Car Crash at the Labour Party Womens Network Leadership hustings

Having watched the debate in Parliament yesterday for IWD, it was obvious which parties had MPs with solid feminist instincts and analysis.

Sadly, it wasn't the Labour party, but the Tories and the SNP.

As someone who actually did work on the front line in very tough conditions, I despise people who pretend they have the same experience when they haven't.
My relative has worked in refugee camps and disaster areas and gets the rage listing to people pontificating who have barely left their sofa.
It is infuriating.

I know the feeling. I volunteer at a social justice centre which includes many services (addiction, Foodbank, debt management). It is very rare to find anyone in paid positions in the organisation who actually has face to face contact with he clients. That’s left to the volunteers.

As someone who actually did work on the front line in very tough conditions, I despise people who pretend they have the same experience when they haven't.
My relative has worked in refugee camps and disaster areas and gets the rage listing to people pontificating who have barely left their sofa.
It is infuriating.

Yes there is a certain similarity with Brexit.

Of course there is. The psychology is the same.

To summarise the two positions (at the very extreme):

Ultra right: We want to clearly define what it is to be X. We want a very clearly and very well defended border around X to protect the safety, security and well-being of society.

Ultra left: We want an open and fluid border around what it is to be X. Society will benefit enormously from the diversity and flow of experiences brought about by dismantling these socially constructed boundaries. Opposition to this borderless existence are a sign of bigotry. The ‘risks’ of dismantling the boundaries are over-exaggerated right-wing conspiracy theories from those who want to maintain the status quo to the exclusion of those who are persecuted.

It’s liberal vs conservative 101.

Yes there is a certain similarity with Brexit. Which chimes in with the political landscape being all "nail your colours to the mast" extremist, identity politics currently.

Yeah, I think we've got another month of this....I'm often taken by surprise to see Jeremy Corbyn at PMQs - because his massive election defeat seems so long ago, and yet his leadership is neverendingggggggg....

Does the Labour leadership contest ever end? It feels like months now.

It’s not just ex-labour voters fed up, DH has just been talking to Ruth Smeeth, who lost her seat in the election ( traditional labour heartland Stoke on Trent) .

She told him she needs to ‘get away’ from Labour.

Ooh Nickie Aiken is my MP and I wrote to her about ten days ago about attending the Transgender Trend briefing. She hasn’t responded. I will follow up.

So this new committee was announced yesterday.

I know two women who refused to speak to me for days after the 2019 election result - because I didn't vote Labour - tell me they don't think they can vote for them again. One I reckon probably will but I don't think the other will (because of how poor these leadership contenders are) - and this is their core vote

Completely full of shit.

Just a reminder that when Nandy says she worked at Centrepoint, she's misleading everyone into thinking she was doing frontline work, and she wasn't, she was a researcher there for a couple of years.

They have convinced themselves that "purity" is important than being even beginning to stand a chance of being elected.

I think the difficulty here is that they don't see it as purity. I imagine many would be willing to politically compromise on many issues.

But the narrative around this has placed certain ideas into the camp of "things you would never accept no matter what the political consequences". And to be fair I think we all have these. I doubt many of us would accept a political figure or party willing to compromise with a public bent on re-introducing slavery, or removing women as legal persons. Even f it means losing an election we'd expect them to stand firm on that stuff.

That's been the trick, to get people to see anything except a very narrow idea of trans rights as that level of moral and ethical failure. We all had someone tell us as kids that the majority could be deeply wrong and we should stand against that wrongness anyway. These supposed leaders see themselves doing that, rather than seeing the public disagreement as a sign that the issue is more complicated than they realise or wondering if they themselves might be missing something.

rebecca

Rebecca Long Bailey,

Rebecca Long-Bailey was forced to defend working on PFI deals within the NHS.
Before becoming an MP, Ms Long-Bailey worked on a team which reportedly drew up deals that saw £190m worth of NHS property handed to investment companies based in Luxembourg.

Asked how this fit in with her claim to have always wanted to “defend the NHS”, she said that when she was a corporate lawyer, she had to work on PFI contracts because they were “the only game in town.”
She told the BBC’s Andrew Neil: “In terms of those PFI contracts, if you were granting a lease to a GP, a pharmacy or any other local community organisation, any new hospital was comprised of a PFI deal.
“So all of the leases out of that for 30 years, Andrew, were subject to those PFI terms - insidious PFI terms - that meant they were paying far above market value for their services.”

Andrew Neil ripped her to shreds. She was truely awful. How anyone could vote for her I have no idea.

Yep. Boris and Dom must be delighted.

Keir’s speech was a rehash of what he said on Andrew Neil last night. We’ve all heard Lisa Nandy and the terrible tale of the trans child in her constituency a million times. As for RLB..... she still thinks the country can’t wait for another dose of Corbynism.

They are such a gift to the Tories.

Tbh by that point he'd bored us to death so maybe he should be leader.

At least most of his answer was about women (even if he didn't answer the bloody questions). Christ we are scraping the barrel when that 'answer' was the best one.

LN talked about women for about 30% of her answer and RLB spent the entire slot talking aboout trans rights.

The question didn't fucking mention trans people.

P.S. There was a question on another thread about inspirational women. My goodness the hard work of DJlippy on this issue is to be admired.

I can't believe Lisa Nandy actually said that about women's rights are not only an issue for women. Although, in this upside world, more fool me.

The Chair is shocking also.

Bloody hell this has really pissed me off.

Sadly, stupidity is rife

Where listening to twitter as your compass is concerned it's a fatal combination of laziness and stupidity

I disagree that the Labour Party has to be like this. There is no logic to that imo. This is about Liberal policies and not socialist.

However, the Labour Party has been poisoned by the identity politics of the Corbyn era. They have convinced themselves that "purity" is important than being even beginning to stand a chance of being elected. There are still plenty of traditional Labour Party members who are being ignored by the leadership. Turning away, maybe never to come back.

How can that fool Lisa Nandy talk about safe spaces for women and then in the very next breath say that TWAW? WTAF?

Fucking hell, what a trio of quarter wits they are. I have no words for how disgraceful and shocking they are. Is that the best that the LP can offer us?

Well they can get to fuck.