Conservative manifesto; no mention of GRA

However, there's a new lot in charge of the Tories now

Yes, like the self serving Priti Patel who thinks the British are the"laziest people" on earth.....and Dominic Raab, who wasn't aware, until prompted, of the importance of the Dover/Calais crossing to trade with Europe. Jacob Rees Mogg who secretly thinks that the lower classes have no common sense - because they don't use their own judgment and simply obey the authorities ( as good citizens do), while lounging horizontal on the front benches in a display of complete and utter arrogance; and Boris Johnson with his feet, literally, on the table at the Elysee Palace......

Wasn't bedroom tax originally a Labour Idea?

how can anybody who is a feminist possibly vote conservative?

No fucking clue. Their policies ideologies and actions have damaged the most vulnerable, the poorest and the least abled for years. They are led by a cabinet which has forefronted as HoC leader a man who is anti-choice and worse, a woman who wishes to bring back the death penalty, and a prime minister who lied and lied to push a right wing agenda to get us to leave the Eu. And all of that will be ignored with a convicting of oneself that they are indeed centrist, and that actively voting for a party out to get a hard brexit, and fronted by the likes of JRM and BJ and PP is a-OK. I was going to spoil my ballot but after reading some of these voting-Tory-holding-nose posts I am back to drawing board to think really hard about that decision again.

I had a very sensible email from my Tory MP on this. he's one of the 21 who rebelled and has said he'll stand against a no deal Brexit.

i've been spoiling my vote for about 18 months now, but this GE feels too important for that. but the only party I can possibly vote for are the conservatives and I don't bloody want Boris Fucking Johnson to be Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

But I'm starting to gain a keen understanding of how people ended up voting for Donald Trump.

Select committee members are appointed by MPs in parliament, not the government. They're there to hold the government to account.

I'm not making excuses; Theresa May was hopeless and her decision to elevate Ruth Hunt to the HoL was unforgivable imo.
However, there's a new lot in charge of the Tories now and I'll be astonished if there's not a much more GC ethos now. They will be well aware of the arguments put forward by FPFW and WPUK and will have read the mood of the general public.

Their policies and actions are awful for women, disabled folk and minorities

Yes, I recall the phone call from my mother in which she was in floods of tears and despair being threatened with the Ian Duncan Smith's 'bedroom tax'. They have one bedroom too many - according to Tory policy - and would be forced to pay a tax ( for a party who loves to cut taxes for the better off) out of an income she does not have. A home she had lived in for 40 years.....the misery and the wilful infliction of pain on vulnerable human beings is more than I can take.

Port in a storm my arse, the Tories started this. The Conservatives introduced the idea of self ID. This has been the most socially disruptive, divisive govt I've lived through.
A homeless person dies on the street every 19 hours, and don't ignore the disabled people who have died after their benefits have been cut.

There is hardly a single decent politician left to vote for.

Judgey* not judged (although maybe that too! )

I'm going to be judged as hell here - how can anybody who is a feminist possibly vote conservative?

Their policies and actions are awful for women, disabled folk and minorities.

Yes, I like all of you want a government to whom "Woman: adult human female" isn't perceived as an act of aggression. It's really important to me... but even if they had the perfect GC approach, I couldn't hand on heart vote for them if women's rights were an influencing factor in the way I vote (and they are).

I realise it’s a bitter pill but there it is. Ports in a storm and all that

A port in a storm?

To me the Conservative party has always been about harshness; lack of compassion; moral judgment; protecting existing privilege; cutting taxes for the well off and wealthy, while reducing public spending; austerity; decline in public services; appeals to self interest.......Just no!

There is Maria Miller

Yes, was about to mention her. Her performance in the select committee meeting to which WPUK had been invited was pretty dire regarding the GC position.

Some cognitive dissonance here on this thread. Fact is of all the main parties the Conservatives are least awful on this issue. Is there really any argument against that? lib dems are a total
Lost cause and labour likewise and they appoint men as women’s officers. \(ツ)/¯. I realise it’s a bitter pill but there it is. Ports in a storm and all that.

In my opinion a party that will do nothing right now is better than one which will remove rights. it means that for a while everything is the same and the push back can still happen, we can't throw away the steps that have already been made.

That in itself isn't good for women and children if they aren't going to tackle the way organisations are misinterpreting the EA.

Exactly this. Unless the Conservatives promise to tighten guidance around the Equalities Act, we are fucked. Self ID is creeping into every area of society.

The conservatives are the only party who will push back on self ID.

Let's not forget that they were the ones who promised to introduce it in the first place. They were perfectly ready and willing to go ahead with it - it was only the campaigning of groups like Woman's Place UK and Fair Play for Women that led to the huge negative response to the consultation and hence a quiet decision to ditch it.

I agree that on this issue they are better than any of the alternatives, but they haven't addressed the issue either, and there have been plenty of opportunities over the last 2 years.

This, please don't think that this is any type of guarantee that the party won't introduce self ID, just that out of all the parties, they might not while the other big ones definitely will.

My local Conservative MP replied to my email in total agreement regarding problems with self ID and has been gc on twitter so he'll get my vote.

The conservatives are the only party who will push back on self ID.

They have been in power for almost 10 years. Penny Mordaunt and Maria Miller certainly weren't pushing back and Amber Rudd and Liz Truss have done nothing to push back against e.g. schools getting rid of single sex toilets.

I agree that on this issue they are better than any of the alternatives, but they haven't addressed the issue either, and there have been plenty of opportunities over the last 2 years.

The Tories are very aware of gender issues. Not just Mail, Times, Spectator and Telegraph, but the wonderfully named ‘Conservative Woman’ has run some great GC articles.

(Conservative Woman sounds like the sort of magazine you could leave in all sorts of random places and get the same sort of reaction that you might get from sticker woman.)

Plus Andrew Gillian now works as an advisor for Boris.

I think that the fact heavy punchers like David Davis (not the TC one) are now speaking out suggests that self ID is not on the Tory agenda. They have a long enough to-do list with legislation squeezed out by Brexit, and indeed with Brexit itself.

The idea that Boris, Michael Gove and Priti Patel et al think TWAW is laughable. Penny Mordaunt didn't make the cut, and I expect that was the reason.

I see it as a choice between an extremist, misogynistic, anti-semitic,
intolerant Marxist/Momentum led party and the Tories

Completely agree with this.

The Conservatives are not ‘right wing.’

Haven't laughed this hard in a while. Thanks for that.

There is Maria Miller.

The conservatives are the only party who will push back on self ID.

I too am thinking now of voting Tory instead of spoiling my ballot. If we lose on women’s rights now it will be incredibly difficult to get them back. I then need to hope that Lib Dems and/or labour sort themselves out so I can go back to voting on economic policy. I could not have conceived of ever being in this situation.