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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Piers Morgan with Lisa Nandy on Good Morning Britain

393 replies

musicposy · 10/03/2020 07:46

He’s trying to push Lisa Nandy as to whether any man can self identify and compete in woman’s sports. He’s actually trying to talk some sense and saying it’s unfair to woman’s rights. Making really good points about trans rights overriding woman’s rights.
She will not give a straight answer to anything.

OP posts:
Needmoresleep · 11/03/2020 10:51

Yes, Grotesque is a powerful adjective. My sense is that PM used it to sum up a vision of Anthony Joshua in the ring against, say, Nicola Adams. Which would be grotesque.

Presumably Nandy just picked up on it and thought in some way it was being applied more generally.

FloralBunting · 11/03/2020 10:37

I'm trying to work out why Nandy twisted PMs statement about grotesque unfairness into an accusation he had called trans people grotesque.
Watching her body language and resolute commitment to not answering with a straight yes or no, I suspect she was in the kind of stress state where you hear things in fragments. Morgan was very belligerent and she did seem more and more fragile as the dialogue went on. PMs use of 'grotesquely unfair' was relatively early on in the exchange, but when Nandy came back to it, towards the end, she had become visibly agitated and it came over that that was genuinely what she had heard from PM, even though it clearly wasn't what he said.

I mean, whatever the spur behind her choice of policy to campaign on, she clearly illustrated no ability to deal with the kind of situation a politician should be able to easily cope with, and gave a pathetic showing of herself.

Needmoresleep · 11/03/2020 10:27

Agreed Floral.

The focus should be on Nandy's performance. PM only did what a successful professional interviewer can be expected to do. Understood the argument and asked a straight yes or no question, and then kept on pushing when he did not get a straight answer.

Nandy was seen as one of the brighter, less ideology-bound, candidates. Yet she is so wrapt up in this particular purity circle that she can't distinguish fact from belief. She seems to think that her various attempts to divert the questions, were in fact argument, and when she was not getting anywhere she resorted to insult and accusation.

There has been lots of analysis about why Labour lost the last election. Lord Ashcroft, ex-Tory party deputy chairman has carved out a particular niche in analysis of election results and policies, yet Nandy seems oblivious. I had a quick look on the Ashcroft website and noted he has undertaken a recent survey of voters who switched from Labour to Tory in the last election. His summary includes:

"But the feeling that the Labour Party was no longer for them went beyond Brexit and the Corbyn leadership. While it had once been true that “they knew us, because they were part of us,” Labour today seemed to be mostly for students, the unemployed, and middle-class radicals. It seemed not to understand ordinary working people, to disdain what they considered mainstream views and to disapprove of success. The “pie in the sky” manifesto of 2019 completed the picture of a party that had separated itself from the reality of their lives.

As far as many of these former supporters were concerned, then, the Labour Party they rejected could not be trusted with the public finances, looked down on people who disagreed with it, was too left-wing, failed to understand or even listen to the people it was supposed to represent, was incompetent, appallingly divided, had no coherent priorities, did not understand aspiration or where prosperity comes from, disapproved of their values and treated them like fools."

It seems to me that rather than an endless internal leadership recruitment programme, Labour leadership candidates need to get out more. Perhaps follow Rory Stewart's lead, and go an stay with people. Or at least start listening to some divergent voices, including WPUK rather than simply writing them off as haters.

FloralBunting · 11/03/2020 10:00

Yes, while Piers Morgan is a straightforward sexist in some ways, and an arrogant egotist, he's very, very good at his job, and the reason is because he has an instinct for the winds of public opinion and knows how to leverage it. His design in this will undoubtedly have himself and his career at the centre, but why should that matter?

I've got pissy about him being lauded in the past on here, as I have for most blokes who get a bit too much attention on a feminist forum, but ultimately, I don't own or control public discourse, and don't wish to, and he is entirely free to speak about whatever he wants, and I am going to be pleased when he uses his talents in ways that benefit a cause I am passionate about.

CaptainKirksSpikeyGhost · 11/03/2020 09:48

He's spotted that the gap between the political class and the public on this issue is massive, as they still haven't grasp the majority public opinion on the matter.

SarahTancredi · 11/03/2020 09:40

Yy it wasnt goading.

He wanted her to come out and say what shed been saying In simple terms.

She didnt. Because you cant without letting on that this is the inevitable result.

She was lulled into a false sense of security previously. Dealing with beardy woke bros or being able to patronize or ignore lesbians safe in the knowledge that men hate lesbians so whatever she say they wont care. She thought the sob stories and suicide stats and calls of abuse would see her through and enable her to ignore questions.

She was not prepared for direct line of questioning and an interviewer not interested in copy and paste email type responses. He brought it down to a yes or no question. And she was fucked from then on In

CaptainKirksSpikeyGhost · 11/03/2020 09:37

PM is goading her, she reacts to it and that is a huge mistake as she should be focused on the viewers not him.

He was asking a question on behalf of those viewers.

Binterested · 11/03/2020 09:35

I didn’t think he was goading her. He was trying to get her to engage with the issues which she won’t.

Needmoresleep · 11/03/2020 09:34

He is also the knob who spoke out clearly in favour of gun control whilst working in the US.

He is not afraid to speak out when he feels something is important.

But still a knob: a quick witted, articulate knob. Perhaps Nandy misjudged him. Which says something about her.

Mockerswithnoknockers · 11/03/2020 09:02

Piers Morgan is indeed a knob, and a prize one at that. But he is also the knob who took Page 3 girls out of the Daily Mirror and put in more actual news and less slebby goss. For all the good it did him.

zanahoria · 11/03/2020 08:46

PM is goading her, she reacts to it and that is a huge mistake as she should be focused on the viewers not him.

