Voting intentions or who is least worst...

[icowden]

I wonder if some posters on here go on the same way in real life.
"Would sir like one of our sauces with the steak?"
"Don't talk to me about bloody sauces, that Margaret Thatcher was the worst excuse for a human being ever, and every member of the Conservative cabinet should have been drowned at birth."
"Shall I take that as 'no thank you'?"

I think you might be surprised by how diverse our political profiles might be. A better question is perhaps, who would you vote for and why?

Some background...

I was raised as a good little conservative voter, went to public school (day pupil) and on to University. At Uni I met some really good friends who exposed me to the fact that not everyone was like me, and that people and lifestyles that I had been previously critical of were not in fact awful, or linked to crime etc. I still continued to vote conservative though, feeling generally that I liked their policies. I'm 47 now, but haven't voted Tory since I voted for Cameron in 2010, so 5 times I voted Tory and then no more...

I have changed, obviously. As we get older we tend to get more middle of the road. I still don't want to pay a huge amount of income tax, or abolish private schools, but I do think we should help people who are worse off, and pursue beneficial relationships with other countries. I don't see the point in trying to tax the super rich because they will just disappear to a country where they don't pay the tax. I do see the point in taxing tech giants though. I have no fondness for unions or labour infighting.

The problem is that we have a viciously populist and right wing conservative party and a completely useless opposition labour party. The middle of the road voter has been abandoned. The Lib Dems have no prospect of forming a government unless it is in coalition. Labour continually bleat on that they will not entertain a coalition, and it allows the Tories to win. The best result at the moment for middle of the road Britain would be a liberal coalition. An arrangement to stop the Labour front benches from getting too silly but offering a better, more compassionate and less corrupt government than the Tories offer.

Until we get rid of the corrupt and morally bankrupt Tories and get back some of the David Amess Tories, I think we will continue to suffer as a country. What I'd really like is proper proportional representation. It's just wrong that someone like Raab can lose a 16,000 majority, still be an MP and 30,000 votes count for nothing.

So - who do I and the millions like me vote for?

 

[Archie_tect]

We need an alliance Government, where the Greens/ SNP and Labour get their clever heads on and bring about a COP26 collaboration not based on Party lines but a targeted 'one nation- one world' revolutionary force. To put the UK firmly back on the world stage to demonstrate that we are not all isolationist fence-sitters.
To develop a global partnership to bring affordable PV renewable energy for everyone on the planet and to underpin COP 26 policies with like minded nations across the world.. A focus for what's needed to unite those who were disillusioned enough to vote Conservative last time.

 

[pubrunner]

I think you might be surprised by how diverse our political profiles might be. A better question is perhaps, who would you vote for and why?

Some background...

I was raised as a good little conservative voter, went to public school (day pupil) and on to University. At Uni I met some really good friends who exposed me to the fact that not everyone was like me, and that people and lifestyles that I had been previously critical of were not in fact awful, or linked to crime etc. I still continued to vote conservative though, feeling generally that I liked their policies. I'm 47 now, but haven't voted Tory since I voted for Cameron in 2010, so 5 times I voted Tory and then no more...

I have changed, obviously. As we get older we tend to get more middle of the road. I still don't want to pay a huge amount of income tax, or abolish private schools, but I do think we should help people who are worse off, and pursue beneficial relationships with other countries. I don't see the point in trying to tax the super rich because they will just disappear to a country where they don't pay the tax. I do see the point in taxing tech giants though. I have no fondness for unions or labour infighting.

The problem is that we have a viciously populist and right wing conservative party and a completely useless opposition labour party. The middle of the road voter has been abandoned. The Lib Dems have no prospect of forming a government unless it is in coalition. Labour continually bleat on that they will not entertain a coalition, and it allows the Tories to win. The best result at the moment for middle of the road Britain would be a liberal coalition. An arrangement to stop the Labour front benches from getting too silly but offering a better, more compassionate and less corrupt government than the Tories offer.

Until we get rid of the corrupt and morally bankrupt Tories and get back some of the David Amess Tories, I think we will continue to suffer as a country. What I'd really like is proper proportional representation. It's just wrong that someone like Raab can lose a 16,000 majority, still be an MP and 30,000 votes count for nothing.

So - who do I and the millions like me vote for?

I'll be voting very soon, as I'm in North Shropshire . . . I shall most certainly be voting for the Green Party.

