The 2019 General Election - Campaign Debate and Discussion

[Cowley]

Problem with that approach is, you would end up disenfranchising the elderly because they should not be deciding the future of the next generation.

Not sure I get you Gralistair?

 

[GRALISTAIR]

Not sure I get you Gralistair?

Actually my Dad asked me before the EU Referendum which way I’d like him to vote as it would be us and our kids that would be most affected by the outcome and not him.

My comment was in relation to this. I mean lets suppose I am 80 (I am not I am 62). Are the elderly not to vote or to ask how to vote because their vote will not be likely to affect them but the younger generation. It just seems fraught with difficulty though I do understand where you are coming from.

I was living (and still am) in the USA so did not vote in the Remain/leave referendum. If I had been I the UK not sure how I would have voted. I may have decided NOT to vote because I was so conflicted.

 

[GusB]

I don't think it's particularly helpful to blame one generation for the problems that a later one is experiencing. I see where @Tetchytyke is coming from and agree to a certain extent, but when I broached the subject with my dad a few years ago, he instantly pointed out the fact that he was paying tax at a much higher rate in the 70s, and, to be honest, that's difficult to argue with, especially as it was at a time when he wasn't earning a great deal. His lot improved later in life, but he never lost sight of the fact that any decisions he made at the ballot box would affect his grandchildren.

On the other hand, I recall a conversation some years ago with a chap who'd benefitted from university education that was free. He boasted about how back in his day the student grant provided an income that was on a par with the average working man, but he was all in favour of cutting maintenance grants and the introduction of the student loans system. Bear in mind that this was purely for maintenance - fees were still covered by the state at this point. My thoughts at the time were "you selfish (unprintable word)".

I don't like jumping on the anti-boomer bandwagon, but there are fair few from that generation who were quite happy to benefit from "Britain never having had it so good", while pulling the ladder up behind them.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Just to add to earlier comments, I am 74, my good lady wife is 78, we were at the time of the referendum and now still are both totally committed "remain" believers.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Of course not, but it's telling that older people, generally, are more in favour of Brexit, the death penalty and anti-immigration policies, and are less likely to believe in climate change and less likely to think it is caused by human activity. This is across social demographics in thatage range, too.

Of course there's a spectrum of views across an age-range, but the boomer generation tends to be much further to the right on most metrics than my generation.

Maybe we'll just get more right-wing as we get older!

Is it people getting more right wing, or is it more a case of, people stay with the beliefs that they grew up with, and over the last 50 years or so, society has become more left wing in most social areas.

People who are in their 70s today would have grown up in a society in which most people were supportive of the death penalty, immigration was a lot lower, Brexit wasn't directly an issue but people tended to travel much less internationally, hence foreign countries were more of a mystery and national identity would have been stronger - there would have been very little of the sense of 'citizens of the World' that many people today feel. In that context, older people having more conservative views on those issues is perhaps understandable. And climate change too is a concept that older people would not have grown up with - back in the 60s and 70s, industrialisation was almost universally seen as good, and far fewer people thought about the environment.

To back up that idea: I'd observe that, although our politics have tended to become more left wing in social areas, the opposite has happened in economic areas: The economy now tends to be more market based. And off the top of my head, I've never noticed that older people tend to be more right wing when it comes to the economy and private enterprise.

 

[underbank]

People who are in their 70s today would have grown up in a society in which most people were supportive of the death penalty, immigration was a lot lower, Brexit wasn't directly an issue but people tended to travel much less internationally, hence foreign countries were more of a mystery and national identity would have been stronger - there would have been very little of the sense of 'citizens of the World' that many people today feel. In that context, older people having more conservative views on those issues is perhaps understandable. And climate change too is a concept that older people would not have grown up with - back in the 60s and 70s, industrialisation was almost universally seen as good, and far fewer people thought about the environment.

Quite a few generalisations there. My parents (who'd be in their 90s now if they were alive) went on foreign holidays every year, before they had children, as early as the late 50's and early 60's and they weren't "rich" - father was a shop manager and mother was a teacher. My best friend went abroad twice a year with his family when we were at primary school in the 70's, including to Florida. So, plenty of "normal" people were holidaying abroad over 50 years ago, who'd be your "70s today" group. I was brought up in a run down seaside resort - the decline started in the 70s when people generally started going abroad on holidays. I think you'll find most people in their 70s today will have travelled abroad quite a lot and continue to do so.

