UK General Election - 12th December 2019 | Con 365, Lab 203, LD 11, SNP 48, Other 23 - Tory Majority of 80

[Maticmaker]

What I don't get are people from working class or middle class backgrounds voting Tory. It baffles me.

It baffles many in the Labour party as well, that's why they are in great danger of losing the Election.

If people who by most criteria are from backgrounds that should support you, but they don't... surely that's a question that should have been addressed long before the final weeks of the election? Its not really to do with political science its to do with competence. At the moment I regret to say the Labour party would have great difficulty finding its way out of a paper bag, mores the pity.

 

[ClaytonBlackmoorLeftPeg]

Miliband offered that and you guys still voted the Tories in anyway.

the wrong Miliband. The difference you forget was that Cameron was a very credible leader - even Ed Miliband would make this election competitive.

 

[Adisa]

I hate Boris Johnson with every fibre of my being. Bare -faced liar.

 

[Maticmaker]

If he cannot stand up to a journalist how can you expect him to stand up to someone with real power?

You don't stand up to journalists, you just avoid them and to others with real power you out manoeuvre them, just as Putin has been doing to the West ever since Obama stepped back over chemical weapons use in Syria. Not sure either Boris or Corbyn are personally equipped to play with the big boys!

 

[Adisa]

Don't know how Marr doesn't reach across and punch him in the face.

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[711]

Big contrast in styles in the two leader interviews today, and Corbyn won hands down for me. He was given a particularly easy ride, but you can only play whats in front of you, so one nil to him today.

 

[Judas]

I feel confusion, pity and anger at people from working class or middle class backgrounds voting for Boris, what must be going through their skulls to make such a decision?

 

[sun_tzu]

It will be interesting to see how the polls play out on this
It might be the event that hurts the conservatives?
I'm surprised brexit party are not offering a referendum on death penalty for terrorists or something as a play for last minute votes

 

[Wumminator]

I feel confusion, pity and anger at people from working class or middle class backgrounds voting for Boris, what must be going through their skulls to make such a decision?

Quite simply, the majority of people I know voting for Boris and 'hate' Jeremy Corbyn are completely uninformed. The more politically active you are, the more you are to vote Labour.

The people I see on Facebook and social media supporting Bo Jo are very quick to say 'Don't shove your beliefs at me, I can vote for who I want'. They believe something that isn't necessarily true and are not paying attention.

 

[nickm]

I feel confusion, pity and anger at people from working class or middle class backgrounds voting for Boris, what must be going through their skulls to make such a decision?

Until Labour understands why the UK keeps voting for tories, they won't ever win.

 

[Wumminator]

Until Labour understands why the UK keeps voting for tories, they won't ever win.

They vote for them because the press woefully misinformed them.

 

[Smores]

I feel confusion, pity and anger at people from working class or middle class backgrounds voting for Boris, what must be going through their skulls to make such a decision?

My old man thinks he's an idiot but also just a scapegoat and the criticisms are overdone. It wouldn't matter to him who was leader or even policies because he thinks they have to get Brexit done because democracy.

I'm fairly confident you could use my dad as a one man sample on where the Tory party is at.

It's a shame we can't use the caf members as a sample but they either try to disguise their reasons or flat out pretend they're not Tories.

 

[TheGame]

Unbelievable stuff from the Tories on this. Patel keeps lieing and now this from Johnson:

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[ClaytonBlackmoorLeftPeg]

Quite simply, the majority of people I know voting for Boris and 'hate' Jeremy Corbyn are completely uninformed. The more politically active you are, the more you are to vote Labour.

The people I see on Facebook and social media supporting Bo Jo are very quick to say 'Don't shove your beliefs at me, I can vote for who I want'. They believe something that isn't necessarily true and are not paying attention.

what complete rubbish. You have reverted to tyle “if you don’t vote my way you are ill informed/ stupid/ uneducated” such a sad way of thinking, rather than address issues with labour, it’s always the blame game.

 

[Wumminator]

what complete rubbish. You have reverted to tyle “if you don’t vote my way you are ill informed/ stupid/ uneducated” such a sad way of thinking, rather than address issues with labour, it’s always the blame game.

People in general like Labours policies.

The Sun, the Express and the Mail can lie all they want without repercussions. That is the issue. People who vote for the opposite of what they need ARE misinformed. That’s the big problem with Labour, propaganda is influencing others massively.

