No I'm not Hyperborean; I thought he was one of your alter egos
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If you understood my question you masked your comprehension very well. You're as bad as TOBW when he says he can't understand how anyone can vote Tory. The lack of empathy and appreciation that some have to those who may have a different world view than your own says more about you and them than anything else.
People vote for different parties for a variety of reasons. If you can't countenance that then you're not really capable of the independent thought that you think you are.
This is repetitive, so feel free to have the last word.
In any democracy there are always people who won't vote for a certain party - the people who are currently still telling opinion polls that they will vote Tory are certain to include a fair proportion, probably a majority, who would never vote Labour.
I see the current Prime Minister appears to be going through one of her chameleon like changes of beliefs this week which is not a good look for someone in her position. For us mere mortals though, if a person lives the whole of their adult life believing in a certain set of principles, where's the problem? I'm proud never to have voted Conservative and, unless, something even more barmy than what we've seen over the last six years happens, I will go to my grave never having voted for them.
I dont have an issue with anyone who has a set of principles and retains courage in their convictions. The issue I have is with those, such as yourself, who cannot understand how anyone can hold a differing viewpoint to your own.
Everyone you have ever known in your life has a slightly different version of Bob in their mind. Each version is created from their individual experiences of you in life.
People define their principles based on their own life experiences, and your own experiences are no more or less valid than anyone else's. This is how principles are formed.
The way I see it is the left are more for collective responsibility and the right for personal responsibility. Neither are right or wrong and both have their merits and drawbacks. Yet some on either side just cannot see that.
As for never voting for a party. That's a little shortsighted. Do you think the democratic party that enacted Jim Crow is the same party today, or do you think the Republican party of Lincoln is the same today? What about the Liberals who left the Irish to die in the potato famine, preferring Laissez Faire politics?
My point is parties change, and to steadfastly say you'll never support a party when that party may change over time i
Lacks an understanding on how party politics works.
I don't wish us to carry on abusing each other in this thread so I just want to question some of your assumptions in a friendly way.
The Tories are about an awful lot more than personal responsibility and much of what they stand against I would steadfastly say is wrong by any definition of ethics.
There's no space nor time here to do any justice to the subject but I'll just pick up on personal responsibility briefly because you raised it.
Surely personal responsibility is fine if you have the luxury of possessing the wherewithal and means to maintain yourself independently. It's a very laudable ideology for the rich to keep to themselves. However the poor, through no fault of their own, need the support and generosity of all because they are denied the means to look after themselves sufficiently. Personally I believe that to promote the small state agenda denies social responsibility and that is evil. The philosophy of I'm allright Jack, bu**er you is selfish, greedy and evil. You may disagree of course.
Your point about parties being subject to change his true to a point but of course if they lose their core, defining beliefs they become different parties. I'm not aware of the Tories ever having altered their core beliefs of aspiration, small state, personal responsibility, wealth hegemony and allegiance to the crown. For all those very reasons I could never vote for them.
If this was true, I would entirely agree with you, but I don't think it is. I think you present a characature of the party. Wasn't it the Tory party who just spent extraordinary sums on furlough, on reducing fuel prices, on U/C uplifts during Covid. Have they not raised the minimum wage by more than Labour, did they not raise NHS spending by record amounts etc?
The answer to the above is that they did. Our expectations of what a succesful society are are probably very similar. I voted Tory in the last election (and in 2017, for the first time) largely because of the importance of honouring the referendum from 2016, but also because I thought they were more likely to do many of the things you suggested, in an economically more sustainable way. Post Boris, I can't say I think that, but there was no inherent promotion of greed or an 'I'm alright Jack' attitude about May, Johnson or even Cameron.
James I could have bet my house on you disagreeing with me.
There was definitely the inherent promotion big greed throughout every Tory administration. It's their raison d'etre. Johnson is the epitome of greed. Not even his £250k plus MP and ministerial salary is enough for him. He's said so openly.
The furlough argument is irrelevant I'm afraid. Every administration of every hue would have done the same in the circumstances otherwise the economy would have been irrecoverable.
By the way are you a transport planner? If so could you do something about the appalling infrastructure we have in Caerphilly?
The Tories are cnuts
They didn't provide furlough because they wanted to , it was because there would have been a revolution if they hadn't
Same for the increase in UC , which they dropped as soon as they could
They increased UC because they had to , not because they are philanthropic and like to be kind to those in need
They have a catalogue of being exactly the opposite to vulnerable people over years and years
It's only the work of .....lefty .....pressure groups ....that shames them or the courts step in
They are uncaring bastards and I hope they get absolutely stuffed the next time there is an election .
I don't think either of us have abused the other Bob...
My take on it all is that personal responsibility is more than just saying I have all this wealth and I'm ok. That is far too simplistic and you're looking at this from a purely monetary viewpoint. There are plenty of people in this world who would be defined as poor, but they don't feel poor as they don't covet material wealth.
As an example, personal responsibility, for me, is knowing that you have to get up in the morning and work. Collective responsibility is knowing that some of the fruits of your labour will be taken in the form of tax and used for the betterment of society as a whole. The two concepts don't have to be strangers, and to suggest otherwise, in my view, is incorrect.
I certainly don't feel that the Tories are about keeping everything for yourself, in the same way Labour aren't about giving the purported feckless free handouts. Both sides look at solving the same problem from different angles. Neither side has the panacea for all ills, with the left sometimes choosing the correct answer, and other times its the rights turn.
I may have said I don’t know how anyone could vote Conservative at certain times over the past few years (last night being one of them) , but I’ve never thought that in more “normal” times. I could understand how people voted for Thatcher in 1979 and Cameron in 2010 for example.