I think it's more a case of them realising there is no point arguing against it as the Tories mantra has well and truly soaked into the bloodstream of the masses and it is now an accepted 'fact' that Labour were at fault for almost bankrupting the country, regardless of how true that actually is (I personally don't think it's true at all, especially as the Tories backed every single spendnig plan of the previous Labour government, but clearly enough people swallowed it hook, line and sinker). Any attempt to argue against this generally accepted belief is futile and just gets shouted down either by the press or by those who have been brainwashed into believing the Tories version of the 'truth'. You have to hand it to them, the snidey bastards, they've played the long game perfectly, using the SNP along the way to put more fear into people, particularly the LibDem voters of the South-West who are the real ones responsible for the Tory majority tather than our friends north of the border. I still can't quite fully get my head around why do many LibDem voters abandoned their party and switched to the Conservatives, it just seems totally perverse to me and the only reason I can think of is that they all bought into the Tory line about how Miliband would have conceded too much power to Scotland, and therefore they did what they thought they had to do to avoid this threat of a Labour government. When I read comments calling Nicola Sturgeon the 'wicked witch' and such like I want to bang my head against the wall, I don't think anything she is doing is anything bad at all, it's just the Tories have made her out to be this dangerous animal who we all have to be fearful of. It's all propaganda, spin and fear-mongering and it's unfortunately what the Tories are very good at. Incidentally for the record, I reckon I and my family will personally be better off under a Tory government, certainly financially we will, particularly if house prices keep rocketing (we made almost 200k on our house under the coallition). However as I alluded to above, it's not all about the money for me, and it's not even just about me for me, I believe a society should be judged on the way it treats those worst off, and I can see a lot of the little people at the bottom of the food chain being horribly left behind under this government with increasingly fewer places to turn for help, and that's why I could never bring myself to vote Tory, I just don't trust them and despise most of what they stand for. Sadly not enough people looked past their own front door when voting and when it came to sticking a cross in their box all that mattered was how they as an individual would be effected, which I guess is everybody's prerogative at the end of the day, but I can't help but feel somewhat saddened by this. The worst ones are people who says things like "I never use the library so why should I care if they close them all down?", an actual conversation which I have had in the past six months that drove me to despair.
"Yes we [Labour] overspent because we did not leave enough headroom in the public finances to deal with a cyclical banking crisis" Tristram Hunt
Like I said, look at the interest now as a percentage of GDP. That is where it all gets scary and why Greece are totally f*cked!
Your summary is spot on Munky and I agree with your sentiments. The 'me' mentality began with Thatcher of course and once people bought into that philosophy there is no real going back. They might call them Sleekit Bastards over the border but the Tories sure know how to put the fear of God into people and as you say played in perfectly. Regarding the Lib Dems in the South West (and beyond really) it was immensely disappointing but the truth is that they are people like everyone else and bought into the wicked witch theory. I have to say that Salmond did not help one little bit in this scenario and rather put the SNP into a corner by bigging up their influence with knobs on (the pr*ck). The picture is fine for them currently but when they have real responsibility themselves we will see how their sums add up. I totally go along with your helping the poorest in society angle but I guess we are all now so much more cynical than we would have been years ago that we probably doubt the extent that poverty exists and that there are numerous fraudulent claims upon it. This all goes to undermine the fairness that was British democracy but I fear is not quiten there any more. One final point, my business partner is Asian and he was watching a party political with his dad saying that he agreed with everything the speaker was saying about immigration, benefits and border control. The speaker was Farage of course but I had to laugh at the funny side of the statement. Are you serious I said, bloody right he replied! Christ!
Incidentally, interest costs as a percentage of GDP were lower when Brown handed over to the coalition (even after a massive recession) than they ever were under the previous Tory government.