 

[GDaly95]

And they're still going to get a majority.

How can so many people not see what's right in front of them?

 

[Redlambs]

what complete rubbish. You have reverted to tyle “if you don’t vote my way you are ill informed/ stupid/ uneducated” such a sad way of thinking, rather than address issues with labour, it’s always the blame game.

Yup. Labour has more problems than just ill informed voters. Like the inability to inform those voters for a start



Awww shit, I must be a secret Tory now

 

[Fluctuation0161]

I’m not endorsing him or ignorant of his past errors of judgment or choice of words, more a case of which pile of shit I’d prefer.

In that case, I think you underestimate how big the Boris pile of shit is!

 

[Fluctuation0161]

mans yet there are many who would vote Boris 100 times out of 100 over Corbyn. At least you have acknowledged that Corbyn is an issue, many cannot and just blame the media as propping up the Tory government.

the reality is that neither leader is good enough, but a Corbyn government would be a disaster and the sooner he goes, the sooner we can have a credible opposition that will hold the govt. to account and offer a genuine choice. For the middle ground (where the majority of rational people sit), Corbyn and McDonnel would be a disaster. If you just want some noise and to be a protest group, then the incumbent is perfect, a leader he will never be.

Did you vote for Miliband?

 

[Judas]

Imagine being a rational human being, hearing Boris repeat over and over again "we need to get brexit done" and thinking that's the man for me. Boris is just the tip of the iceberg of whats wrong with voting Tory.

 

[Fluctuation0161]

People in general like Labours policies.

The Sun, the Express and the Mail can lie all they want without repercussions. That is the issue. People who vote for the opposite of what they need ARE misinformed. That’s the big problem with Labour, propaganda is influencing others massively.

Yep. Which is not good for democracy at all. Even for those who currently support the Conservatives.

 

[Wumminator]

Yup. Labour has more problems than just ill informed voters. Like the inability to inform those voters for a start



Awww shit, I must be a secret Tory now

How can you inform them when the press is so fecked up?

 

[nickm]

They vote for them because the press woefully misinformed them.

Always someone's else's fault... People are less reliant on the media now than they have ever been.

 

[nickm]

People in general like Labours policies.

The Sun, the Express and the Mail can lie all they want without repercussions. That is the issue. People who vote for the opposite of what they need ARE misinformed. That’s the big problem with Labour, propaganda is influencing others massively.

The big problem with Labour is they show hostility to people whose votes they actually need (and could have, like mine for example). There aren't enough hardcore Labour voters to win elections. But hey, you've been told this before and you won't listen. I'm not sure if losing this time will be enough to hammer the message home, maybe it'll take another 5 or 10 years in opposition before you get it. I guess we'll see.

 

[Maticmaker]

They vote for them because the press woefully misinformed them.

Yes there are millions of people who just don't get it, do they? Stupid people believing what's in the press, get everything they deserve, you'd think once they had reached the age of 18 they could tell fact from fiction, wouldn't you?

Heard these same comments from those who find their particular views unpopular all my life...keep voting against the Government, but it always gets back in!!

 

[Wumminator]

Always someone's else's fault... People are less reliant on the media now than they have ever been.

And as a result fake news and biased sources are more prevalent than ever.

We are in an age where disinformation spreads rapidly. The major news websites favour Conservatives. Fake news clearly skews towards Conservatives. The fact is there is a huge amount of the population who don’t know how to distinguish from what is real and what isn’t and to be honest don’t have the time to either.

 

[sun_tzu]

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There is no way Boris wrote all that

And I have to say that although there might be some truth in it (I'm not a lawyer but it seems to show a logical path) it's a very hard sell to get a 16 tweet message over in short soundbites

I think this is actually going to be a difficult news cycle to manage for both conservatives and labour as it will probably just see them blaming each other and I doubt either will look good doing it

 

[nickm]

Imagine being a rational human being, hearing Boris repeat over and over again "we need to get brexit done" and thinking that's the man for me. Boris is just the tip of the iceberg of whats wrong with voting Tory.

You really shouldn't be surprised Brexit is for many people the single biggest issue of the day, given it's dominated everything for the last 3 years.

