Anyone had their political views changed after the age of 25?

THM/Northwind

I don’t know if labour actually flip flop as much as is often alleged, the problem is that they are generally trying to ride two (or even three or four) ponies into the finish – and to do so they are often simultaneously saying diametrically opposed things to each of them – see this weeks faux pas over business as an example. But you can pile it together with immigration, wages, borrowing etc. etc.

My comment was not restricted to Labour by any means

That’s one thing that strikes me as funny, people throw around “ideologically driven” as a criticism of the Tories

and then in the same breath complain that Labour have abandoned their principles

Isn’t the only principle these guys know, do whatever it takes to get power and bugger the consequences? But these days, they are subject to much more scrutiny so this is far more transparent, hey Nick?!?

I think many people remain committed to certain views and political allegiances all their lives but a significant minority switch around multiple times in their lives. There is also the cliche which says if you are not left leaning when you are young you have no heart and if you are not right leaning later in life you have no brain.

And in answer to the original question my views have been shaped over the years. Some aspects have mellowed and some things have strengthened. The political parties have also changed and grown in different directions. To try and align a political outlook to a party over time is not going to work unless you are at an extreme.

Not UK based and not sure if anyone is doing this in the UK currently but http://www.abc.net.au/news/qld-election-2015/vote-compass/
basically asks you for your views on issues and maps you to the party matching what you think, it’s kicked up some interesting results as people’s views and desires don’t always match the “I’m a [insert part here] voter” stance.

Votes for Policies

Political Compass

By digging around on the Political Compass site you can find where parties are aligned and where they were in the past.

I grew up in very strong a Labour / trade union family. I saw the laying waste to whole communities that the Thatcher years brought. I held very strong leftist views until I moved away from that urban industrial area. Where I live it’s was a two horse race, Tory or LibDem. A vote for the enemy of my enemy. How the core LibDem voters will react come the GE will be eye opening. C***g sold the core voters down the river by jumping into bed with Dave.

I had mellowed and started to drift towards the centre, not the ground between the two cheeks of the same ToryLabour arse, but the real centre ground. But by witnessing the damage this Government has done to the things that personally effect me, the cuts to social care budget that have devastated the help and support that those who need it most, have driven my political leanings leftwards again.

There is a shitstorm of reaction coming in the GE, and I think the nastiest, self serving, bastards will be in a position to wreak further havoc. I really do worry what this will be the beginning of.

bigblackshed – Member

Votes for Policies

Political Compass

By digging around on the Political Compass site you can find where parties are aligned and where they were in the past.

Nope. I am the odd one out based on the result from the “Political Compass” as I am not in any of the square belonging to any political party. Looks like I have been labelled a Libertarian Right … in the purple colour square.

Economic Left/Right: 1.88
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -1.28

Alternative interpretation is that I am the balanced one while the rest of you lot are either skewed or messed up. 😆

Bear in mind that I am answering some weirdly framed questions that don’t give flexibility.

Anyway, I am going to vote for a political party that gives maximum entertainment value … 😆

My ideal is me being ultimate ruler of the world sort all of the political parties or ideologies … I decide the faith of mankind. 😈

edit: dammit … apparently for UK Parties 2010 General Election I am next to Lib Dem 😯 … how the hell … but for UK Parties 2015 General Election … I am on my own.

I would vote for Tony Benn

alas

the rest of them can go shove it up their ####

the system is crocked and we are effectively living in an authoritarian society run by the global elite for their own benefit. Democracy is an illusion

The stronger someone’s belief’s in left or right wing or religion for that matter, the more they seem to close there mind to alternative views. So, yes I’ve definitely changed my views since 25, I now struggle with them all.
My dad was a copper during those miners strikes by the way, although he was too busy being a good dad to milk the OT.

i used to read the Sun at 25, need i say more? :-/

as i got older i realised what a load of old tosh it is, but i still havent found any political parties i actually trust or believe in. its always a dilemma to me whether to vote or not, as whoever gets in ‘the government always win’.

Brought up in a largely Tory household. Kinda moved to the left as I got older. Like to think of myself as slightly left of centre.

With the forthcoming elections I find it profoundly depressing that there isn’t any one to vote for. Thought about Green as they could be a good coalition option but that’s it really. Conservatives are gleefully vicious in their treatment of the less well of whilst bathing in riches. Labour are becoming more and more of an irrelevance. Not just the gormless half wit who is in charge but the rest of the dross too. Don’t see a single shining light in Labour, and that includes the local St. Helens party. As for the Lib Dems, I can only hope that they are destroyed at the next election which is a shame as they do some really good work at a local level. Certainly did round here till Clegg and Alexander well and truly ****ed the rest of them.

