Trevor Philips in the Times today

I thought Janice Turner nailed it at the weekend - also in The Times.
Increasingly the political divide is not between left and right but between those who uphold objectivity, data, evidence and rule of law versus those who will jettison everything, even science and reason, for ideology.

There must be half a dozen threads running at the moment where this comment applies.
It doesn't help me decide where my next vote will go but it does help me make some sense of it all.

I can’t help but wonder if the Home Secretary and chancellor appointments are being used to give a veneer of inclusive untouchable policy and practice while in reality both are a party strategic decision to facilitate change which would get attacked if coming from an old white Etonian. What this doesn't answer though, is that Johnson has had opportunities to get rid of Priti Patel but hasn't taken them. She is popular with the party apparently. Not a Tory but keep up with what's going on

It takes time and commitment to keep up with this stuff, never mind sorting out the lies from the truth, especially when the BBC, for example, is completely captured.

So many people never watch the news, never read a newspaper, much less do any fact checking on what they do read.

Also huge amounts of weaselling.

"We are committed to maintaining single sex spaces and simultaneously agreeing that everyone should pick their preferred space regardless of sex".

"We stand against violence against women and girls and simultaneously absolutely believe convicted rapists should be put in women's prisons and don't ask us what we actually mean by women and girls, let's leave that as vague as possible".

Jelly to a wall.

As far as I'm aware, removal of sex based rights has never made it anywhere near a manifesto. A huge amount of time and effort is put in on all sides to avoiding democracy getting too near it.

The other feature of our politics will be hiding in a fridge.

Don't talk about your own party, only ever talk about the opposition. In fact, whatever unpopular thing you're doing or is happening beyond your control, repeatedly associate it with the opposition while saying as little as possible about your own agency. You don't need to make a reasoned argument – indeed maybe better not, as that could draw attention to your own behaviour – but use pics, repeated name-association, whatever will link the two in people's minds.

I've seen a good Covid-related example of this recently, although I can't remember the detail. I just remember it had me thinking, "Er, excuse me, who's in government?" which is my usual acid test.

These are general observations: there's nothing to limit these techniques to one party.

One day a new centre left, sane party with actual socialist values and plain common sense may arise, devoid of professional politicians and lots of elite hobbyhorses. Voters would flock to it in droves.

Agreed.

That's why we'll see continued puffing of targeted single issues each election-season, to suppress just enough of these voters this time for this reason, to allow the group doing the puffing to slide in because they know they're unelectable on the majority of their policies.

Might not be the Tories: this technique is universally applicable. This is what politics will be now.

The Women and Equalities Committee is a select committee which exists to hold the Government Equalities Office to account. Its history is here:

committees.parliament.uk/committee/328/women-and-equalities-committee/role/

Membership of the Committee is supposed to reflect the party make up of the House of Commons. The Chair is elected. They make recommendations, but aren't part of the executive.

I am not sure how the Committee decided that its first enquiry should be into the GRA.

As I remember things (admittedly it was before I started paying attention) it was a Tory government that set up an all party committee to consider reforms to the Gender Recognition Act. This all party committee, which I believe (again I'm going from memory) included Jess Phillips, listened to evidence from a range of witnesses, but not from any women's groups, before making recommendations which the Tory Government initially accepted.

Apologies as I haven't got time to fact check all that right now so feel free to correct if any of it's wrong but I'm fairly confident.

So no-one, in my opinion, comes out of it looking particularly good. I would say that the differences are firstly that since then the Tories have put some distance between themselves and self-ID whereas Labour, Lib Dems and Greens continue to advocate it. And secondly that Tory MPs who speak up for women don't get anything like the abuse from their own party that centre-left politicians do.

Torys gonna Tory

Remember when Labour used to Labour?

I live in hope. One day a new centre left, sane party with actual socialist values and plain common sense may arise, devoid of professional politicians and lots of elite hobbyhorses. Voters would flock to it in droves.

Torys gonna Tory. Patel and Sunak are Tories. Expecting them to have policies other than typically Tory ones because of their ethnicity would be racist, wouldn't it?

Yes. Of course it would. Also racist is using the race of someone in the hope of giving the typical Tory policies an aura of inclusion.

I’m absolutely horrified that I am having to choose a party who I disagree with in so many ways to not have my sex based rights completely eroded. But here we are. I’ll have to choke on it.

