I still find it bonkers why British voters put the Torries into power in 2010 in the first place. Shouldn't they have known they were voting for a party of austerity?
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The Tories occupy the same News Space in the UK that Republicans occupy here: "they're good on the economy" (even though they're not). News Space should be viewed as a liminal space, even though it's not.
The bigger question mark is 2015, but _that's_ because people's perception of the Tories was "the Tories but with the sharpest edges slightly sanded off by the Lib Dems". 2017 shifted _towards_ Jeremy Corbyn, 2019 was Get Brexit [Over And] Done [With] and Corbyn having reputational collapse.
Though the desire to seem Very Serious wasn't motivated by money for most Lab figures who acceded to austerity in 2008-Sept 2015, but more a view that being seen as Serious was a prerequisite to election (a view that 2017 (and 2019 - you can't call Boris Johnson 'serious') did not disabuse them of))
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2. Labour had been in government for 13 years, and Cameron was a. posing as a 'moderate' and b. had massive media support.