 

[mudsticks]

We need an alliance Government, where the Greens/ SNP and Labour get their clever heads on and bring about a COP26 collaboration not based on Party lines but a targeted 'one nation- one world' revolutionary force. To put the UK firmly back on the world stage to demonstrate that we are not all isolationist fence-sitters.
To develop a global partnership to bring affordable PV renewable energy for everyone on the planet and to underpin COP 26 policies with like minded nations across the world.. A focus for what's needed to unite those who were disillusioned enough to vote Conservative last time.

Let me know when the leaflets are ready..
I'll be out canvassing 👍🏼💚💜🌱🌻💃

 

[BoldonLad]

I think you might be surprised by how diverse our political profiles might be. A better question is perhaps, who would you vote for and why?

Some background...

I was raised as a good little conservative voter, went to public school (day pupil) and on to University. At Uni I met some really good friends who exposed me to the fact that not everyone was like me, and that people and lifestyles that I had been previously critical of were not in fact awful, or linked to crime etc. I still continued to vote conservative though, feeling generally that I liked their policies. I'm 47 now, but haven't voted Tory since I voted for Cameron in 2010, so 5 times I voted Tory and then no more...

I have changed, obviously. As we get older we tend to get more middle of the road. I still don't want to pay a huge amount of income tax, or abolish private schools, but I do think we should help people who are worse off, and pursue beneficial relationships with other countries. I don't see the point in trying to tax the super rich because they will just disappear to a country where they don't pay the tax. I do see the point in taxing tech giants though. I have no fondness for unions or labour infighting.

The problem is that we have a viciously populist and right wing conservative party and a completely useless opposition labour party. The middle of the road voter has been abandoned. The Lib Dems have no prospect of forming a government unless it is in coalition. Labour continually bleat on that they will not entertain a coalition, and it allows the Tories to win. The best result at the moment for middle of the road Britain would be a liberal coalition. An arrangement to stop the Labour front benches from getting too silly but offering a better, more compassionate and less corrupt government than the Tories offer.

Until we get rid of the corrupt and morally bankrupt Tories and get back some of the David Amess Tories, I think we will continue to suffer as a country. What I'd really like is proper proportional representation. It's just wrong that someone like Raab can lose a 16,000 majority, still be an MP and 30,000 votes count for nothing.

So - who do I and the millions like me vote for?

My background is very different to yours (I would have been one of the working class you met at Uni, except, I never went to Uni), but, I don't have any particular argument with the bolded bits.

Don't see anything like that happening, under the current voting system and/or with the current crop of Politicians.

 

[theclaud]

Having learnt nothing, Labour is currently trying to outflank a far-right Home Secretary on the right over immigration. Again. Let's say I'm a voter without a party affiliation who finds drowning human beings repugnant and expects serious politicians to act on the climate crisis instead of competing to be the most racist. How am I supposed to know which of the two biggest parties is the 'least worst'? It's a rhetorical question of course - the Tories are still infinitely worse, and they will still get the votes of everyone who enjoys the idea of brown people drowning, and of those who feel a bit queasy about it but not as queasy as they do about any minor downward adjustment to their or their offspring's personal wealth, while Labour haemorrhages votes from everywhere else. But at least those mugs can get dusted off again.


View: https://twitter.com/NickTorfaen/status/1462389716070842369?t=-9en_TUS8ktE88oWDoG_gA&s=19

 

[Ian H]

Having learnt nothing, Labour is currently trying to outflank a far-right Home Secretary on the right over immigration. Again. Let's say I'm a voter without a party affiliation who finds drowning human beings repugnant and expects serious politicians to act on the climate crisis instead of competing to be the most racist. How am I supposed to know which of the two biggest parties is the 'least worst'? It's a rhetorical question of course - the Tories are still infinitely worse, and they will still get the votes of everyone who enjoys the idea of brown people drowning, and of those who feel a bit queasy about it but not as queasy as they do about any minor downward adjustment to their or their offspring's personal wealth, while Labour haemorrhages votes from everywhere else. But at least those mugs can get dusted off again.


View: https://twitter.com/NickTorfaen/status/1462389716070842369?t=-9en_TUS8ktE88oWDoG_gA&s=19

It does seem like a race to the bottom.

