A few personal examples of why I couldn’t vote Conservative. When I left

Comment on General Election 2010 Poll Results by David.

A few personal examples of why I couldn’t vote Conservative.

When I left school at 16 (pretty much stopped going to school at 15) I’d messed up my education and life, already had a 24 hour attendance centre order (a bit like going to the Cadets for young criminals!) and a 3 month detention center order (prison for kids) under my belt for a string of criminal offences (petty offences, never anything violent)!

Started looking for a job and here’s a few examples of how British people are treated when market forces determine wages etc…

These are examples before I reached my 18th birthday.

Worked as a civil engineers assistant, basically carrying equipment, setting it up, bit of laboring… I worked 5 1/2 days a week (10 hours a day, 5 on Saturday) and sometimes a full 7 days a week (half days on the weekend, I’ve never been shy of hard work). I averaged at 16 years of age around 55 to 60 hours per week and was paid £55 (£60 if I worked Sunday morning) and if I recall correctly had to pay tax (think it was about £5 tax)! I also did a maths night class as well :-)

Went looking for a job on an industrial estate. Was offered a job putting springs into a machine all day, pick a spring up, pop it in a hole….. (a monkey could be trained to do the job) that would have been under a YTS scheme for £27 a week, the employer wasn’t going to pay a penny! YTS was the Conservatives answer to their destruction of apprenticeships, businesses took full advantage of young people with that little YTS initiative.

Found a job in the job center advertised at £1.30 an hour, the job was engineering based, mainly spraying bike frames with protective paint. Started the job, but at the end of the first day was told it was £1 an hour not the £1.30 advertised, never went back (didn’t get my one days pay either).

Worked in a print factory, packing food packaging boxes into boxes. Pay £1.50 an hour, would be on my feet all day at the end of a conveyor belt filling boxes with empty flat cereal boxes etc… Would work 12 hour night shifts 6 days a week and would be lucky to take home £120!

Got a job in a foundry that made car parts (turbos etc…) had to use glue spray to attach ceramic rings to polystyrene turbo moulds, was paid £1.40 an hour. The room we worked in had no ventilation and you’d get high by the end of the day from glue fumes!! Day two I complained to the supervisor who fobbed me off (others had also complained), gave up the job on day three and reported them to health and safety and they had to fit extractor fans.

The Conservatives did not care about the average working class man or woman when I was a teenager and I see no evidence they’ve changed. We live in a Conservative run area and it’s clear from how the district council is run they care more about themselves than the people they represent. For example they actually built a leisure center in a small town near where many of the Conservative councillors live even though the local people didn’t want it, yet we live near a popular holiday location that lacks a leisure center (it would pay for itself long term) and they build nothing!

I went back into education at 17 1/2 and had to lie to claim benefits etc… (I signed on unemployed) so I could study, there was no way for me to study full time legally under a Conservative government (I had no family financial support). I was living on my own by 18 and studying full time, if I didn’t lie I’d have been entitled to nothing and would have starved.

I now run a successful business and have no money worries, but will never forget how hard and more importantly how unfair it was under a Conservative government. If I was being a selfish git I’d vote Conservative as they will cut services and benefits I no longer need.

I believe in a fair days pay for a fair days work, the Conservatives leave it to market forces which results in employers taking full advantage of their employees.

Our eldest son worked in Argos while studying full time to gain qualifications to enter University earlier this year (he’s 18 now). He got £30 from the government a week for studying 12 hours a week and was paid over £5 an hour working at Argos on weekends!

The minimum wage alone shows Labour cares more about hard working people than the Conservatives do. I’m self employed, so minimum wage isn’t a big issue for me now, but my early working life would have been so much fairer had we had a minimum wage that the Conservatives would have never legislated for.

David