I was brought up in a Tory voting family (parents and grand parents). No one every really explained to me why.

I moved further left when I was in my very early twenties and have kept moving all over the place ever since 🙂

On that political compass tool, I’m slap bang on Green.

Well before 25 I had no political views what so ever. Come to think of it, I still don’t to be honest.

I don’t think anyone of my class will ever get what they want from the country, no matter who gets voted in. You have to do what ever the big wigs want, no matter who they are.

If you agree with all of the ideas from one side of the political spectrum – you’re wrong. Luckily nobody in government thinks like that any more.

I genuinely believe the system needs to change but inertia is the best friend of the big parties.

I don’t think Newcastle has any opposition candidates anyway.

When I get there, I’ll let you know. Weird family Dad is pretty much labour, mum is more like a MOR conservative. Like a lot of women she doesn’t ‘do’ politics. never been on a march, always votes though (but prob wouldn’t unless dad an her walked to the polling station every time)

me? green last time (first vote) will do again I think, can’t see myself suddenly becoming a tory 😕

Haven’t read the whole thread (will try and catch up later), but yes, definitely further to the “left” now than I was at 25 – believe it or not, a significant part of that has been debating with people on here.

oliverd1981 – Member

I don’t think Newcastle has any opposition candidates anyway.

You mean the toon?

Opposition to who? I never voted for the incumbent put it this way.

How the Political Compass views the parties:

When people talk of left and right, Labour or Tory, or the middle, they can be under the impression there is a gulf of differences between them. The reality is there is very little. The right / left difference is between the main parties and those “regional parties”. The Greens are in a world of their own.

Who actually represented the workers.
That shit is sooooooo old, please.
🙄

voting against a party that you don’t like is childish and irresponsible
That’s Junky, if you’re going to come here, it would seem that you have to accept it. Junky hasn’t changed and won’t change, no matter how many times he’s hammered.

Junkyard – lazarus
No lib dem can be proud of those first few weeks in govt where he displayed neither backbone nor principle
Au contraire.

binners – Member
What planet do you inhabit if you actually believe we live in a meritocracy? I mean… Seriously?
There was more social mobility in 1910
I’m tempted to ask what specifically would be a definition of meritocracy, but I’m not sure whether there’s enough in the froth reserve.

Can’t stand the whinging, incompetent, dogmatic left in any form. Our system ain’t perfect, but goodness I really would not lament the total evaporation of the left and all it’s misplaced sense of entitlement and social justice, yadda, yadda.

When people talk of left and right, Labour or Tory, or the middle, they can be under the impression there is a gulf of differences between them. The reality is there is very little. The right / left difference is between the main parties and those “regional parties”. The Greens are in a world of their own.

The measure of left and right is in relation to 16th century french parliamentary seating arrangements though – in that compass you could really put the vertical axis anywhere you want as the left-ness and right-ness is relative. Really you should put the axis down the middle line of the spread of votes – whats relevant is whether two parties are left or right or north or south of each other.

The other thing is you’ve vote is very singular – vote red/blue/yellow/purple but your views can be much more diverse and the dynamics with the parties you vote for can be more diverse as can the people in those parties. Dots on a graph are too precise

A party can’t be a dot on that graph – it would smeared all over it, as would any individual – they’d have at least a number of positions on the graph.

Can’t stand the whinging, money grabbing dogmatic right in any form. Our system ain’t perfect, but goodness I really would not lament the total evaporation of the right and all it’s misplaced sense of entitlement and privitaise and money, yadda, yadda.

works both ways, Hun 8)

There is also the cliche which says if you are not left leaning when you are young you have no heart and if you are not right leaning later in life you have no brain.

This is Self Interest in practice. The young who have little want change but when they are older and have more they want to keep it that way*.

That is why communism doesn’t work, self interest.

*Does assume that people get more as they get older but as this was raised by a rich old politician I guess he considered everyone should follow his lead

the vote for policies thing was bovine excrement.

it claimed I was a pro-Europe, pro-Euro, green nationalist ‘Kipper

so all over the place on that compass

I grew up in a fairly right-wing house household, they even went on the pro-hunting march in London for goodness sake…

I seem to have slowly become more left wing and libertarian over the years. Probably due to actual life experience and “growing up”.

