Bashing political parties

I hate the Tories with a passion. Partly a result of my working class upbringing with a father who was a lifelong Labour Party member and shop steward.

My true hatred of the conservatives came with Margaret Thatcher who dismantled the industries that gave the working class their livelihoods, and destroyed my community in the process. It is much more personal than that and is something I can barely write about without a racing heart and tears in my eyes. She, to me, represents my father, gravely ill and on strike, having to take money from his family to make ends meet. I can never forgive her or her party for that.

I did not vote Labour in 1997 because I recognised that they were no longer Labour. I made a protest vote for a socialist candidate. There is no party I can vote for now.

I'm not entirely a Tory basher. Our local conservative MP gave a lot of help to my daughter when she wrote to him with a problem a few years ago.

I voted Labour for most of my adult life and was euphoric when they got in again under T. Blair. It didn't take long for the euphoria to wear off though and disillusionment set in in a big way. By the end I could hardly stand the sound of TB's voice and nothing would make me vote for New Labour around that time.

Which meant I didn't really have a party to vote for. I think I once voted Lib Dem so as not to waste my vote.

Now nothing would induce me to vote Lib Dem.

I notice my antipathy to New Labour is beginning to wear off now it is under new management but not sure how strong they are as a party at the moment.

I get the impression, I may be wrong, that a lot of the contributors on GN tend to be more left wing so tend to "Tory bash".

I grew up in a family where my Father was an active Trade Unionist and campaigned for the Labour party but I'm afraid following the Blair/Brown disaster I have now voted Conservative.

Labour's answer to most things is to spend more money, which means more taxes. UK is one of the highest taxed countries in the world already. Of course, the Conservatives haven't got everything right but I trust them more than I trust those at the top of the Labour party.