Kemi Badenoch nails it

I agree - this current crop of MPs and SMPs seems to be particularly thick though!

I think Nokes' trouble is that Nokes has not got the wit to realise that her performance is risible or her points insensible.

I genuinely don't wish to be rude here, and I'm not saying that every MP or politician needs to be super intelligent, but there probably needs to be a line drawn - below a certain intellectual ability is it really possible to function at a level sophisticated enough to engage in debate or offer constructive input to government? It would even be okay if Nokes was able to recognise the lack of her own knowledge and understanding and take steps to rectify it, but is she capable of seeing it?

I felt the same watching the discussion in ScotParl yesterday - the MSP making such a crashingly ignorant and insensitive comment about how predatory males have never needed to pretend to be other than what they are in order to abuse - and others applauding - are they even aware of how limited, crude and twisted their own knowledge & understanding is? I guess not.

None so blind, etc.

Yesss!

I've not been a KB fan until now as I had a really disappointing response when I wrote to her and expressed concerns (about DBS and changing birth certificates) a few years ago. But this is bloody brilliant.

It did not begin well, with Nokes mispronouncing the Minister's name, then calling her by her first name (gosh we have definitely seen that before when she speaks to women!), when all the other members called her Minister Badenoch.

You can watch the whole thing here:
committees.parliament.uk/event/6910/formal-meeting-oral-evidence-session/

Kemi also gave a very good defence of Baroness Falkner and the EHRC in response to good questions from Jackie Doyle-Price.

I think this is at least partly in-party politicking. Nokes is in an anti-Boris camp, or the other way round, I believe.

Yes, I believe you are right, her Wiki says she lost the Whip siding against Boris on one of the Brexit votes. (Her dad was an MEP, and working for him is how she started her political career). But that makes Nokes even more disgraceful, if throwing women under the bus is partly her way of sticking it to Boris.

Anyway, Kemi B is certainly becoming a superstar in my eyes. Here she is 10 days ago defending Baroness Faulkner. I only wish she'd mentioned Stonewall.

Well that was an eye-opener. You'd think that Noakes would be more prepared. Oh wait, there is no preparation other than never-ending versions of no debate.

Plus I can't help noticing that Caroline Noakes says she's 'frantically trying to remember what minister Quince' says, and when Kemi says she's not seen anything to do with it, reads it verbatim off the bloody piece of paper in front of her! Sly.

Honestly, does she not realise that going out of your way to not mention the sex of the hypothetical trans person and the hypothetical children involved, is shifty as fuck.

That was a master class in dodgy dissembling.

And yes, 'define trans' is such an unanswerable question, that just asking it is going to blow the whole thing out of the water, every time.

So she either really believes in this stuff, or her constituency is full of blue haired students she needs to keep on the right side of.
Her constituency is mostly elderly and has little interest in this debate.She will probably be reelected on local issues.

I really enjoyed that. Especially the finality of the "No"!

She knows she's talking absolute bollocks, but she's seen what's happened to Rosie Duffield and JKR; so she's keeping the (rabid TRA) wolves from her door by blithely going along with it.

Nokes is a Conservative, though, and must know this is not a vote winner for her party, or a good look for her to be undermining her own colleagues in the party. So she either really believes in this stuff, or her constituency is full of blue haired students she needs to keep on the right side of.

My favourite bit is when Caroline Noakes is asked to define the terms she used and she starts spluttering. If you have conviction in what you're taking about then you don't do that.

Well done Kemi Badenoch.

Every single person that goes along with TWAW is a bare-faced liar and it makes me wonder what else they'd be happy to lie about.
So for me, any politician or political party that goes along with it will never get my vote.

She knows she's talking absolute bollocks, but she's seen what's happened to Rosie Duffield and JKR; so she's keeping the (rabid TRA) wolves from her door by blithely going along with it.

She doesn't truly believe a word of it, none of them do.

Perfect performance by Kemi, and to be honest, Nokes too, exposing exactly and precisely all of the issues in a short exchange.

Define your terms.
Acknowledge sex.
Say 'no'.

Nokes is so condescending, she's really talking down to KB and obviously thinks she's got a "gotcha" moment. Then gets whiny when asked to define the terms of her own question. She's so out of touch to believe most people wouldn't be uncomfortable with their daughter sharing accommodation with a biological male. Why is she seeking to undermine her own party for this?

Jo Bartosch on Nokes from 2021:

[Nokes' WESC report on GRA reform] bitterly bemoans the lack of enthusiasm for such policies among the relevant ministers, noting: ‘we contacted the minister for women and equalities [Liz Truss MP] with an invitation to give oral evidence… she declined our invitation, offering no reason, and forwarded it on to the minister for equalities, Kemi Badenoch MP. Minister Badenoch also repeatedly declined our invitation.’ It all has the desperate ring of ‘the bigger girls won’t play with us’.

www.spiked-online.com/2021/12/22/caroline-nokes-and-the-make-believe-of-gender-self-id/

Always call it out. Always get them to spell it out where possible. It's a very common tactic.

It's almost as if, deep down, people like Noakes know it's all a lie. But they're so committed to the cause that the lie is serving, they don't know how to disentangle themselves. It's much more comfortable to keep lying and be cheered on for lying by all the self identified good people. No wonder they're so uncomfortable around people who are interested in facts.

It really reminds of a friend of mine who used to speak in tongues as a kid at her evangelical church. She knew she was faking it, but it was so much easier to fake it than to sit there wondering what she had to do for god to make it happen to her. And then once she was faking it, there was so much support from her community, she didn't know how to stop.

It's gaslighting isn't it.

"Would you be concerned about a trans child sharing a dorm with your child?"

Well, if a female child who was trans eg identified as a boy or non binary, and shared a dorm with my daughter that would be FINE!!! It's not about "being trans" it's about being either one sex or the other.

It fits their agenda for them to allow people to assume that they are talking about children of the same sex who identify as transgender, so that they can frame any objections as bigotry, and the same as homophobia

Sadly for Nokes she isn't clever enough to pull it off. Kemi Badenoch had her number.

It fits their agenda for them to allow people to assume that they are talking about children of the same sex who identify as transgender, so that they can frame any objections as bigotry, and the same as homophobia

I do wonder how many times they think that they can do this before we notice

As if it isn't entirely obvious every time, that people all.if a sudden go from knowing what they are talking about to complete non answers with the desperate seeking of audience participation where said non answers can be drowned out by cheers and claps.

Its the discussion equivalent of ending your story " and it was all a dream". Completely cliche obvious and lazy.

If nothing else the lack of interest and effort should immediately be cause to lose faith in the person and be angry that they have nothing better for their public they are meant to be serving

Once it's made clear that what is being discussed is putting boys in girls' dorms, it is no longer about any sort of phobia, it's simply safeguarding.

The mangling of the language around this has made it easier to obfuscate. Making it clear that a 'transgirl' is actually a boy elicits a different response from people not familiar with the language used.