 

[Bromptonaut]

Having learnt nothing, Labour is currently trying to outflank a far-right Home Secretary on the right over immigration. Again. Let's say I'm a voter without a party affiliation who finds drowning human beings repugnant and expects serious politicians to act on the climate crisis instead of competing to be the most racist. How am I supposed to know which of the two biggest parties is the 'least worst'? It's a rhetorical question of course - the Tories are still infinitely worse, and they will still get the votes of everyone who enjoys the idea of brown people drowning, and of those who feel a bit queasy about it but not as queasy as they do about any minor downward adjustment to their or their offspring's personal wealth, while Labour haemorrhages votes from everywhere else. But at least those mugs can get dusted off again.


View: https://twitter.com/NickTorfaen/status/1462389716070842369?t=-9en_TUS8ktE88oWDoG_gA&s=19

Unfortunately there's very little reporting of the true facts in the media. A chunk of the populace, probably including cohort who are swing voters in marginals have swallowed the 'invasion' narrative and see economic migrants coming ashore at Dungeness as an Omaha Beach type scenario. See @Pale Rider of this parish as an example.

The record of parties trying to 'educate' voters as to reality doesn't look a good one; a set up for accusations of being the Metropolitan Elite.

What did N T-S actually say that constitutes trying to outflank Patel?

She's made repeated promises to end the traffic but is quite unwilling to grasp the tool, safe routes, which is capable of stopping the boats. He really ought to spell out a humanitarian alternative setting the migrant 'crisis' in the context of a world with a Displaced Persons situation we've not seen since the immediate aftermath of WW2. The rich countries of the world need to get together

 

[theclaud]

Unfortunately there's very little reporting of the true facts in the media. A chunk of the populace, probably including cohort who are swing voters in marginals have swallowed the 'invasion' narrative and see economic migrants coming ashore at Dungeness as an Omaha Beach type scenario. See @Pale Rider of this parish as an example.

The record of parties trying to 'educate' voters as to reality doesn't look a good one; a set up for accusations of being the Metropolitan Elite.

What did N T-S actually say that constitutes trying to outflank Patel?

She's made repeated promises to end the traffic but is quite unwilling to grasp the tool, safe routes, which is capable of stopping the boats. He really ought to spell out a humanitarian alternative setting the migrant 'crisis' in the context of a world with a Displaced Persons situation we've not seen since the immediate aftermath of WW2. The rich countries of the world need to get together

I'm old enough to remember when Starmer won the Labour leadership pledging to defend migrants' rights. Among other things.

NTS is given plenty of time uninterrupted to spell out exactly what you've managed to do, snappily enough, in your penultimate sentence above, And he's the Shadow Home Secretary - forgive me if I expect him to be responsible for articulating an alternative vision to Patel's hellscape. The best he manages is a mention of the Dubs amendment - this does introduce an element of compassion of the 'think of the children' variety, but it follows on from a load of authoritarian fortress Europe bollocks about working with the French authorities - the subtext of which is clearly 'stop them getting close enough in the first place'. This is absolutely the Tories' chosen battleground - Labour cannot win on it, and even if it could, what would be the point?

 

[theclaud]

More encouragingly - Welsh Labour and Plaid have agreed a deal.

https://www.theguardian.com/politic...and-plaid-cymru-approve-welsh-government-deal

 

[matticus]

It does seem like a race to the bottom.

I don't know for sure if that is a delibeartly morbid joke!

 

[Ian H]

I don't know for sure if that is a delibeartly morbid joke!

No. That would be too sick to be funny.

 

[Deleted member 49]

I'm old enough to remember when Starmer won the Labour leadership pledging to defend migrants' rights. Among other things.

Has he kept any of those pledges ?

 

[Bromptonaut]

I'm old enough to remember when Starmer won the Labour leadership pledging to defend migrants' rights. Among other things.

NTS is given plenty of time uninterrupted to spell out exactly what you've managed to do, snappily enough, in your penultimate sentence above, And he's the Shadow Home Secretary - forgive me if I expect him to be responsible for articulating an alternative vision to Patel's hellscape. The best he manages is a mention of the Dubs amendment - this does introduce an element of compassion of the 'think of the children' variety, but it follows on from a load of authoritarian fortress Europe bollocks about working with the French authorities - the subtext of which is clearly 'stop them getting close enough in the first place'. This is absolutely the Tories' chosen battleground - Labour cannot win on it, and even if it could, what would be the point?

The worry is that they can lose on it.

 

[Rusty Nails]

My vote will not go to "who is the least worst" but "who, in my constituency, will be most likely to contribute to getting the Tories out of power".
That, under our virtually duopoly system, will usually be Labour, but it could, depending on the circumstance be Plaid Cymru or LD.