 

[furnessvale]

Maybe we'll just get more right-wing as we get older!

Of course we do. Given that most of us are left wing idealists when younger, if people didn't change with age the entire country would have been communist years ago.

 

[nlogax]

Of course we do. Given that most of us are left wing idealists when younger, if people didn't change with age the entire country would have been communist years ago.

Bogus argument there. I'm fairly certain the majority of left-thinking younger voters don't start out as full-on communists.

 

[507021]

Bogus argument there. I'm fairly certain the majority of left-thinking younger voters don't start out as full-on communists.

I certainly didn't. I've always been a Blairite.

 

[AlterEgo]

Labour have started to annihilate their election chances by promising a pointless and vacuous review of British colonialism.

 

[thenorthern]

Labour have started to annihilate their election chances by promising a pointless and vacuous review of British colonialism.

Policies like that appeal to some voters particularly students but not older working class people.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Labour have started to annihilate their election chances by promising a pointless and vacuous review of British colonialism.

Perhaps they will also set up an in-depth colonial review into the Romans, Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Vikings and Normans who all invaded this land much prior to the days of any British colonialism

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Quite a few generalisations there. My parents (who'd be in their 90s now if they were alive) went on foreign holidays every year, before they had children, as early as the late 50's and early 60's and they weren't "rich" - father was a shop manager and mother was a teacher. My best friend went abroad twice a year with his family when we were at primary school in the 70's, including to Florida. So, plenty of "normal" people were holidaying abroad over 50 years ago, who'd be your "70s today" group. I was brought up in a run down seaside resort - the decline started in the 70s when people generally started going abroad on holidays. I think you'll find most people in their 70s today will have travelled abroad quite a lot and continue to do so.

Sure, you have to generalise to some extent when talking about this kind of thing. And I hope it's obvious that I was speaking about what seems to be typical of many people - doesn't mean its true of everyone.

Having said that, I would make a couple of observations. Firstly, I really don't think going on holiday every year in the 1950s and 1960s was typical. I can't offhand find any figures for how many foreign holidays people were taking in those days, but I'm pretty sure it would have only been a minority of people doing that.

But secondly, when I was talking about travel being much rarer 50 or so years ago, I was talking as much about living in other countries as taking a holiday in them. Going on holiday for a couple of weeks isn't - in most cases - going to do much to make countries seem less 'foreign' or to give much of a sense of being a 'citizen of the World'. What will do that much more powerfully is living in a foreign country, or having multiple long term friends who are from foreign countries - and I'm pretty sure that was rare 50 years ago. Certainly, I recall when I was at college in Hampshire in the 1980s, there was a guy in my class from Stoke-on-Trent. And most of us were like, "Wow, you've come from so far away, what's it like up there?"! At the time I don't believe I directly knew anyone who was not from the UK. Today, living in London and having a social life that includes people of all ages, I find that my friends include people from China, South Africa, Nigeria, Vietnam, America, Germany, Spain, etc. - with a definite trend towards a higher proportion of foreigners amongst younger people. Some of that difference is probably the result of living in London, but even so it seems obvious to me that the different environment that people grow up in today is almost bound to give a more internationalist (and pro-EU) perspective for many people.

 

[Kite159]

With the promise of free broadband, why do I get the image where the broadband might be free but the line rental will be increased to "cover the cost"?

So instead of someone paying BT £25 a month for broadband (say £10) + line rental (say £15), they will be paying "British Broadband" [or whatever the company will be called] £29 a month for line rental with broadband thrown in for "free".

As for the dentist checkups being free, if someone is fearful of going to the dentist now and ending up with a "Tier 2" bill for say a filling, they probably will still be fearful of going to the dentist if the check up was free as the bill for the filling will still be payable.

 

[AlterEgo]

Policies like that appeal to some voters particularly students but not older working class people.

It certainly won’t appeal to anyone who doesn’t already vote Labour. A gift to the Tories.

I hate Tories but I pray for utter annihilation of Labour in its current form.

 

[bussnapperwm]

Sky News report that former Speaker John Bercow will be bringing Order to proceedings on their election results coverage as one of the pundits on their show

 

[HSTEd]

With the promise of free broadband, why do I get the image where the broadband might be free but the line rental will be increased to "cover the cost"?

So instead of someone paying BT £25 a month for broadband (say £10) + line rental (say £15), they will be paying "British Broadband" [or whatever the company will be called] £29 a month for line rental with broadband thrown in for "free".