He knows how the media works, she does not.

StandWithYou · 11/03/2020 08:36

I watched Piers on the America Trump version of the Apprentice. I loved watching him - he didn’t take any prisoners but he was also the sharpest one on there. There was a challenge to do with printers and he was the only one to see that the profit was in the ink cartridges. He wasn’t particularly good as the management aspect of it but very shrewd. I respected his ability to see through the chaff to the heart of an issue.

As for LN thinking he wasn’t being ‘nice’. If you can’t deal with PM adequately you have no business being leader of the opposition (or indeed government). You will need to deal with Merkel, Macron, Putin, Trump etc as PM and I don’t think they care about reactions on Twitter.

Binterested · 11/03/2020 08:24

Even if he was nice she’d still be wrong and unable to explain

Needmoresleep · 11/03/2020 08:22

I picked up in an article last week about Boris visiting the TV studio, that Boris wont go anywhere near Piers Morgan. (Personally as well as on screen.)

Nandy should have had more sense. Did she really think she was experienced enough and quick enough to get the better of him. Did she think he was going to be 'nice'.

If she did, she is daft.

Binterested · 11/03/2020 08:22

Piers is doing great work. I don’t care if he’s a knob.

Binterested · 11/03/2020 08:20

This ages me but I felt that the first time I watched Big Brother. And all the follow ones like Love Island which I have never watched. I don’t feel I am a particularly morally uptight person but I just cannot get comfortable with what’s on display there.

PutColinInTheCorner · 11/03/2020 08:15

Piers Morgan v Rebecca Long Bailey would be an interesting watch. She's much more aggressive than Lisa Nandy, it'd probably end up in a fight Grin

EwwSprouts · 11/03/2020 08:11

PM will also have an eye to the complaints against the BBC of one-sided wokeness, equal pay etc. Great opportunity to raise the viewing figures through being the voice of person on the street.

FloralBunting · 11/03/2020 08:03

No, no one film caused this, but The Greatest Showman is absolutely a product of the same vacuous, superficial mindset that drives so much of this movement.

There's a reason Dawn Butler read the entire lyrics to one of the songs in it as part of an actual speech she made at a TRA event.

Because people willingly embracing their oppression under an exploitative male led capitalism, and presenting it as a glitter covered liberation, is absolutely the perfect film analogy for what is going on.

Redshoeblueshoe · 11/03/2020 07:58

Today Piers had Hannah Barrell SNP on. He asked if it was fair that Laurel Hubbard should be allowed to compete in the Olympics as a woman, and he showed Laurels photo.

She couldn't bring herself to say that it would be unfair.
FFS

TimeLady · 11/03/2020 07:46

This might be a bit melodramatic but I've never felt so out of touch with contemporary culture as in my reaction to that film.

Yes, me too. I sat seething through it and was actually quite unnerved at the strength of my reaction to it. Normally, I just fall asleep when I’m not interested in a film. Grin

Womanlywiles · 11/03/2020 07:21

"The twitter resonse (sic) sums her up, she is more worried about losing the moral high ground than losing the argument. Piers may be a bastard but he doesn't care as long as he gets his points in, he did that and she couldn't answer them"

It's incredible that "the moral high ground" now includes openly lying and denying on national tv that biology is an objective fact, which is what she is doing by her cowardly skirting of this basic question. It's depressing that the two female candidates have thrown their lot in with men masquerading as women who smoke-bomb women's rights meetings and expel them from the party.

I was no fan of Margaret Thatcher but could you ever imagine her moaning that people weren't being nice? She also wasn't afraid to baldly state her opinions and took clear stands and judgements. That was back in the days of facts, science and reason.

Now these potential leaders listen to the swamp on Twitter who are raised on the internet and have no concept of philosophy or the history of ideas, or indeed basic biology.

"Feels" are now policy over actual women, our lives and our bodies.

I didn't vote in this last election as Labour has abandoned me. I know many women feel the same. Many of my former Labour voting family in the NE turned to the Tories. Over reasons like this crap. And also because all the issues that they were concerned about Labour activists told them to shut up about and join the Tories, so they did. Wow. Who would think that Labour would work to kick out working class and women supporters out of the party.

Lamahaha · 11/03/2020 06:17

This may sound daft, but I wonder how much subliminal influence the film 'The Greatest Showman' has had on the younger generation. I watched it on DVD last year and was genuinely shocked at how a man who had set up an enterprise cruelly exploiting vulnerable people for personal gain had been Disneyfied and turned into some sort of progressive hero. My daughter (30s and GC) was absolutely astonished at my negative reaction, telling me that it is used extensively in schools as an example of the freedom people should have to live their lives how they choose.

My daughter (aged 28 at the time) and I both loathed this film (seen in cinema) but all I have encountered to date is gushing enthusiasm for it, mostly by my USA Facebook friends of all ages. Yours is the first negative viewpoint I've seen -- ever. I'm not sure that the film is influential, but it's certainly a barometer of particularly American contemporary attitudes.
To me it exemplifies a certain "you can realise all your biggest, most impossible dreams" narcissistic, materialistic, and valueless philosophy: the impossible dream. Translated into trans terms: isn't changing sex practically the most impossible of all dreams? So to dream that dream must be evidence that "you can do and be anything you want". A life-maxim that I've always been extremely sceptical about.
This might be a bit melodramatic but I've never felt so out of touch with contemporary culture as in my reaction to that film.

CaptainKirksSpikeyGhost · 11/03/2020 05:43

Disney, while always re-enforcing stereotypes, their hold on media is fairly recent.

CaptainKirksSpikeyGhost · 11/03/2020 05:40

It's not one film that has caused this, it's almost two decades of being in our schools, there's a generation who have had this all ingrained as fact.