Zoe Williams on Wes Streeting

Zoe can eff the eff off. And I say that as a previous loyal Guardian reader.

Oh no I’d forgotten about that detail (it had seemed vey unclear/speculative at the time) and hadn’t seen his football comment before.

Starmer

August 2023

https://x.com/keirstarmer/status/1692929657975554489?s=46&t=WHoOZZ_3Kv5G6-FyQuvE0LQ

Jan 2024

www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/01/07/sir-keir-starmer-election-toll-children/

https://x.com/famedtrust/status/1744330831236051059?s=46&t=WHoOZ_3Kv5G6-FyQuvE0LQ

https://x.com/famedtrust/status/1744333973663228383?s=46&t=WHoOZ_3Kv5G6-FyQuvE0LQ

i absolutely don’t believe KS really thinks TWAW. He’s got his faults but he’s not that stupid. You can tell he’s uncertain and havering about what to do, but he doesn’t come across like a fully signed-up zealot. He comes across like he took advice from tras at the beginning and has been trying to find a sensible way back / through but lacks the courage to be clear.

What I don’t get is how Starmer doesn’t commit to reality, evidence and law himself. He’s a top lawyer fgs. He can see the legal cases that are being pursued and won. He can understand the equality act, and he must be aware of all the polling that shows him most women are pissed off with this and want safe single sex spaces where needed and don’t want this unevidenced shit being taught in schools, so what’s stopping him?

If WS never believed TWAW then what was the Facebook group about?

Pretty sure KS does believe it though. It's more likely this is WS lining himself up for leader/a higher position than health if they win. He's going away from the party line which is as per Dodds. It's her policy area, not his.

but KS also doesn't believe TWAW, so we should push on this point, 'so, KS, WS has agreed our objections are reasonable, how are you going to address our very reasonable objections in a way we can trust?'

TooTired, how about you try to stick with the topic of the thread, or start another one

I think Wes Streeting may be genuine, but Starmer is definitely finding him useful because he’s saying lots of things we find appealing (and that’s a low bar given the history!) while those things are not Labour policy, and are not in line with statements by other senior Labour politicians.

I’ve not seen anything yet from Starmer which is unequivocal. I’ve seen lots of ‘safe spaces’ ‘services for women’ (but remember TWAW), and stuff he thinks sounds like what GC women want, but isn’t. He’s trying very hard to ride both horses, and WS is propping him up on the one he’s not really committed to

It could be that she has a transitioning child or other relative. It could just be the rage about losing an argument when you don’t know why you think what you do and don’t have any evidence for it.

Yes, it's quite startling to see. A pure knee-jerk rage reaction. No response to any of the substance of his argument, just violent rage. Tribalism. Emotive reasoning.

She's often illogical, glib and luxury-beliefy, but there's such venom in her tweet that I'm assuming she's got some personal skin in the game, a la Joanne Harris, David Tennant and the other zealots.

And the thing she’s objecting to WS saying is that women being worried about losing same-sex-only spaces and the sex class of women being erased, are not bigots. That’s it. It’s about as mild and reasonable as you can be.

By her kneejerk attack on this, ZW is actually clearly saying that she doesn’t see TW as women - because she doesn’t think women should have same-sex spaces or be defined by sex. She thinks males should be in female spaces and definitions. If she didn’t think they were male, she wouldn’t think that way.

Precisely.

I would formerly have described her as a useful idiot for the TRA cause, but I think that's only 50% accurate now.

Zoe not even bothering to try to cobble together an illogical argument and cutting straight to the blustering impotent attack is just more evidence she doesn’t understand this issue and refuses to think about it. She just knows she’s right because be kind and TWAW and la la la la I can’t hear you.

1. Wes Streeting never believed TWAW. No one who is an adult educated past primary age believes this at all, they just pretend to, so it does not require a huge amount of internal struggle to drop that belief.
2. We want these politicians to come out and say some variant of 'hang on, no, maybe that wasn't right after all'- it makes no sense to berate them because its too little/too late/not grovelly enough/fails to mention some pertinent point.

we should welcome what he does say and ask for specific commitments (say clarifying that the EqA refers to biological sex) that we can later hold him to.

I think having this 'apology' from a gay man, late of Stonewall, is significant. They can't throw section 28 at him.

@ArabellaScott ok a tiny bit of positive.
What about the multitude of other shite things ? Do you forgive them for the state of everything else ? Even Hitler built decent roads and Mussolini kept the trains on time. Not comparing the Tories to the Nazis at all before I’m flamed but focusing on one issue and ignoring the crap when the rest of the country is falling apart is short sighted. What’s your opinion on the other policies of GC tories like Miriam and Danny Kruger ? I’m sure you’re aware of the National Conservative conferences that they hosted ?

Their plans are still as Dodds outlined them. Wes is just saying some words. Interesting about the Southend candidate and his apparent attempts to scrub history.

Deeds, not deleted words...

I also agree that if we end up with the LDs propping up Labour then it's the worst outcome of all. This assault on women and children couldn't have happened unless there had been a coalition government. The LDs are partly bankrolled by Ferring. Labour MPs bankrolled by GLAAD have placed themselves (or been placed by LPHQ) in positions such as at the WESC.

It would be much better to make Labour have to defend it as solely their policy and observe if they dare to whip MPs, and see what happens. If it's a coalition then we are absolutely fucked.

Whenever a newspaper runs an article on this, I look at the comments. And they are overwhelmingly in favour of women having the right to single-sex spaces. Now it's true that in most cases the newspapers in question are the Times, the Telegraph and the Mail, which tend to skew right. But it's very hard to know what Guardian readers think because the Guardian chooses not to run many of the important stories, and when it does run a story, it closes comments - which I assume is because they became bored with having to delete so many gender-critical comments.

In common with many women, I certainly found, in the days when comments were opened, that even the mildest expression of a gender-critical viewpoint was instantly deleted, and sometimes followed by a suspension. So the inevitable conclusion is that the vast majority of people have no truck with the gender nonsense, and the only way the Guardian can pretend this isn't the case is by suppressing any dissenting view.

As a PP has said, some of them at least can read the room and will say "yes, well, possibly" until the election.

Afterwards, they'll have five years to do whatever the fuck they like, backed by the Lib Dems, who will have more MPs due to ABTT in the shires and leafy suburbs.

The Labour Party have just parachuted a candidate into Southend West going against the preferred candidate of the local party and kicking off much resentment.
His biog previously said he/him and that he works for Basildon Pride. Both have been removed.
Funny that.
It's almost as if they can read the room.

Staring hard at the wrong bits of Twitter, for that matter.

There are really very few who are still out there raging at women for asking for single service provision. That might have been a fashionable stance four years back; it certainly isn't now.

The idea that the smooth, attuned Streeting is in any way saying anything that isn't entirely bland and calibrated as an unexceptional 'reasonable' position is looking extreme and very brittle, tbh.

As if Williams has been sat with her headphones on staring at Twitter hard for the past four years.

The Tories stopped self ID, instigated Cass, and are updating school guidelines. Prison rules in E&W also changed.

The concern is that Labour are going to fuck all of that back up.

How come Rishi gets a free ride. He came to the GC party late.
Very up in arms about Wesley but quick to believe flappy floppy Rishi. What’s your opinion about the feminist Miriam Cates, the great protector of women rights 😂as long as they’re at home birthing kids, going to church and certainly not being cultural Marxists (bit of nice anti semitism there). God help them if they want a uni education or even a termination.

Zoe Williams is an idiot.