Why would the Government bother charging your line rental when the whole point is that everyone has a connection?
Why would they maintain a huge billing infrastructure rather than collecting the cost through general taxation?

Even if you want hypothecated taxation, it would cost effectively nothing to print an extra precept onto council tax bills.

If you have access to Government capital, a fibre broadband system works out extremely cheap as it has very low operating costs.
And it would save the government several hundred million pounds a year because the BBC will no longer have to pay to maintain the Freeview or Freesat system, because "Freecable" would be much cheaper to operate.

As for the dentist checkups being free, if someone is fearful of going to the dentist now and ending up with a "Tier 2" bill for say a filling, they probably will still be fearful of going to the dentist if the check up was free as the bill for the filling will still be payable.

Because they can find out if anything is wrong before they get hit with a bill?
Also you can still get quite a lot with only Tier 1 charges.

 

[Kite159]

Why would the Government bother charging your line rental when the whole point is that everyone has a connection?
Why would they maintain a huge billing infrastructure rather than collecting the cost through general taxation?

Even if you want hypothecated taxation, it would cost effectively nothing to print an extra precept onto council tax bills.

If you have access to Government capital, a fibre broadband system works out extremely cheap as it has very low operating costs.
And it would save the government several hundred million pounds a year because the BBC will no longer have to pay to maintain the Freeview or Freesat system, because "Freecable" would be much cheaper to operate.


Because they can find out if anything is wrong before they get hit with a bill?
Also you can still get quite a lot with only Tier 1 charges.

So landline calls will be free for all as well?

 

[Darandio]

So landline calls will be free for all as well?

What if the free broadband isn't coming through your landline?

 

[HSTEd]

So landline calls will be free for all as well?

That depends entirely on your Voice-Over-IP provider, because the existing BT landline infrastructure would be scrapped as entirely obsolete.

EDIT:
If everyone has free broadband, people would probably defect to Whatsapp and Skype style platforms en masse.
I really recommend Zoom as well.

EDIT #2:

If we take an example of VoIP centre
A SIP compatible VOIP phone runs £60, and if everyone is buying them they will drop in price, and you will be able to get one that converts from VOIP into normal telephone for internal wiring for only £48.

At that point a plan varies from £8.50/month with 500 minutes up to £16.50 for unlimited UK phone calls.

 

[underbank]

Why would they maintain a huge billing infrastructure rather than collecting the cost through general taxation?

Because that's how modern politics works. All parties are scared of increasing headline tax rates, i.e. basic rate tax has been 20% for a long time now as has higher rate 40%.

So they raise money by stealth taxes. They've had to create billing/charging systems for all stealth taxes, some directly to service users (like passports, driving licences, prepaid prescriptions), and some to service providers (airport passenger duty, waste taxes, gaming machine duty, insurance premium tax), some via the tax system (student loan repayments, child benefit claw back, etc). From next year, capital gains tax on properties will be collected via a separate tax return instead of the normal self assessment tax return - so that's another new system they've had to create!

Billing systems are now easier than ever. Long gone are the days of sales ledgers where invoices are sent out, people send in a cheque or pay cash over a counter, all requiring manual input, recording, reconciling, etc. Any new system for broadband would be card based subscription - very easy to set up and administer - if payment is cancelled or decline, automated to stop the subscription. Very little manual involvement needed. It's exactly how some private broadband suppliers do it now - I have a client providing wireless broadband in a number of villages - they have several hundred customers and it's all automated as above, no payment, no broadband - once they re-enter a valid bank/card details into the portal, the subscription automatically restarts. Not rocket science.

 

[underbank]

That depends entirely on your Voice-Over-IP provider, because the existing BT landline infrastructure would be scrapped as entirely obsolete.

I really doubt it and hope not. It was literally a life saver in our city when we lost all electricity for a few days due to Storm Desmond. People without a landline were really stuck as they had no way of communication. There were literally queues of people lined up waiting to use the few remaining telephone boxes. Luckily, I found an old wired phone in the garage so I could plug that into the wall socket and we could use the phone at least. Afterwards, I bought two new simple £10 wired phones, one for home, one for my office, so that we were covered for if/when it happens again. No matter who is the VOIP provider, if you've no electricity, then not only your modem will be out of use, but so will any "plug in" devices you need such as phone/tablet chargers, computer power supplies. Even if you have fully charged batteries, if the broadband providers servers/distribution boxes are down too (like in our area where the power cuts affected the whole area, then you're stuffed. We even lost power to the mobile masts, so people couldn't use mobile phones to contact others either. There's definitely a need for a backup system, and the existing landline infrastructure is ideal for that. Would be a travesty if it was just cast aside and torn out - on a par with the indecent haste that railway lines were closed and ripped up after Beeching!

