Non voter

23 posts on this thread

2 up voted by me

17 not voted on by me

4 down voted because I felt like they were personal attacks on me or someone else, not because I don't respect the right to have different views.

Ok firemonkey. Whatever you say oh great genius and success in life. Consider my olive branch withdrawn.

Intelligent people can still say or do stupid things firemonkey. No one is infallible.

But I didn’t mean to make you question your sense of self. For that I am sorry.

Would you respect me if I expressed my admiration of Hitler? Not all views are worthy of respect.

And your statements about respect are rather undermined by you downvoting all my posts here.

A - I was not asking you to "shut up" - please feel free to continue expressing your views. I have already said that I respect your right to do so. However, if you cannot respect other people who express different views, you have little chance of convincing them to join you as Labour voters.

I said that I had decided to withdraw from the debate as I don't want to argue. So that is what I will now do.

Going off subject slightly, does anyone listen to ‘The Rest Is Politics’ podcasts? Alastair Campbell (ex Labour) and Rory Stewart (ex Conservative) talk about British, American and world politics, agreeing to disagree agreeably. I don’t agree with some of their views, but it is a refreshing change from the usual political shows and I have learned a lot from them. They are also on YouTube.

So you’d rather let a far right fascist party in instead?

Yeah, clearly not stupid

I'm very far from ignorant or stupid.  The most likely way to haemorrhage  support is through taking  those who vote for you for granted. It's counterproductive and it's insulting. Voters don't like to be treated that way.

You can’t massively cut almost every tax and increase services.

Their own manifesto has a vague statement about “cutting government spending”.

And these are the people who told us Brexit would give us £350m a week for the NHS.

They are rich people funded by very right wing billionaires and they have absolutely no interest in improving life for ordinary people.

TheCatWoman said:

I too wonder how Reform intend to pay for all this?

An outline of this is at the end of the document here:

Reform Party policies

Do you have no comprehension at all about what is happening in the world?

About what Donald Trump has done in the last week?

About the fact that Farage - who screwed us with Brexit - is aligned to him?

No, sorry, I'm not going to [content removed by Moderator due to breaches rule 7 of the online community rules and guidelines]

There has been too much polite tolerance of this and look where it's got us. No more.

A, I understand your passion in how you feel about this, but we live in a representative democracy where everyone, including those you judge to be stupid or ignorant, have a choice of who to vote for or whether to not vote.

We will have to agree to disagree on this issue, and I will respectfully withdraw from the debate.

I too wonder how Reform intend to pay for all this?

Also what do they mean by make school ciriculum patriotic? Would that mean they would want schools to teach that Boudicca was a patriot trying to expel the evil European invaders? Or that Rome was a good thing because of all the "free trade" it bought with it?

Fine universities for political bias, so how would that effect the the teaching of philosophy, politics and economics? How about history?

I wonder how many of the people who vote Reform actually realise what they'd be voting for? Would they just listen to Farrage twaddling on about how well "we" could do? Or would they realise that they are exactly the sort of people Farrage and his ilk want to punish?

Sorry pixiefox,*** I am no longer willing to politely let it pass. ***

[content removed by Moderator due to breaches of rule 7 the online community rules and guidelines]

As I said earlier A, please let's keep this debate polite and respectful. Fire Monkey didn't go off in a huff, he just explained his feelings and views about the current political landscape and why he chose not to vote. 

You seem to be blaming non voters for getting politicians you do not support into parliament. But again you are presuming that all non voters would have voted Labour, when that is something that cannot be determined. Plus many voters who voted Labour live in a Tory stronghold, where their votes were useless. The results of a general election are based on a minority of "marginal" seats where the result is unsure, so unless you live in those areas you have little to no influence on the results.

You obviously feel very strongly about justice and human rights. But it's our right to say "none of the above" if we so wish.

Labour can't just rely on a 'Vote for us because we're not as bad as Reform or the Tories' political sales pitch.  That  'taken for granted' attitude is what results in alienating current and potential supporters.

I can't find anything in their manifesto about the second one. Could you please share where you've seen that, as I'd like to read more?

I can only find references to that idea having once been floated, but since dropped.

Eg from a June 2024 Spectator article: "A decade ago, Nigel Farage and Ukip worked this out. Both shed their libertarian image and dropped talk of replacing the NHS with an ‘insurance-based model’."

They have two separate proposals.

One is tax relief on private health care.

The other is a system where people could top up their health coverage by making additional payments. Which is a good way of having a two tier service - one for the well off and another for the poor.

Deleted User said:

Require people to have additional insurance to fund the NHS but provide tax relief on it. Happy with that?

I think you've misunderstood? The policy says:

"Despite record extra funding in recent years, NHS healthcare outcomes have declined. While still free at the point of delivery, our healthcare needs major reforms to improve results and enjoy zero waiting lists."

One of the related, proposed reforms says:

"Tax Relief of 20% on all Private Healthcare and Insurance. This will improve care for all by relieving pressure on the NHS. Those who rely on the NHS will enjoy faster, better care. Independent healthcare capacity will grow rapidly, providing competition and reducing costs."

Reform Party policies