Voted Green for a few years. Voted LD last time around, just in case a tactical vote deposed the local MP. It didn’t and I’ve learned never to vote tactically again – it’s the one way you can *guarantee* to get someone you don’t actually want.

I must have veered even more – I’m now actively involved in the local Green Party and will be standing in the local elections as a Green candidate.

Rachel.

I have lived in the North East all my life. Makes no difference what anyone votes up here the political landscape is so heavily entrenched with the pits and ship building that Labour could skin new born babies alive and people would still vote Labour because their parents and grandparents have always voted Labour. I suppose my values would be traditional Lib Dem in principle but unfortunately that’s not their core value any more. They have tried to take up the middle ground between Labour and Tory Policy.

I reckon I’ve become more left wing in many ways as I’ve got older and gained a better/broader/more realworld insight.

That said, I’ve also come to dislike the dogmatic left more than I did (I always disliked the dogmatic right) when younger as I see that they’re no different really despite claiming the moral high ground of doing things for the people.

So basically a divergence between my ideals and my pragmatic views as I’ve experienced more.

emsz – Member

works both ways, Hun

Useful only for the amusement, when someone of such limited experience, etc, attempts to exchange posts.
Although I should be thankful for the change of “tune” compared with the usual drivel you post, I suppose.
😉

Didn’t realise quite how left I’ve actually become according to that chart which puts me around the same left libertarian quadrant as Ghandi even though I disagreed with same sex couples adopting kids (I wonder if he would have as well)…

It is a funny old world though, judging folk on the odd opinion, my daughter dates a first generation recent Indian immigrant guy yet votes UKIP does she realise what could happen if they ever got into power, I doubt it.

I agree with whoever it was up there that this election could see potentially a very nasty outcome with some real buggers holding the balance of power, it’ll probably end up a very short term before whatever cobbled together Government falls, Labour realise they’ve got to dump those two idiot Eds then maybe they’ll get another go.

maccruiskeen

Have a read of the background behind the Political Compass. It explains the left / right, liberal / authoritarian in greater detail. It’s not based on 16thC French politics.

There is a graph on their site showing how the parties have changed over time. All parties have taken a hike to the right and to more authoritarian stance since the early 1970s. (It’s alluding me ATM).

The points on a graph are precise as you point out, the real world make up of a political party is much more diverse. But although you may vote for your local candidate, and where they may fall on a graph as you showed, the “party” in itself can be more accurately pinpointed. Your MP may be at an extreme of their parties views, but unless they are in the inner circle of policy makers within that party then their views will be distilled until they hold very little influence.

That’s where the Votes for Policies comes in. How you are made up. Very few people would be all one “colour”. You may agree with Tory policy on law, crime and punishment, but hold very strong Green views on the environment, for example. But it may help to show who best suits your overall stance.

The centre is not in the middle of where the votes are cast. The Labour Party is not left wing in its economic policies. They are right wing, although not as right wing as the Tories. Every political party in the EU falls very firmly in the right wing section of the graph.

My Google-Fu has worked.

Every political party in power in the EU falls very firmly in the right wing section of the graph.

FTFY

Where is Greece?

Anyway FWIW I’m a former Labour voter too. Grew up in a failing industrial town on the west coast of Scotland, saw with my own eyes what “No such thing as society” looks like on the streets of the working class estates.

Labour abandoned all pretense of being a socialist left leaning party when Blair got to power, they’ve never recovered, they are as much in thrall to their corporate paymasters as the Tories ever were.

The Tories at least to some small credit have been consistent in their **** everybody else attitude.

Binners is right the two main parties are now two cheeks of the same arse. FFS Labour even voted FOR the bedroom tax! I mean What The Actual ****.

In the “Austerity Age” former policies such as individual liberty (the Tories) and social justice (Labour) have been completely abandoned. The new game in town is “Kick the poor” the Tories manage it gleefully, Labour partake in it with the dispirited air of someone who has been asked to chastise a puppy, but not holding back on the steel toe caps when they lay the boot in.

All the while supported by a rabid right wing press who would have us all believe that the reason we are in the mess is because of some poor feckless bastards claiming benefits rather than a kleptocratic elite who gambled with other peoples money then came crawling to the government cap in hand when the shit hit the fan.

So no my political views haven’t changed but sadly the political landscape has.

My views have changed over the years in that I bitterly oppose whoever is in power at the time. I wonder if it’s because I’m somewhat left-wing and anti-authoritarian or because we haven’t had a left-wing anti-authoritarian party in power since 1979?