 

[HSTEd]

Because that's how modern politics works. All parties are scared of increasing headline tax rates, i.e. basic rate tax has been 20% for a long time now as has higher rate 40%.

So they raise national insurance instead.

Billing systems are now easier than ever. Long gone are the days of sales ledgers where invoices are sent out, people send in a cheque or pay cash over a counter, all requiring manual input, recording, reconciling, etc. Any new system for broadband would be card based subscription - very easy to set up and administer - if payment is cancelled or decline, automated to stop the subscription. Very little manual involvement needed. It's exactly how some private broadband suppliers do it now - I have a client providing wireless broadband in a number of villages - they have several hundred customers and it's all automated as above, no payment, no broadband - once they re-enter a valid bank/card details into the portal, the subscription automatically restarts. Not rocket science.

The cost of operating a FttH infrastructure is about £5 billion for 30 years for the entirety of the UK
That implies something on order of £180 per household over 30 years.

Do you really think its worth collecting through a new system?

The licence fee costs £100m/yr to collect, which could be avoided by making the BBC a precepting authority.

Universal broadband gives us something that charging for broadband never can, it allows complete coverage of the population and saves us hundreds of millions a year in spectrum costs and broadcasting charges for TV.

Not to mention the social benefits.

I really doubt it and hope not. It was literally a life saver in our city when we lost all electricity for a few days due to Storm Desmond. People without a landline were really stuck as they had no way of communication. There were literally queues of people lined up waiting to use the few remaining telephone boxes. Luckily, I found an old wired phone in the garage so I could plug that into the wall socket and we could use the phone at least. Afterwards, I bought two new simple £10 wired phones, one for home, one for my office, so that we were covered for if/when it happens again. No matter who is the VOIP provider, if you've no electricity, then not only your modem will be out of use, but so will any "plug in" devices you need such as phone/tablet chargers, computer power supplies. Even if you have fully charged batteries, if the broadband providers servers/distribution boxes are down too (like in our area where the power cuts affected the whole area, then you're stuffed. We even lost power to the mobile masts, so people couldn't use mobile phones to contact others either. There's definitely a need for a backup system, and the existing landline infrastructure is ideal for that. Would be a travesty if it was just cast aside and torn out - on a par with the indecent haste that railway lines were closed and ripped up after Beeching!

So your answer to the loss of power to your fibre modem is to maintain a huge infrastructure of hundreds of millions of miles of wiring?
Rather than you know..... providing the fibre modem and VoIP adaptor with a backup battery?

Also there won't be distribution boxes, because there will be a continuous fibre line from your house to the exchange.
And the exchange has backup power supplies or your landline infrastructure has failed anyway.

The conduits the landlines are currently in can be used to drastically reduce the cost of rollout.

 

[Comstock]

I certainly didn't. I've always been a Blairite.

Me too, kind of. Trouble is I'm also a leaver and a supporter of controlled immigration.

There is no mainstream political party out there for us centre-left leavers. And the only two MPs of that ilk, Frank Field and Kate Hoey, are retiring this time.

With a heavy heart and the other hand firmly on my nose, I'm voting BoJo.

 

[TrafficEng]

And it would save the government several hundred million pounds a year because the BBC will no longer have to pay to maintain the Freeview or Freesat system, because "Freecable" would be much cheaper to operate.

The Government doesn't pay for the Freeview or Freesat system.

Also, mass broadcast via Freeview and Freesat is a very efficient method of getting data (TV pictures and sound) from source to point of use. The data transmission network carries a single signal that many thousands of people can use. "Freecable" would massively increase the demand on the broadband network, perhaps to the point of negating the benefits of the proposed speed enhancements.

There would be more sense in banning the live streaming of TV programmes. (but it will never happen)

The licence fee costs £100m/yr to collect, which could be avoided by making the BBC a precepting authority.

So you want to make people pay for the BBC, regardless of whether they have any interest in watching the BBC's content? That should be a vote-winner, especially among younger people who see the BBC as archaic and not delivering anything of interest to them.