I would bloody hope any appointments to the front bench of the government are a party strategic decision, whichever party it is. I would like to hope that a government is capable of, even quite good at, strategy. Shocking I know.

Torys gonna Tory. Patel and Sunak are Tories. Expecting them to have policies other than typically Tory ones because of their ethnicity would be racist, wouldn't it?

I would much, much rather be voting for a centre left, Blairite government. (Who don't make policy based on Twitter.) But Labour have decided that they won't offer that, in spite of it being the only offer that the people have taken them up on in decades.

I'm not a natural Tory voter. I'm not going to be a happy Tory voter. But I'm also not going to be ashamed of putting my cross in the box for the party that are, on a balance of probability, least likely to shit all over my sex based rights.

Well yes, Theresa May got glass-cliffed. Usually there's room for doubt on whether that's what actually happened – but not this time, because Johnson and Gove were the actual public face of the Brexit campaign, ran away like little boys when the post of Prime Minister during the clusterfuck came up, and then Johnson oiled back in for what he imagined would be the triumphant moment. That isn't opportunities for women; it's women will clean up the boys' mess.

But that's possibly drifting off-topic. Unless the topic is, are the Tories likely to be better or worse for women than any other party, in which case I suppose it's on topic.

Sorry that was to ErrolTheDragon, and apologies for clogging up the thread off topic.

Ah that's a shame it looked interesting on this. Thank you for trying!

I can’t help but wonder if the Home Secretary and chancellor appointments are being used to give a veneer of inclusive untouchable policy and practice while in reality both are a party strategic decision to facilitate change which would get attacked if coming from an old white Etonian.

I think MichelleofzeResistance and SirSamuelVimes have answered that one for you, DifficultBloodyWoman.

Look, if you want to vote Tory, vote Tory. Indeed, join the Tories. I personally would cheer if the Conservative party had more people in it working for women's rights, and for the values that SirSamuelVimes expressed, rather than the Jacob Rees-Moggs and the Boris Johnsons.

The abuse that Rowling received and the lack of any political denunciation of it sent a message loud and clear, an example was made of her. We knew that we must keep silent or suffer the consequences. The other lot knew that they could get away with keeping us silent and perpetuating falsehoods with impunity. Freedom of speech lost and the win was another step towards totalitarianism.

What other developments were there?

So no, it's not a case of Tory = pro-women's rights, everyone else = anti-women's rights.

I don't think this in the first place. What I think I'd that lobby groups like Stonewall have been attacking the government and civil service from all directions. Everyone was going along with it to 'be kind' and win easy woke points. But the Tory party have woken up to the fact that they can't slip stuff through quietly anymore, that their party members aren't keen on dicks in the girls' changing rooms, and that it's not a vote winner with the general public. So they are backing off.

Whereas for Labour, Lib Dem and Green, the party members are more likely to insist TWAW and back #nodebate, and would crucify any leader who said otherwise.

I also keep coming back to the very simple idea "actions speak louder than words". Which party has had female leaders? Tory. Which party had a female PM? A female Asain home secretary? An Asian chancellor?

It's labour who have gone from white male to white male to white male, while simultaneously claiming they can't tell what a male is.

Sorry about the diversion here, new poster. Can anyone tell me how to register for two free articles from The Times? Also wondering if anyone would mind giving me a share token link for the letters page because I want to see what people have said about Matthew Parris's article from Saturday?
www.thetimes.co.uk/article/times-letters-everards-death-and-male-attitudes-to-women-rln7xkphn

Thank you!

Madness to keep voting Tory when their hands are as dirty as all the other parties?

Yes, I agree. I was shocked to find a cabinet member at that absolute farce of the ONS court case, demonstrating the cabinet are clearly fully on side with erasing sex as a concept, buggering up national statistics and to hell with women and women's rights and realities. While looking serious on the news and making nice noises about women's rights. It's all image, no substance and I trust them as far as I can spit.

But to vote at present for any other party means bringing into power a group that will gallop at full charge into joyful destruction of women and sex based rights, and aren't just duplicitous with possibly some mixed feelings and people who are aware, but are committed full blast to dangerous insanity. So no thanks.

Having to choose your vote not on who you want and support, but who you think is going to cause the least amount of damage, is not exactly a fun voter experience. But it's been the reality for some years now.