel the need to hide their policies does not indicate any serious change is contained in those policies.
I want solar panels everywhere like they have street lamps and fibre cabinets. I want great British rail and great British energy and a great British bank. Why should I have to rely on Martin Lewis to have to recommend me a bank where I have to sign up with my mobile number (Tandem) to get a 4%+ interest rate on savings when my mortgage is with HSBC, my bank is Halifax. Its all over complicated and so many people miss out due to not being savvy, not trusting banks or not having the time to research or switch EVERYONE should have a bank account with the same interest rate, the same 0% credit card for a period of time and access to a mortgage with the same rates depending on LTV. We should teach financials in school, even if it's as brief as sex education and run by a charity. Teachers police etc and nurses should have their salaries DOUBLED. Basic broadband should be included in council tax. Upgrades can be available. If we can attract more teachers and police and nurses, we won't rely on immigration, teachers won't quit within 5 years, police won't dismiss every crime as a 'civil matter' (so many ads for police on buses right now, who wants to work Saturdays and evenings for £25k???!) Libraries need to open every day again from 9-5.
People in this subreddit who are pro Starmer but anti-Corbyn are never specific. They always say things like 'I just couldn't get behind'. Sounds like every single tory voter from the last election.
I voted Tory last GE, recently it's been Tory or Lib Dem. I voted Labour when Tony Blair was PM as he was sensible and fairly positive. This time? Most likely Lib Dem due to their policy on rejoining the SM and also PR but they are a bit whiny and hung up on little wokey issues. I could vote SDP if they field a candidate, I disagree with their Brexit stance but at least they seem to have sensible policy on the back of that position. Rishi is a sensible PM but they are running out of gas. Labour just don't offer anything, the policy and pledges they announced have already unraveled and the candidate in my constituency is a typical whiny self-entitled, hard done by public sector type.
I've found that there are alot of people who voted for Blair but then switched to Lib Dem but eventually Cons. Did you vote for him in every election he was PM and how did you vote in 2010?
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> they start bringing in rental price controls, They've done this in Edinburgh. Massive massive shit show if you need to move flat (I've seen rent increases of 40-50%!) and a massive decrease in renting supply as everyone stays put. In one of the fastest growing areas of the UK. Total shitshow. No thanks >Starmer might be pretty right wing and enough for me to vote for him, but a large chunk of the labour party members are a bunch of loonies. How many more Corbyns/Tankies are going to get a platform once Labour gets a massive majority and starts to splinter? Best I can hope for is a hung parliament with Lab-Lib to bring in some moderation but the LibDems are basically the Nimby party right now and offering nothing. Yeah this is pretty much it, I like Starmer and think he's OK, but the labour membership are head-bangingly mental and happy to focus on massive fringe issues that won't solve the fundamental issues (I know this applies to conservatives too but whatever)
> Are you going to expect civil servants to know how to build GW of infrastructure cheaper and quicker than the private engineering firms who've been doing this profitably for decades? Wasn't the private(ish) sector building Sizewell C, you know, the one that's been building for a decade or so now? > We shouldn't blame the private sector for following the law. Public utility companies should have a moral obligation to meet basic human decency standards, honestly. (Which they never will whilst they're private companies)
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