My feed
Premium

Please
or
to access all these features

News

Labour voters increasingly turning against the poor, study says

16 replies

ariadneoliver · 14/05/2013 10:54

www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/may/14/labour-voters-poor-study-solidarity

It's a Joseph Rowntree study. They seem to think it's a significant shift.

OP posts:
Report
Wannabestepfordwife · 14/05/2013 11:42

I don't really agree with that article I mean there is obviously some truth in it hence the stats but I think labour supporters are more turning against labour.

Dp is what you would believe to be a core labour supporter being northern wwc but labour no longer represents his interests.

I think with the recession people are thinking of themselves rather than society as a whole and if political party's are representing what's important to them then people are becoming increasingly frustrated and disillusioned.

I really do think it's not labour supporters turning against the poor but more like voters saying this doesn't affect me- I wish people weren't in that situation but what about me what ate you going to do for me.

Report
CogitoErgoSometimes · 14/05/2013 11:45

If the local election results are to be believed a sizeable chunk of the electorate, regardless of previous political affiliation, has taken a big step to the far right. Significant shifts all round if that's the case.

Report
scaevola · 14/05/2013 11:50

Think it means that the Labour party these days is the natural home for what would have been termed "Tory Wets" in the days of Thatcher.

There simply isn't a major party genuinely on the Left these days.

Report
JuliaScurr · 14/05/2013 11:54

leftunity.org/

this might be good
then again...

Report
ttosca · 14/05/2013 14:03

What this says to me is that, sadly, the government has successfully managed to scapegoat the poor and unemployed for a crisis caused by the rich.

In fact, the public is misinformed about so much about welfare and unemployment. You can thank the govt. and their band of compulsive liars like Ian Duncan Smith for this fact.

---------

Support for welfare cuts based on myths and misinformation

New research commissioned by the TUC shows support for government welfare cuts is based on ignorance and misinformation.

A recent poll shows many people?s assumptions about welfare spending are wildly inaccurate, that those who are most likely to be wrong about the realities of welfare are most likely to support government cuts, but that ? when provided with accurate information ? people shift from supporting government plans to opposing them.

For example, on average people think 27% of the welfare budget is wasted on fraud. In fact, by the government?s own figures, fraud accounts for only 0.7%.

The Chancellors decision to cap benefit increases at 1% is supported by 48% of those polled, with only 32% against. However, the polling shows that most people believe this cap will mostly hit the unemployed. When told that, in reality, it would affect low paid workers, support for it drops to 30%, with 40% against.

The research demonstrates that people who know least about the facts are the most hostile towards those on benefits. More than half of those who?s knowledge of benefits is ?least accurate? think benefits are too generous, while fewer than one in three of those giving the ?most accurate? answers agree.

Frances O?Grady, the TUC General Secretary, said: ?It is not surprising that voters want to get tough on welfare. They think the system is much more generous than it is in reality, is riddled with fraud and is heavily skewed towards helping the unemployed, who they think are far more likely to stay on the dole than is actually the case. Indeed if what the average voter thinks was true, I?d want tough action too.

?But you should not conduct policy, particularly when it hits some of the most vulnerable people in society, on the basis of prejudice and ignorance. And it is plainly immoral to spread such prejudice purely for party gain, as ministers and their advisers are doing, by deliberately misleading people about the value of benefits and who gets them.?

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/voters-brainwashed-by-tory-welfare-myths-shows-new-poll-8437872.html

wwinn.org.uk/news/support-for-welfare-cuts-based-on-myths-and-misinformation/

Report
CogitoErgoSometimes · 14/05/2013 15:41

The previous government were thrown out, in part, because voters were fed up with the something for nothing culture.... borne out by the Guardian article. When the infamous dyed-in-the-wool Labour voter Mrs Duffy met Gordon Brown that day she said 'there's too many people now who aren't vulnerable but they can claim and people who are vulnerable can't get claim, can't get it.' Not so much this government scapegoating anyone and more pre-existing grass-roots opinion. If that opinion is wrong, 15 years of Labour did nothing to correct it.

Report
ttosca · 14/05/2013 16:15

That's entirely a projection of your own misguided beliefs on to the rest of the population.

There is no 'something for nothing culture'; welfare provision in the UK is not particular generous compared with most of our european neighbours.

If there is any 'culture of entitlement' it is with MPs who claim tens of thousands on expenses and corporations who making record profits in this country from cheap labour and pay no corporate taxes.

