The Labour Party leadership election

Since there wasn't a female candidate standing with Corbyn 's politics we don't know whether people would have been inspired or not.

Yy to both your posts Basil.

I disagree that it's a level playing field at any point for women and men in politics tbh.

It is depressing that a woman probably couldn't have embraced Corbyn's politics and inspired people, because many people refuse to be inspired by a woman.

I don't see that they have to work any harder once they're on an election campaign. Getting to that point yes, but it's a level playing field from that point.
I agree with BIWI

"If a female candidate came along with JC's policies then I'd be voting for her. But she didn't."

Quite.

I hate all this kneejerk "Corbyn means Labour have already lost the next election".

What he's done, is ignited hope. It's what the SNP did during the referendum campaign - they presented Scotland with a different vision of what their country could be and as a result, thousands of people who hadn't voted for years - who hadn't even been on the electoral register - got on the electoral register, turned out and voted, and kicked the Westminster-based parties out of their country.

Political upheavals do happen.

But they're not caused by people who have conceded defeat before they've even stood up to fight. They're caused by people with hope; people who really believe that they can change things, that it's worth the fight, that they can win it.

Whether Corbyn will be an effective enough leader to be able to ignite that hope and get people to believe in him enough to get off their arses and vote, remains to be seen; but neither Yvette Cooper nor Liz Kendall were offering hope. Along with Burnham, they were offering more of the same. More of the inevitable drift of politics in the UK to the right. More surrender of basic values and principles of the Labour party to make them acceptable to an increasingly more shameless and aggressive right wing establishment who will only ever support a Labour party if they promise to ensure that any small tweaks they make to improve the lives of the majority, will not inconvenience the 1%. More inability to offer a different vision of what our society can be, because they are trammelled by the frames of the Overton window moving ever further to the right.

That's why I didn't vote for them. They were offering me efficient and slightly kinder management of a system designed for the benefit of the 1%. Corbyn is giving me hope that we might change the system and fit it for the needs of the 99%. I'd rather have hope and be disappointed, than give up before we've even started.

The issue with that is that we live in a patriarchy and women have to work so much harder than men to get the same amount of credibility.

Amethyst - what it means is that the women haven't convinced Labour party voters that they are worth voting for.

What's the issue with that?

I voted for Creasey as deputy but I can't disagree with the result.
I'd only be concerned that a woman hadn't been elected if the winning male was demonstrably worse than a defeated woman.

So Jeremy Corbyn's wife insisted on going ahead with something that would be against her husband's political beliefs? And that should make us think badly of him?!

WTAF are you on.

If anything, that piece demonstrates just how important Jeremy Corbyn's beliefs are. In other words, that he has total integrity.

Exactly Lumpy

Women only carriages were ended in 1977, and even then they had dwindled to a few trains between London and Essex. I don't remember ever seeing one.

It was a gaffe he should have seen coming. Women only carrages are offered on some trains in Japan, India, Egypt, Iran, Brazil, Mexico, Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia and the United Arab Emirates. With the possible exception of Japan hardly countries which spring to mind as shining examples of promoting women's rights.

www.theguardian.com/politics/1999/may/13/uk.politicalnews2

David Willetts, the Conservative education spokesman, said: 'I hope this will have made him think very hard about the policies he is advocating. He faces a dilemma if the system he supports does not even appeal to the mother of his own child.'

Talk about turkeys voting for Christmas. The champagne must be flowing at Conservative HQ

I bet the best bottles have been cracked open.

This man is something else. I am reading about his affection for ISIS, sad Bin Laden killed, encouraged Iraq to attack British Troops, it goes on, un controlled immigration.

Oh well, thankfully he isn't in power, and he is a breath of change for the party..

He was the only one who voted against the welfare bill, the welfare bill that will push more women into poverty as women bear the brunt of idealistic austerity.

"Corbyn has floated the idea of reintroducing women-only carriages on trains to cut sexual assault cases. He says this is not his preferred choice but he will consult women on the proposal after being contacted by women lobbyists."

Maybe not perfect but willing to listen to women on the matter. Seems reasonable to me.

Suzanne Moore didn't put it brilliantly. She is just a very long-term disgruntled whinger of all sorts when the universe doesn't unfurl in the exact way she would like it to.

He said he would consult with women if they felt it was important, not that he would introduce them, Amethyst.

And I am not going to vote for a woman if I think there's a male candidate better suited than her.

It isn't out of touch at all (certainly not as out of touch as Liz K generally is). The Tory minister was suggesting the possibility last year. We had women only carriages until pretty recently.

What?

He said something along the lines of 'I've been lobbied by some activist groups that want women-only carriages. I would rather have mixed-sex carriages that are safe enough for women to ride. However, I also think it is important to listen to what people want, and if that is the overriding preference then we have to pay attention'.

Do you expect the Torygraph to report accurately anything regarding JC?

"Women only train carriages, for God's sake. And Corbyn's first wife was interviewed in the Torygraph this morning saying, "Oh yes, he helped with the housework sometimes, when he wasn't too busy." That sounds familiar, doesn't it?"

Did you read what he said about women only carriages and not just the headline?