Should I vote Labour

I'm sure they are gillybob. Teachers are on a national payscale (apart from London allowances). I rarely see any teaching jobs advertised in the North East. Teachers in the North East earn the same as teachers in most of Essex, where house (and beer) prices are much higher.

annie That's my issue with class divisions. I don't really think class or wealth divisions are appropriate. I am seriously poor, but I would guess I still have what people would think of as liberal, stereotypical "middle class" values, probably as a result of my education.

Exactly Gilly, same here. So just who are the many who are in need of free school meals,

Nurses (and teachers) are positively rich compared with many in my area Anniebach .

But with - the many not the few - followed with children stealing food, nurses using food banks etc , are these the middle class Daphne?

The house prices in my area remain almost stagnant as do the wages. The North, South divide is still alive and well.

Why am I reading that the North East, which is one of the poorest and most "working class" regions in the UK, is turning Tory? Why? People are obviously disillusioned with Labour

Speaking as someone from the North East daphnedill the people I speak to (and even the most staunch labour supporters) are concerned about JC's leaning too far to the left. He only seems to stand for the public sector (unite, unite unite) and seems to look at all business and private enterprise as the enemy (the big mill owner bosses who are either badly treating or fleecing their workers). We worry about the future of jobs under a JC lead Labour government.

Agree daphne, lots of factors.

I've always felt that the advent of buy-to-let mortgages was a disaster - would-be landlords taking properties at the lower end of the price range off the market, when these are the very properties that poorer people could possibly have afforded; and when that happens they rarely come back on the market, whereas owner-occupier properties tend to get sold on as the owners move house.

Also, a cap at say 4xsalary on mortgage lending would have been very useful. Here (Oxford), I believe the average propoperty costs roughly 11xaverage wage making it the least affordable place in Britain

www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/oxford-least-affordable-house-prices-property-prices-commuter-cities-in-the-uk-a6954036.html

I don't think it was just to do with stamp duty. There are many problems with house building. Some of the initial causes were selling off council homes and not replacing them and concentrating well paid work in certain areas, which were already suffering from a shortage of housing. Housing has been left to market forces. In this case, the "market" has failed spectacularly to provide for the needs of a significant minority.

There have been many other factors, such as low interest rates, which means that many baby boomers have invested their pensions in BTL housing rather than other forms of investment.

But housing is not just a concern of working class people. Seventy years ago, the working class couldn't even have aspired to own their own homes.

Most people have been persuaded that they are middle class.

The real divisions now are not between the middle class and the working class, but between the middle class (most of us) and the top few percent at the top.

Labour is right to have "for the many not the few" as its motto, but people don't see it like that.

Why am I reading that the North East, which is one of the poorest and most "working class" regions in the UK, is turning Tory? Why? People are obviously disillusioned with Labour, but I just don't understand what they think the Conservatives will do any better. Over the last few weeks, I've talked to many Conservatives in this true blue area and most of them really couldn't give a stuff about anywhere in the North, which they seem to think of as some alien land.

Sorry annie but I have to dispute that: GB did nothing to prevent the massive rise in house prices, to the detriment of young and less well-off people, so that the government could benefit from the ever-increasing stamp duty income.

We had a left wing party when Brown was PM .

The trouble is angelab is that these days the definition of "working class" doesn't mean the same as it did when the Labour Party was created.

We don't have sharp divisions based on owners and workers or even rich versus poor.

People are more likely to vote according to their values, which don't have strict class divisions.

The seeds for the 1945 Attlee government were planted in the war years and before.

It was a Liberal (Beveridge) who wrote the report which created the welfare state, a Conservative (RA Butler) who wrote the 1944 Education Act and another Conservative (Willink) who prepared the White Paper which created the NHS.

Maybe none of them would have been enacted if Attlee and Bevan had pushed them through, but the ideas came from collaboration and consensus.

I believe that JC is to be applauded for reverting to what the labour party are supposed to be about; we haven't had a proper left-wing labour party since Tony Blair's day and it's time someone stood up for working-class people.

Why don't coalitions work in the UK? They work in other countries. The wartime coalition government was probably the most successful and talented government of the last 100 years.

Fitzy, we are witnessing the death of the Labour Party, the loss of so many good MP's ? our only hope is these MP's bring in the birth of a new political party. Coalitions don't work , Tories and labour coalition couldn't work

I even read some of the articles on the Conservative BrightBlue website and there were some progressive ideas which could work.

Jeremy Corbyn IMHO is not capable of running the country. His cabinet is not behind him and now I read up to 100 labour MPs are to resign if he is badly beaten but refuses to resign. A couple of days ago he was making favorable comments on Marx. He is way too far left for my liking. I wish he would go and other more moderate labour MP's have a new leadership contest. I know it is too late for this election but before next surely.

But but but people always have to compromise. It's nonsense to think that any one party can satisfy every individual's wishes.

Politicians even have to compromise within their own parties.

Maybe I see things through from a different perspective, but there are at the moment a number of initiatives to create a centrist party - Compass, MoreUnited to name but two. A number of people with a willingness to compromise are involved. It can and does work in other countries.

But people would still need to compromise if a new party is to be a success. I don't see a simple Labour breakaway group as cutting the mustard. Both centre left and centre right from the main parties would need to join, with a decent smattering of LDs. It would need to be a true attempt at bringing the centre together and I don't see that happening at the moment.

I am with you 100% Beammeupscottie.

JC put the final nail in his coffin (for my vote) this morning when he said he would raise Corporation tax from 19% to 26% . Does the fool realise how many jobs this will cost? How many companies (already touchy) will leave the UK because of this ludicrous idea?

I would consider voting for the LP again if someone like David (not Ed, the puppet) Milliband was the leader.

I disagree with the leader of a new party having to be young, although I suppose it depends what you mean by "young".

If we had a Centrist party with a young, charismatic leader, I would probably vote for it. Both Labour and the Tories have so many retro ideas, it is depressing. Corbyn with his railways and May with Grammars and fox-hunting. I want politics to move forward not back. But, for this election I will vote for a strong party to get us through the Brexit divorce (they started it - they can finish it) tempered by a strong antipathy to the Momentum party and it's glove puppet.

We have such stronge , experienced MP's on the backbenchers , such a waste ,

We need a party of the centre and centre left
I agree and the Lib Dems just don't fulfil the purpose unfortunately and they are split with dissenters since the coalition.