Why does no one vote Conservative?

[pinklady 10]

Labour have proved themselves incompitent in my eyes, i have always voted Tory and probably always will, i personally have never been more well off than i was when thatcher was in power .... but thats because my OH has a small business, Torys rewarded that, Labour taxed it to death.

 

Just my opinion mind.

[InSheffield 10]

The Liberal Democrats are formidable campaigners and it is not easy to dislodge them once they get their teeth into an area.

 

This is often said, but at a local level, it doesn't really hold up. The Lib Dems ran Sheffield a few years ago, and soon lost control back to Labour. The recent local elections saw several Lib Dem councils fall to the Conservatives or No Overall Control. I suspect that once the Labour Party becomes more popular - probably once they lose a general election - the Lib Dems will find it very difficult to retain control of the City Council.

[sweety 10]

two words sheffield steel what happened to it maggie Thatcher and the rest of the tories the only good thing tha she brought was that she was the only one with the balls to tell the yanks to get f#*ked about thje falklands war and ot be up there arse

[Tony 10]

I've always been led to understand that Sheffield produces more steel now than it ever did in the past.

[rubydazzler 11]

This is often said, but at a local level, it doesn't really hold up. The Lib Dems ran Sheffield a few years ago, and soon lost control back to Labour. I suspect that once the Labour Party becomes more popular - probably once they lose a general election - the Lib Dems will find it very difficult to retain control of the City Council.

The truth about local politics is very much more convoluted than people on the outside realise and you soon come to realise that the programme "Yes Minister" was very apt. I'm sure the same holds true at national level too.

 

In the past, I've been involved at grassroots level and you soon find out that if a policy of recruitment of workers is rooted in party politics for many years, any party other than the one supported by the workers, has a very hard row to hoe. It's a bit like trying to row a boat upstream against the current. Add that to a concentrated agenda of public misinformation by the Oppostiion (as they now are) and you can see that policies can soon be subverted and diluted, to the disadvantage and disappointment of the electorate.

 

Also when you have generations of people, as we have in the Northern Mets, who aren't really interested in politics or policy but blindly vote for the same party their grandparents voted for, under the misapprehension that they're the party of the working people, it's even harder to turn a city around.

 

However, read my siggie below, this is just my opinion and I've been out of party politics for a number of years now, but I doubt things have changed much at the Town Hall. I hope to be proved wrong, of course.

[halevan 11]

I vote for who I see best at the time. In1997 I voted Labour, and for the first few years was happy with what we had. Last year I voted Tory, and would do if there was a general election tomorrow.

 

I understand feelings running deep about what happened in this area under the Tories, but they are a differant party now, and shouldn't be made to pay for the sins of the fathers.

 

In my opinion it's time for a change with the tories being the only viable option.

 

I would never vote Tory, they are the same old bogey with a different face, just see what they will do at you if they get power again, the single factor that has thrown labour out is uncontrolled Immigration. This country should negotiate withdrawall from the common market, stop immigration now and start sending all the scum of the EEC back home.

[sweety 10]

I've always been led to understand that Sheffield produces more steel now than it ever did in the past.

 

who said that (the star) where exactly is this steel made there about 6 large firms left to the hundreds of yesteryear

[Manorblade 10]

I will never ever vote for that filth called "Tory party"

 

Yes Labour have made a mess of things in recent yrs and are tearing the country to bits but they are still picking up the mess the tories left behind!

 

I dont vote for Labour either but if i had to choose between the 2 it would be them.

 

When the Tories decided to destroy the country smashing every industry that the working class relied on the also destroyed the one good thing that this country had better than any other country in the world and that was the working class community's, When the pit's closed people moved away scrambling for any sort work wherever they could find and it ripped the soul out of the community and let drug dealers, thiefs, perverts and allsorts move in our neighbourhoods without and resistence!

 

I am not the only person on here that will remember the local bobby (taken away by M.T), if a stranger was on the local estate people kept watch, Druggies where moved out by the locals, street parties n how arguments where dealt with straight away without grudges going on for months n months.

People had respect and pensioners where safe as they where looked after by the community safe in there homes.

 

The tories set out to destroy the working class community and spirit and it worked and thats why the local areas and estates have got worse.

 

The working class had good job's with pretty decent lifes and where getting better and closer to the upper class and the tories could not allow this to happen so decided to destroy the lifes of thousand's of family's just to keepo there own sort "On Top".

 

Dont be fooled by the vile disgusting Tories they are the same now as they were back then and are about as trustworthy as Adolph Hitler.

[Longcol 604]

who said that (the star) where exactly is this steel made there about 6 large firms left to the hundreds of yesteryear

 

My understanding is the same as Tony's - and my understanding comes from lads still working in the steel industry or recently retired (Outokumpo? - the one the used to be Asvesta) - and that is technological change means that the same amount of steel can now be made with a fraction of the workforce.

[rubydazzler 11]

In my opinion the party that ripped the heart out of Sheffield, were Labour with their wholesale demolitions and building of souless blocks of flats. It was regarded it at the time by many of its victims as a deliberate ploy to get people out of private housing and into council properties where they could be better controlled. We can still see how Labour, Nu or Old love to have control of people, to the extreme.

 

They demolished whole neighbourhoods where the community had been built up over years, split them up and dumped them miles away from anywhere with no shops, or transport. Added to which, they'd declared their intentions to do it years previously so that entire swathes of the City were blighted with no improvements made for anything up to 20 years. This condemned people to living in slum conditions for years longer than they needed to but also enabled them (the Council) to compulsorily purchase at knockdown prices.

 

I didn't hold any brief for Mrs Thatcher but at least she did make it possible for many of the poorest in society, the council tenants, to buy a home of their own.

[Longcol 604]

C'mon Ruby - I think you'll find that the vast majority of Sheffielders who moved to the new estates in the 50's and 60's found them a vast improvement on the old back to backs - and they did have plenty public transport and shops when they were first built. They took people out of the slums rather than condemned them to live in them for another 20 years.

 

These were thriving communities until blighted by unemployment and the resulting social problems that started kicking in during the late '70's.

[Ridgewalk 101]

The Capitalist system is hegemonic now, as such I suppose it's which party best manages the ecomomy. Surely globalisation means that countries are at the beck and whim of international markets.

 

In respect of foreign workers surely we have to do the best for our country, given that many people can't or won't work and non working age people are growing as a proportion of the population we ought to "box clever" and employ those willing to work hard and contribute to the economy.

 

I have a deep seated disrust for the Tories and i'm not fooled by wolves in sheeps clothing.

 

I've always hoped/believed that Labour is the best party to ameliorate the worst affects of the economy on the weak and vulnerable. Does anybody really believe that privileged Old Etonians have any empathy with those less well born than themselves !