 

[Adisa]

The big problem with Labour is they show hostility to people whose votes they actually need (and could have, like mine for example). There aren't enough hardcore Labour voters to win elections. But hey, you've been told this before and you won't listen. I'm not sure if losing this time will be enough to hammer the message home, maybe it'll take another 5 or 10 years in opposition before you get it. I guess we'll see.

Explain the hostility

 

[ClaytonBlackmoorLeftPeg]

Yup. Labour has more problems than just ill informed voters. Like the inability to inform those voters for a start



Awww shit, I must be a secret Tory now

perhaps the middle ground have no intention of voting for Corbyn because... it’s Jeremy Corbyn and his policies. It’s not that this Tory government is good, it’s that labour would be worse - damming indictment

The big problem with Labour is they show hostility to people whose votes they actually need (and could have, like mine for example). There aren't enough hardcore Labour voters to win elections. But hey, you've been told this before and you won't listen. I'm not sure if losing this time will be enough to hammer the message home, maybe it'll take another 5 or 10 years in opposition before you get it. I guess we'll see.

Like we see in here, if you don’t agree your an idiot, I’ll educated, hate those less well off than yourself, etc etc. The attitude of these hardcore labour supporters just stifles debate, because rational people who vote differently or are thinking of voting differently keep quiet and don’t express their options due to the abuse that they get.

And as a result fake news and biased sources are more prevalent than ever.

We are in an age where disinformation spreads rapidly. The major news websites favour Conservatives. Fake news clearly skews towards Conservatives. The fact is there is a huge amount of the population who don’t know how to distinguish from what is real and what isn’t and to be honest don’t have the time to either.

so even the fake news favours the Tories. Is that Rupert Murdock’s fault as well?

 

[P-Ro]

I'm currently watching the BBC Election Debate on YouTube and the main take home I've had so far is that Rebecca Long-Bailey has a tiny mouth. It's like less than half the circumference of the average sized mouth.

 

[Pexbo]

Imagine being a rational human being, hearing Boris repeat over and over again "we need to get brexit done" and thinking that's the man for me. Boris is just the tip of the iceberg of whats wrong with voting Tory.

The trouble is that for a huge number of Brexiteers, they believe that Brexit is the solution to their currently miserable situation, or they have been lead to believe that their current situation is miserable because of a lack of Brexit.

For a vast majority of those people, the reason they are currently in a miserable situation is because of this Tory government and if they were to read the Labour manifesto and read the Tory manifesto and actually apply some critical thinking they would realised that there is a lot of answers they are looking for in the Labour manifesto and a lot of reasons for their currently miserable situation in the Tory manifesto.

This is exactly why Johnson hides behind the "Get Brexit done" nonsense. Because it's the quick answer a lot of people are looking for and they have absolutely no interest whatsoever in looking into it any further and that plays into Johnson's hand's beautifully as it means they simply switch off when an interviewer challenges him to go beyond Brexit and discuss actual domestic policy. Boris says his catch phrase, the interviewer presses on for his answer and the Brexiteer has already switched off to the interviewer and chooses to cheer Johnson on who creates a siege mentality on every single question. If the interviewer is probing Boris he's an enemy because he wants to thwart Brexit.

 

[nickm]

Explain the hostility

My prediction is, until Labour can make peace with Blair, their most electorally successful PM, they will never win another majority.

 

[nickm]

The trouble is that for a huge number of Brexiteers, they believe that Brexit is the solution to their currently miserable situation, or they have been lead to believe that their current situation is miserable because of a lack of Brexit.

For a vast majority of those people, the reason they are currently in a miserable situation is because of this Tory government and if they were to read the Labour manifesto and read the Tory manifesto and actually apply some critical thinking they would realised that there is a lot of answers they are looking for in the Labour manifesto and a lot of reasons for their currently miserable situation in the Tory manifesto.

This is exactly why Johnson hides behind the "Get Brexit done" nonsense. Because it's the quick answer a lot of people are looking for and they have absolutely no interest whatsoever in looking into it any further and that plays into Johnson's hand's beautifully as it means they simply switch off when an interviewer challenges him to go beyond Brexit and discuss actual domestic policy. Boris says his catch phrase, the interviewer presses on for his answer and the Brexiteer has already switched off to the interviewer and chooses to cheer Johnson on who creates a siege mentality on every single question. If the interviewer is probing Boris he's an enemy because he wants to thwart Brexit.

Why do you think New Labour focused so much on simple messaging and easy to understand objectives?