Universal broadband gives us something that charging for broadband never can, it allows complete coverage of the population and saves us hundreds of millions a year in spectrum costs and broadcasting charges for TV.

Just one thing - who (or rather what) is the recipient of the revenue generated by those spectrum costs? And if the spectrum isn't used for TV broadcast, then who would pay to use it instead?

So your answer to the loss of power to your fibre modem is to maintain a huge infrastructure of hundreds of millions of miles of wiring?
Rather than you know..... providing the fibre modem and VoIP adaptor with a backup battery?

How many days will those backup batteries last for then? I'd say a minimum of 5 days is necessary. And how much will it cost per device to provide them with that level of backup capacity?

Providing robust (VOIP-safe) equipment in each user's home is going to add significant amounts to the cost of British Broadband. Has that been budgeted for?

Also there won't be distribution boxes, because there will be a continuous fibre line from your house to the exchange.

Are you sure about that? Part of the advantage of fibre is the ability to transmit large amounts of data efficiently using multiplexing techniques. And multiplexing requires a power supply in a cabinet relatively close to the home.

It appears you are suggesting that each individual home will have a dedicated fibre running from house to exchange. The back of an envelope would be useful to work out the size of the cable bundles necessary at the exchange to achieve that. (V. big)

And the exchange has backup power supplies or your landline infrastructure has failed anyway.

Yes, exchanges do have backup power supplies. And being a single point of power input means that it is relatively easy to provide them with a generator in the event of an extended period of power failure.

Savvy people living in rural areas would be horrified at the idea of having no means of contact with the outside world in the event of a power failure.

 

[Bantamzen]

Me too, kind of. Trouble is I'm also a leaver and a supporter of controlled immigration.

There is no mainstream political party out there for us centre-left leavers. And the only two MPs of that ilk, Frank Field and Kate Hoey, are retiring this time.

With a heavy heart and the other hand firmly on my nose, I'm voting BoJo.

No you are not, unless of course you are in his constituency. You are voting for one of your local candidates, and you should choose the one you think will represent you best in Parliament based on how they present their policies. If you think that would be the Conservative candidate, then fair enough. But this is not the US, we vote for our representative in the House, not the majority party leader. As much as I dislike Corbyn, if the Labour candidate seems to be the best option for my area, they will get my vote. They have a few weeks to put their case to me, & my decision will not be based purely on the leader of the party, nor just on Brexit, or just the NHS, education, transport, taxes or any other single aspect. My decision will be based on the balance of all of each party's pledges. Party leaders come and go, policies are what actually affect us.

I only wish more people did this too instead of treating General Elections & the Referendum as some kind of "Britain's Got Strictly Come Politics On Love Island With Ice" competition, with a personal favourite personality or favourite arch villain that they cheer or boo. In my humble opinion, this is a part of what is wrong with politics these days. A party or its leader doesn't have to show that they are best any more, just that the others are worse. Look at how that turned out for the US.....

 

[Carlisle]

Perhaps they will also set up an in-depth colonial review into the Romans, Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Vikings and Normans who all invaded this land much prior to the days of any British colonialism

Yes, the way things are going, soon this countries home made products will consist entirely of Enquiries, Reviews & Royal Commission’s

 

[jfollows]

No you are not, unless of course you are in his constituency. You are voting for one of your local candidates, and you should choose the one you think will represent you best in Parliament based on how they present their policies.

Of course you're right, but I think people vote on both counts. I considered voting Conservative in 2017 until my MP at the time (George Osborne) stepped down. He was responsible for changes to pension rules which changed my life, and he represents the wing of the Conservative Party I support. He was replaced by Esther McVey, for whom I could never vote, well as much as "never" means never, because of a multiplicity of views she holds on things. So I didn't vote Conservative in 2017 because of the local candidate, but I won't vote Conservative now because of her AND because of Boris Johnson, whom I loathe.

 

[HSTEd]

The Government doesn't pay for the Freeview or Freesat system.

The BBC and Channel 4 are arms of the state and pay for the bulk of the cost of that infrastructure.
So yes they do.

And the Government forgoes the enormous income possibly by auctioning that spectrum to mobile phone operators.

Also, mass broadcast via Freeview and Freesat is a very efficient method of getting data (TV pictures and sound) from source to point of use. The data transmission network carries a single signal that many thousands of people can use. "Freecable" would massively increase the demand on the broadband network, perhaps to the point of negating the benefits of the proposed speed enhancements.

