I don't even believe all tory voters are bad people I get that different people have different perspectives on life
I'm surprised how anyone on a low income can be brainless enough to support broken and draconian systems like universal credit but apparently they are legion.
I don't think they're bad people, but I have to believe some of them are ignorant, stupid or both. I mean, up here in the North East, Redcar went to the Tories. REDCAR. This is a town which, under the Tory government,
saw it's largest employer close with the loss of 3000 jobs. This is a town where
24.2% of children are classified as living in child poverty and local services have been slashed due to the Tories' attitudes of making local councils find more of their own money (guess how - by putting up council tax). What on Earth could possibly possess these people to vote Tory? I feel for the people in poor areas who didn't vote Tory and are today waking up to a Tory representing them, but I don't particularly feel for the people who did. It's like the difference between being mugged and walking up to the richest person you can find and handing them your wallet.
I think a lot of people here (this site seems to have a disproportionate number of Corbynites) seriously underestimate just how toxic Corbyn and some (far from all but definitely some, including some significant ones) of his policies are among a wide section of the British public. This not only drove away some people who would otherwise have voted Labour, but (perhaps more significantly and definitely in much greater number) pushed others who dislike the state of the current Conservative party to stick behind the Conservatives out of fear of a Corbyn-led government rather than switch to other parties.
But outside of the media and propaganda lies, can anyone actually explain what it was that made them feel this way about Corbyn and his policies? Because if it is only the media and propaganda, how exactly is Corbyn to blame for that? If a dozen people falsely accuse someone of something it's not their fault that other people presume they're guilty, it's the fault of those people for blindly believing what they're told without actually bothering to look into whether it's true or not. Which perhaps points to the fact it's time to re-examine universal suffrage.
I sympathise with ex-Labour voters in the north though. Why shouldn't you get the thing you vote for? In any other circumstance, when you vote and happen to be on the "winning side", the result you backed is implemented, except in the case of Brexit, which has been undermined by the losers since day one in the hopes of a re-run.
History is littered with broken manifesto promises, they're just better at fudging and lying about those. It would probably be harder to try and pretend Brexit has already happened. I do for the most part agree with your assessment here though - Labour was riven much harder than the Tories on Brexit, they were criticised for fence sitting but how could they not when their more cosmopolitan voters mostly backed remain and their provincial supporters leaned much more heavily leave? Corbyn tried to hold these groups together due to a belief in shared aims other than Brexit (which was very much my belief too) but the press and the PLP, of course, happily obliged in splitting these groups even further.
I really don't think we should forget David Cameron's role in all this - He agreed to a referendum he didn't want or believe in to attract UKIP voters to the Tories, fought it terribly and lost, gave up and ran instead of trying to sort it out and this is what has led to this point - Scotland wanting to leave the UK, the transformation of the Tories he'd been trying to give a more moderate image into UKIP-lite and a platform for Boris in the shape of the leave campaign - A man with
no beliefs or principles other than his own power and aggrandisement. Let's not forget he only decided to support the leave campaign because he thought it would make him more popular than supporting remain - He didn't actually believe in either and probably still doesn't, just saying whatever he thinks will be popular. I genuinely don't think Boris believes in anything.
It has shown that putting a charismatic but barefaced liar who will flip positions on any policy whenever he feels like it can be a winning electoral strategy. If other future leaders (of any party) choose to take that as a lesson on how to win, this will go down in history as a very dark day indeed for British democracy.
I feel like that's already been a winning electoral strategy for some time. Certainly it has in the US, I can't think of a single President since Jimmy Carter who doesn't fit that mould. Also Blair and Cameron, obviously.
I dunno. I would have voted for those policies if Corbyn wasn't leader. Taken a chance on hope, fanciful though it was. But Corbyn's flavour of leadership was sickening, divisive and exclusive. When you tell anyone who doesn't agree with you to bugger off to the Lib Dems, you're the problem. He was and is running the Labour party like a militant union from the seventies, one that has forgotten that it's there to represent workers, and is in it for the power alone.
There are people who need to be told to bugger off, especially when they're trying to undermine you at every turn (though if I'm not mistaken most of them buggered off of their own accord and used the opportunity for media exposure). This election has certainly shown via the Brexit example outlined above that you can't please everybody, so I don't think there's a whole lot of point in trying. I really do despise all this manipulative, weaselly political language which is preferred because at least it's "respectful". It's time for blunt honesty in politics. It's time to stop apologising and explaining and rationalising. It's time politicians celebrated receiving death threats as a sign they're having an impact.