Anyway, I usually find myself at odds with whoever is in power but there are certain things that hold true today as much as they did when I was 18:

1) Never, ever vote Tory.
2) State intervention is not always a bad thing.
3) The most disadvantaged in society should be given assistance by the state.
4) You can tell when a politician is telling lies. They move their lips.

To answer the op’s question … yes … Having just done that little test thing for the first time in a half a dozen years.

Last time, if I remember rightly, I was just above the horizontal and I was defo to the right…. I’m now below and left of the vertical 😯

Call me Red Ro5ey…. no please don’t

I’m now somewhere near the greens… but there’s no chance of me voting for them.

But not reading to much into it … the questions have changed, I’m sure. And the economic questions seem mostly to be micro based …. nothing of balanced budgets etc

So does my changing politcal view mean I’ll vote for someone different…. no…. It just makes me close my eyes when I do

The OP’s question is really how much did your early life fix your political beliefs and would you change them now, TBH I would, but only to a certain extent, more compromise than change, mainly because the world has changed.

I’m not a card carrying Green, nor do I agree wholesale with their policies, however I have a bit of an instinctive left leaning and I have to admit they do strike a cord with that aspect of my political beliefs…

I was raised by people who were perhaps the last generation of UK voter’s to be able to deal in “Absolutes”, and still tend to think in those terms TBH…
I now have to live, and vote, in a world where there seem to more gradients to any dimension of life, where the parties are often trying to strike balances rather than simply stating what they are for or against…

Being honest I would say Some major elements of my politics were fixed in my teens and twenties, primarily by my parents: who were Both Teachers, Both lifelong union members, both very anti-Tory and by implication more Pro-Labour, So I am now sufficiently indoctrinated to never vote Tory, even if I might find myself agreeing with some elements of their policies, I’ll simply never do it, it’s ingrained.

However My own working life, so far, has been in the private sector, unlike my parents I’ve found myself more at the whim of market forces and hence I probably drift closer to being a “capitalist” than My parents ever would identify themselves as. It’s still tinged with a bit of “Socialism” or at least consciousness of social responsibility, The financial aspects of our society are only part of the picture IMO, and do I find myself worrying that “Austerity” has most people putting money ahead of social cohesion, care for the vulnerable, or the adequacy of and control over our various public services… I don’t see Labour as being much different in terms of rhetoric or policies really, it’s a totally different party to the one my parents would have voted for… Tony Blair and “champaign socialism” did for Labour IMO, and their current leader just doesn’t carry any real weight IMO…

So where does that all leave me? I won’t vote Tory, I lack faith that Labour are really significantly different any longer, both trying to pitch for the middle ground and attract floating voters, So I’m probably lost to the two major parties, I see the Lib-Dems as again being similarly “Centrist”and not really worth voting for either.

Perhaps of more concern to me then isn’t actually which major, centrist party might gain a majority, but who they would have to go into coalition with to form a government, and how that would influence the country, So Why not vote for more overtly Leftwing parties like the Greens in the hope that they might be able to apply some influence to a Centrist government and move social issues further up the agenda for the next parliament?

I don’t think most UKIP voters really believe they’ll be taking power in May, but they certainly want to see a more right leaning party gaining seats and getting into any coalition which might form, reflecting their concerns, and applying more influence…
There is perhaps more reason than ever to “Waste” a vote with those smaller parties who are further towards either end of the Left/Right political spectrum in the hope that you’ll actually be helping steer a coalition rather than backing an outright “Winner”, that’s something my parents would never have done… as intelligent as I think they are their politics are quite simplistic.

Is an interesting point. I don’t think I’d want a Green government – too many of their policies I disagree with – but they certainly have some policies different to the “major” parties which I do agree with, and I hope they might be a positive influence on overall policy if they had any power. I suppose on that basis I’d happily help elect a Green MP – assuming that they’d make a decent job of being a local MP.

Being a small party MP does tend to indicate they are “committed to the cause” more than others as they’re not exactly going to end up PM or other high-flying government job…

Rachel

Being a small party MP does tend to indicate they are “committed to the cause” more than others as they’re not exactly going to end up PM or other high-flying government job…

WHAT ABOUT ME…..

binners – Member
Being a small party MP does tend to indicate they are “committed to the cause” more than others as they’re not exactly going to end up PM or other high-flying government job…
WHAT ABOUT ME…..

You’re a Godless Philanderer who betrayed young voters and as a result are going straight to *hell.

*Or the European Commission which is about the same thing