If we were doing point to point distribution to every single connection, maybe.
But modern video in these systems uses a protocol where the distribution point forwards the packets to all concerned downstream consumers.
Which means only one stream must travel over the backhaul system.

Backhaul connections are a negligible part of the cost anyway thanks to diversity, especially for broadcast media.

So you want to make people pay for the BBC, regardless of whether they have any interest in watching the BBC's content? That should be a vote-winner, especially among younger people who see the BBC as archaic and not delivering anything of interest to them.

95% of households have TV licences.

What fraction of the population does not have a TV, does not listen to BBC Radio, or use the BBC website, or use news services that derive their content from the BBC system?

For the benefit of those people with squander a £100m/yr on a seperate TV licence enforcement infrastructure.

And why should those without TVs but with radios be subsidised by the rest?

Just one thing - who (or rather what) is the recipient of the revenue generated by those spectrum costs? And if the spectrum isn't used for TV broadcast, then who would pay to use it instead?

The state, as is the case from all spectrum lease revenue?
And mobile phone providers are always hungry for more UHF spectrum.

How many days will those backup batteries last for then? I'd say a minimum of 5 days is necessary. And how much will it cost per device to provide them with that level of backup capacity?

Ofcom recommends reduction from the current 4 hour level to 1 hour.

It is ridiculously unlikely that any kind of disaster would knock out power to customers for much longer than that without also taking out the exchange, when power will fail when their batteries or generators die.

And if its a small number of households, the broadband company would be better off sending batteries to the affected people rather than stocking 30 million batteries in houses all over the place.

Providing robust (VOIP-safe) equipment in each user's home is going to add significant amounts to the cost of British Broadband. Has that been budgeted for?

Consumer grade GbE equipment is easily capable of supporting a VOIP connection, and that equipment is cheap by virtue of being commodity parts now.

Are you sure about that? Part of the advantage of fibre is the ability to transmit large amounts of data efficiently using multiplexing techniques. And multiplexing requires a power supply in a cabinet relatively close to the home.

No it doesn't, and no it isn't.

Most reasonable FTTH topologies don't have distribution panels with powered equipment in them.
They either provide a fibre to each customer direct from the exchange (the PtP solution), or they use a passive optical network splitter.

In either case the cabinets have no power supply in them, they are either patch panels or passive optical splitters.

And we are talking about gigabit connections up and down.

It appears you are suggesting that each individual home will have a dedicated fibre running from house to exchange. The back of an envelope would be useful to work out the size of the cable bundles necessary at the exchange to achieve that. (V. big)

Comparable in size to the cable bundles used for conventional telephone systems you mean?
Point to Point systems are quite common in real world rollout situations.

Savvy people living in rural areas would be horrified at the idea of having no means of contact with the outside world in the event of a power failure.

Since a tiny fraction of the population lives in a heavily rural area, providing them with a bigger backup battery is a tiny fraction of the cost of providing them to everyone.

EDIT:

Corning makes a 288 core fibre cable, armoured for direct burial, with an outside diameter of about 23.5mm.

You only need one fibre per household at most, so thats a whole (long!) street in less than inch diameter.

 

[Bantamzen]

Of course you're right, but I think people vote on both counts. I considered voting Conservative in 2017 until my MP at the time (George Osborne) stepped down. He was responsible for changes to pension rules which changed my life, and he represents the wing of the Conservative Party I support. He was replaced by Esther McVey, for whom I could never vote, well as much as "never" means never, because of a multiplicity of views she holds on things. So I didn't vote Conservative in 2017 because of the local candidate, but I won't vote Conservative now because of her AND because of Boris Johnson, whom I loathe.

Ah, the Tatton constituency. I know it well through family! And I know about the Esther McVey too from a more professional standpoint. I will say no more on the latter....

Whilst I understand your position, it is still important to focus on the candidate. Luckily, or is that unluckily, your decision is made easier because of your local candidate's position, and so your feelings towards the current Prime Minister are not the sole reason for your decision. I'm in a very similar position as it happens, I am not exactly a fan of BoJo, but frankly I wouldn't vote for my local Conservative candidate (Philip Davies, Shipley) if he were the last one left standing. However if they had a candidate that I actually thought would be the best, I would be pressing them on their position on the current leader of their party & Prime Minister to understand how they might counter his ideas.