Report
CogitoErgoSometimes · 15/05/2013 06:18

According to you everyone is misguided. Me, Mrs Duffy, those in the Guardian report. We live in society and we see what goes on. Just because some people at one end of the scale are taking advantage of the system, doesn't mean everyone at the other end is playing it with a straight bat

Report
JakeBullet · 15/05/2013 06:41

The thing is that if we throw tax credits into the equation as "welfare" then it becomes quite scary. Many of us HAVE to claim them just to live...even if we work, because wages have not kept up with the cost of living. Ironically, many of those in the report will also be claiming tax credits.

I can see where ttosca is coming from with regard to the propaganda about claiming benefits of any kind. It has been ongoing and fairly ruthless.

I have worked as a health visitor and seen lots of young families....and yes there are those who don't work, some of whom don't want to work and some who are frankly unemployable. Most DO work though....in some form or other.

Perhaps what we need to ask is what's out there to help those who want to work but need help to find it. Locally we have an education charity which puts on short courses for families with school aged children and provides Parents Volunteers who will work with families which need help to access them. Many have been out of work for some time and even a short course does wonders for self esteem and confidence.

We need to stop judging and start supporting people.

Report
cory · 15/05/2013 13:53

You have to keep a firm grip on your head not to be influenced by the constant drip drip rhetoric about benefit scroungers these days. Just like in the days of the Family Values campaign, you had to keep a grip on yourself not to succumb to the idea that all the economic problems of the day were caused by feckless single mothers who had been irresponsible enough to be walked out on by their partners.

The problem with this kind of propaganda is that most of us have an innate desire to avoid appearing extremist, to compromise, to meet our adversaries half-way.

So after a while of being told that single mothers are the root of all evil, you can quite easily end up in a position of "well, of course I recognise that there is a massive problem with single mothers in this country, all I'm saying is that not every single mother is evil".

Substitute gays, the unemployed, the disabled, Muslims etc according to time and political fashion.

Report
EmmaShawcross · 16/05/2013 14:23

Tax credits shouldn't exist, but they do because the wages being paid out are not living wages, simple as that. The tax credit system is a buffer from the government to sustain a system that isn't working and looks good at the employment figures because people can afford to work for the min wage because the tax credits system is there to make up for the rest.

The new housing thing is also the same, this help to buy with a 20% loan from the government to help people buy only suggests that the houses are at least 20% too expensive for people to afford. Instead of fixing the issue, this is another sticking plaster attempt by the government.

However, the only way it will be fixed is to remove them and let the country crash and reboot. The governments moan about welfare (which in the figures they quote they include pension payments which are not a benefit they are an entitlement), however they are the ones who created this monster in the first damn place.

As for Labour, I didn't vote for them as their plan of spending their way out if recession was stupid for most part, but mainly because they stopped listening. They are now playing catch up and are following the Tories in many policies because, as someone already said, the poor, disabled and unemployed have now been vilified and they are going with popular opinion, desperate for votes.

I hate the Tories for what they have done, I hate the daily mail for filling people's heads with such nonsense and most of all I hate that we do not have a real choice when it comes to voting, there is not one party there that represent my views. I wouldn't be surprised if many people felt this way too.

Report
crazynanna · 16/05/2013 14:27

I stopped being 'Labour' when John Smith passed away .

I do think there is a definite difference between being 'Labour' and being Left Wing these days.

Report
Viviennemary · 18/05/2013 17:28

John Smith was an excellent politician and would have made a great PM. I think he stood for everything the Labour Party should believe in. That is why Labour hasn't a chance because people are fed up with the way the party is going. And I hate the way Labour left think everyone that doesn't agree with them is in the wrong. Strange how there are fewer and fewer and fewer of them. But of course they will still know best when the last person is standing.

Report
crescentmoon · 18/05/2013 19:03

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Lazyjaney · 18/05/2013 20:36

As the article says, the shift in attitude has been a long burn, from the 80's.

I think post 2008 a new reality has emerged, ie we can't afford all the benefits. People are loath to cut health, education or pensions very much, we cant cut debt repayments, and everything else except welfare is a small number, so it now is resolving itself into which welfare benefits would you cut.

Report
MrsSalvoMontalbano · 19/05/2013 13:05

Tax credits allow employers to get away with paying less than a liveable wage. Gordon Brown was okay with that as it kept the less bright voters onside - ie those that kidded themselves that money is picked from a money tree. Employers also exploit the fact that people can work 16 hours and keep their benefits. I know several people who could easily work more hours, but their employers (NHS mostly) advise them not to.

Report
Please create an account

To comment on this thread you need to create a Mumsnet account.