 

[Drifter]

My prediction is, until Labour can make peace with Blair, their most electorally successful PM, they will never win another majority.

Those were the days.

 

[Mr Pigeon]

Imagine being a rational human being, hearing Boris repeat over and over again "we need to get brexit done" and thinking that's the man for me. Boris is just the tip of the iceberg of whats wrong with voting Tory.

It's 2007.

American banks are selling mortgages to people who have next to no credit rating and can barely afford to pay the interest back on their loans on the lower percentage variable rates, let alone when those rates double after the initial period ends. The two ratings agencies are fighting with one another for business so they'll give any loans a AAA rating for the banks regardless of their value. It's unregulated and highly illegal activity.

Then the shit starts and millions of people begin to default on their loans and lose their homes. And then the whole thing comes crashing down.

It's 2008 and the effects are felt all across the world. The biggest money maker in the world economy no longer makes money. Funds that invested in what was meant to be a sure thing find out that their money is all gone. People start losing jobs left right and centre and we enter the Great Recession.

And nobody from the banks goes to jail because all attention is drawn to people on benefits and Johnny Foreigners being blamed for it all.

In short; people are easily manipulated into believing the easiest excuse, instead of the more complex real life ones.

 

[Wumminator]

so even the fake news favours the Tories. Is that Rupert Murdock’s fault as well?

Do you genuinely believe that fake news doesn’t have a Conservative bias?

In the last month we've had the actual conservative twitter pretend to be an independent fact check source. We've had the Conservatives post an actual fake Labour manifesto. We've had Johnson lie about the numbers of Hospitals and Nurses we will hire. Remember the 350 million pound from Brexit? Remember the 'easiest trade deal'? You just had a Conservative candidate faking an interview with a 'member of the public' when it was his mate.

Boris Johnson's own Dad has just gone on national tv and insulted the intelligence of the general population. That's what Conservatives are banking on, that the people won't research what is happening. The whole idea of Conservative politics is to misinform the public with simple soundbites and then use their news network to spread fake bullshit. They are constantly caught lying and they constantly promote it.

 

[ClaytonBlackmoorLeftPeg]

Do you genuinely believe that fake news doesn’t have a Conservative bias?

In the last month we've had the actual conservative twitter pretend to be an independent fact check source. We've had the Conservatives post an actual fake Labour manifesto. We've had Johnson lie about the numbers of Hospitals and Nurses we will hire. Remember the 350 million pound from Brexit? Remember the 'easiest trade deal'? You just had a Conservative candidate faking an interview with a 'member of the public' when it was his mate.

Boris Johnson's own Dad has just gone on national tv and insulted the intelligence of the general population. That's what Conservatives are banking on, that the people won't research what is happening. The whole idea of Conservative politics is to misinform the public with simple soundbites and then use their news network to spread fake bullshit. They are constantly caught lying and they constantly promote it.

most of what you have described is not fake news. I am not saying it’s truth, but it’s things that can be debunked in the political arena.

The most obvious example of fake news was the story about Swinson’s husband and the money from the EU. There was quite a good article about how this started and how it spread. That’s what I would call fake news, the rest is political posturing, which all parties are complicit in -
I am not saying that’s right, and maybe I am being pedantic over the definition, but I think there’s a big difference.

 

[Fingeredmouse]

most of what you have described is not fake news. I am not saying it’s truth, but it’s things that can be debunked in the political arena.

The most obvious example of fake news was the story about Swinson’s husband and the money from the EU. There was quite a good article about how this started and how it spread. That’s what I would call fake news, the rest is political posturing, which all parties are complicit in -
I am not saying that’s right, and maybe I am being pedantic over the definition, but I think there’s a big difference.

Sorry - setting up websites with deliberately misleading names, as an example, is political posturing which all parties are complicit in?

 

[Fluctuation0161]

Always someone's else's fault... People are less reliant on the media now than they have ever been.

You mean less reliant on print media I assume? This could help explain why older people are more likely to vote Conservative over Labour. It gets more likely with age but I believe the tipping point is 47.

Today's story below just adds weight to the initial point though. Tories are trying to spread disinformation. Some of their friends in the large media organisations allow this. Google don't like it apparently.

Google bans eight different Tory election adverts as disinformation concerns mount
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...ogle-fake-news-manifesto-labour-a9223846.html