Voting Conservative

[Cyberman]

Learned my lesson - what a pompous arsehole! I won't be taking lessons form someone who is so stupid they wouldn't consider voting anything but Tory no matter how crap they were - what a joke! As for your promise the Tories will be better, we'll see, they weren't much cop last time.

If you hadn't learned your lesson you'd continue to vote for high tax, waste, lies, corruption and incompetence. Congratulations on your conversion !!

[The Lone Gunman]

Yes of course we were in a better overall state by 1997, and whilst I grant some credit to the government for that, I don't see at as the sole reason. Also, history has a way of making things rosy, especially if the party some people support blindly was in power.

Schools and hospitals were in a mess in '97, they are, from my (admittedly purely anecdotal) experience better now - not saying they are perfect, but cash needed spending and some of it wasn't wasted.

I agree with what you say about length of time in power - by '97 the Tories had been in power too long. Now Labour has and it's time for them to go - like the Tories in '97 they have started to believe their own propoganda and they think the reason they are unpopular is that they haven't explained their policies properly just as the Tories did then.

I think the Government gets a lot of credit, the global economic climate and the inherited structure of the UK when the Tories came to power was about as difficult as it has ever been. Maggie set a course that restructured the UK and brought us through those difficult times. She did some truly awful things to some of the population and just assumed they would recover by themselves (for which she will never be forgiven) but she and the Tories put us on a path that allowed our economy to grow and be stable for years to come.

I agree with the "in power too long", but see it slightly differently. I think they (all Governments) eventualy run out of ideas from their original plan. They then start to think up things to do to make it better, or just to appear to be being proactive. They seem incapable of looking back at what they have damaged and will never admit to mistakes.
At this point they start to flap about and get nowhere, some sooner than others.

I would also agree that it is not just NL memebers who have been caught with their fingers in the till and nor was it just Tories getting caught with their pants down. However, if memory serves, the Tories (and Paddy Pantsdown) all (or most) had the decency to resign instead of clinging on claiming to have done nothing wrong and having the unswerving support of their leader and their party.

[malvolio]

had the decency to resign instead of clinging on claiming to have done nothing wrong

there you have the whole NL problem in a nutshell. Two of their senior people have resigned over points of principle, none have done so for making a major balls-up of the jobs - and that includes that waste of space Brown.

Ignore the economy though, look at the social damage - we have the worst education results of anyone anywhere (in Victorian Britain, literacy rates were above 98%. Don't think we're anywhere near that now), hospital results are awful despite the £78bn a year extra funding, the police can't do their jobs... This is all becuase HMG is too dumb to realise that not everything is measurable against KPIs, and even if it was, you need to set some sensible KPIs in the first place, not ones that equate dropping a sausage roll to be eaten by pigeons with rape.

Whoever takes over in 2010, it will be years before the current mess is sorted out. Sadly, it's the next governement that will get the blame for the hard decisions, not the architects of it.

[expat]

had the decency to resign instead of clinging on claiming to have done nothing wrong

there you have the whole NL problem in a nutshell. Two of their senior people have resigned over points of principle, none have done so for making a major balls-up of the jobs - and that includes that waste of space Brown.

Firstly, politicians are not expected to resign for having done their jobs badly, no matter how badly: they are expected to be voted out for that.

They should resign for (having been caught) doing wrong, and IIRC some have, but, notably in the case of Mandelson who was forced to resign twice, the resignation does not last long. It's a single public action, not a departure from public life. This is as you would expect of a government that values style over substance.

Often the style is spread thinner, and the substance nowhere to be seen, as when a minister says loudly "I take full responsibility" and then does nothing.

Credit where it is due, to the single exception: former education secretary Estelle Morris, who couldn't do the job right, admitted it, resigned, and stayed resigned. One of a kind in this government.

[LGDT]

The new Tories have to be touchy-feely to garner the middle ground Mondeo-men and Worcester-women they lost in the mid-90s.

As more of a rabid libertarian than a rabid Tory I believe in the basic Adam Smith principles of self-interest and “the invisible hand” so my vote always goes to the “Leave Me the F*** Alone” Party.

Since I became a contractor that party – for all its faults and despite the current touchy-feeliness – has been the Tories.

I suspect that like Labour – who’ve talked centre-right but acted centre-left – the reality of a new Tory government will be slightly different to the one currently advertised.

But for the first period in power they’re going to have to stay touchy-feely so as not to frighten the horses and keep the coping classes onside.

[expat]

As more of a rabid libertarian than a rabid Tory I believe in the basic Adam Smith principles of self-interest and “the invisible hand” so my vote always goes to the “Leave Me the F*** Alone” Party.

Since I became a contractor that party – for all its faults and despite the current touchy-feeliness – has been the Tories.

I sort of agree, except that:
1. there is no such party,
2. it is a fine starting attitude, but not enough. The invisible hand works well in market areas, but there is more to life, and government, than that.

[TimberWolf]

It works like this. Early Man Kind evolved away from a survival of the fittest prevalent in the animal kingdom into a social creature willing to help our fellow and to spread wealth and resources around to the benefit of all and ultimately ourselves. Unless of course it is us that has the luck and money, in which case our fellow men are theiving malingering gits whom can sod off.

[contractor79]

Quite a few people here have put up the argument

"There is no point voting Tory, they won't be any better."

Let me turn the question around.

Please tell me in what way a new Conservative government taking over now would be any worse than the current government. What is there to lose by voting Conservative at the next election?

Answers on a postcard please.

hitchens has nailed this one- Cameron is the heir to Blair. And he doesn't need to be, he's going to be elected whatever he says, but won't have my vote anymore.

[Peoplesoft bloke]

If you hadn't learned your lesson you'd continue to vote for high tax, waste, lies, corruption and incompetence. Congratulations on your conversion !!

As if that never happened undet the Tories - take your blinkers off man!

[Incognito]

Sorry - misunderstood. Maybe the sexual stuff is less newsworthy these days because we're all a bit more blase about it?

FOr this lot there was that gay bloke on Clapham Common. Prezza, Beardy. The Tories I can think of were Parkinson (what a worm) Archer, Mellor in his Chelsea strip and that spectacular bloke with the orange in his gob (I'm not counting John Major and Currie because we didn't find out at the time) - who have I forgotten?

I'll tell you what's so wrong with the way the country has been run in the last 10 years.

We now have a country with no social cohesion. Labours incessant social policies now encourage single motherhood as a viable alternative to employment. These Shameless estates are now built up on an expectant attitude because Labour has thrown money at people who are just to plain lazy to go out and work for a living. These feral youngsters from these families now have no respect for value or other people’s property, they see something, and they take it because they've been brought up in a culture where they don't have to contribute anything to receive.

Socialist policies trying to empower those who don't deserve it. Giving prisoners the right to claim compensation forcing police not to pursue criminals incase they are sued, schools not allowed to exclude disruptive children, police having to enforce quotas on stop and searches for fear of being deemed racist, children being allowed to sue schools for enforcing school uniform policies, terrorists being able to escape deportation for fear of breaching their human rights, illegal immigrants being able to escape deportation for fear of breaching their human rights.

Labour has been built purely on spin. They create targets and then shift the goalposts to attempt to fool the public into believing their achievements. Anyone who believes any figures they produce is a fool (although you'd likely get 3 A's at A’ Level if you were at school today). Britain is a dump and Blair is to blame.