Munky I do think you have to face facts that the Tories were not to blame for Labours overspending. They were certainly also to blame for putting the responsibility of the economys success in the bankers basket. Now we don't know that the Tories wouldn't have done this, BUT we know Labour did. Labour were unelectable. History shows that the Tories did modernise the country in terms of it finances and approach. It is just undeniable fact. It had to be done. This country was in an absolute mess in the 70's. I would never vote Tory but I do like the idea of small central government and stronger local government. I'm convinced if a government stays in power too long it gets dragged too far too either side into ideology. Thatcher thought she was a God near the end and Brown enjoyed spending money that wasn't his. I'm certainly with you on the Lib Dems and on Questiontime after one of the panelists summed it up perfectly the ridiculous treatment they received over one issue. "Labour introduced tuition fees, the Tories put them up, the Lib Dems got punished for it"
The LibDems got punished for one thing and one thing only,throwing in their lot with The Tories. In 2010 I reckon that two LD voters in three cast their vote in the certain knowledge that whatever else happened those votes would not be used to put Tories into power. The moment he did that Clegg sealed their fate. No longer would any of us vote tactically again. In my constituency Suffolk Coastal The LD's went from a good second place with 30% of the vote to fourth with just 8%. All my household switched LD to Labour even though we knew they had no chance.
That doesn't make any sense, if the primary focus was to keep the Tories out in 2010 out you would still vote Labour. In 2015 I'd say that could well be true that people switched from Lib Dem to Labour to keep the Tories out.
Most of them switched to Conservative, particularly in the South-West which Bristol aside is now a sea of blue. Labour lost votes compared to 2010 down there and as I mentioned earlier I really struggled to get my head around why any disgruntled LibDem voter would switch to Tory, it can only have been tactical.
Well although I voted Lib Dem (first time), there is no way I would have voted Labour in its present form back in. The protest vote was we still don't want Labour back. I don't think the Scottish thing is as big as people make out, its primarily the economy people vote for.
Question for you all. When you voted, did you vote for the actual party, or did you vote for the local candidate?
If people who voted LibDem last time were happy with the way the economy was going under the coalition then I don't get why they would desert them and vote Tory instead. The tuition fees couldn't have been an issue (unless they were really thick) as the £9k hike was a Tory policy, and much of the good stuff from the coalition (the increase of the income tax threshold for example) were LibDem policies so I don't understand the mentality of a disillusioned LibDem voter being hacked off with what their party had done to then jump into bed with the 'nasty' half of the coalition. The fear of an SNP/Labour coalition must have been an issue in the south-west or else they would have been happy to have seen a repeat of the coalition of the last five years - or am I massively missing something?
It was far more complicated than a single voter movement. If you look at the lost LD 15% share it probably went in several directions. Most of it would have split Tory/Labour with a corresponding movement away from those parties to UKIP. Don't forget that in 2010 an awful lot of Labour inclined voters "lent" their votes to the LD's. There will have been a substantial movement Labour-UKIP too. In addition to that Labour lost a huge share of the Scottish vote that had the effect of depressing their national share by around 2%. In actual fact the vote shares of the two big parties remained virtually unchanged it is just the "churn" we don't know.
The tuition fees thing is a bit of a joke really as the Government in some cases won't recover these at all. It is basically a tax that you will only re-pay once you are in employment and earning a certain amount (exact figure escapes me atm but it's quite a lot). I'm not saying I agree with these fees in fact completely the opposite, but it's not as much of a burden as some are making out, the monthly repayments are quite small too. My daughter starts University later this year so we've been keen to get all the facts.Should you gain employment and then lose your job the payments are then suspended and after so many years they're written off altogether. As I say, I don't believe anyone should have to pay for education there are some tory policies that I disagree with
Bit of both, I was genuinely impressed with what my local Labour candidate (now MP, we shifted the Tory out round my way at least) and as you probably guessed by now, despite not being a huge fan of Miliband and even lesser one of Balls, I was fairly desperate to shift the Tories out of government. These were the priorities of my local Tory, none of which resonated with me in the tiniest way and can't imagine they would have tempted many floating voters
I was referring primarily to the South-West of the country where the Tories hoovered up votes from both LibDems and Labour who both saw their share of the vote plummet down there.
