Jess Phillips appointed a minister to focus on tackling violence against women and girls and domestic violence.

Yes, on her twitter there are comments about it

Her title is "parliamentary under secretary of state in the home office"
https://x.com/jessphillips/status/1810788712206213433

https://news.sky.com/story/jess-phillips-made-minister-following-frontbench-resignation-over-middle-east-13175726

Has she spoken yet about the crossbow murders of those three women? It’s sickening the violence women endure.

@Imnobody4 "Jess has got a job which is going to reveal both her true colours and her competence"

Her competence as a minister, yes. I think her true colours are pretty clear.

They were talking about VAWG on R4 this morning at about 8.25 but I switched on half way through so don't know if it was mentioned. Jess Phillips was definitely mentioned. I think it was Dan Jarvis being interviewed (edit for clarity).

I was going to say something but having read the last few pages, I've lost the will to live. Toothbrushes for heaven's sake.

Jess has got a job which is going to reveal both her true colours and her competence. A loud mouth won't be enough, she now has power so she'll be judged on her achievements. I truly hope she exceeds my expectations

Jess Phillips has always struck me as somebody who speaks out of both sides of her mouth. This is probably a good thing as her mouth produces words at a far greater rate than her brain produces thoughts.

Having got the snipery out of the way, JP has had an unbending commitment to addressing VAWG and I think we should give her some space.

Knowing what a woman is is ONE requirement of being a feminist; it is not THE ONLY requirement of being a feminist.

It's going to take them years to figure out what the problem is never mind a resolution.

They have men at the front of the queue ahead of women, with their case law and objections blocking any guidance that could give weight to providers.

Look how they treated Baroness Kishwar when she spoke up and drafted guidance. They will do the same to Labour ministers and MPs.

Anything they say about using the exemptions has to be heard in this context.

I'm sure I heard Wes Streeting mentioning a consultation on reform of the GRA so we could well be back on that merry go round again in the next year.

It's going to be down to the public and to women's groups to object again. The labour appointments are all already useful idiots for the reform lobby and the messed up status quo which defaults to men doing what they want.

Further to this we now have a situation with three separate individuals having oversight over shared ground.
Yes.
If nothing else it shows how Starmer wants to avoid this

What is depressing is when law makers (that's an MP btw) don't recognise or understand the importance of this.

Especially when their workplace speciality was (checks notes) human rights and law

Further to this we now have a situation with three separate individuals having oversight over shared ground.

The last time we had this situation was when Theresa May had the Brexit Minister, the Foreign Secretary and the International Trade Secretary. It descended into something of a terf war (sic) with David Davis, Liam Fox and Boris Johnson having a bit of a pissing contest because there was no clear control over certain areas and all three felt the other two were stepping on their toes because of the lack of where their jurisdiction began and where it ended. Then it was ultimately up to the PM to make the decision taking it out of their control anyway but for them to carry the can and responsibility at the same time even though this was taken from them.

My point being that we've now got three women, who perhaps can work together better than the above mentioned Tories. But if there isn't a clear hierarchy none actually have much power because the PM will always make the final decision but he has no less than three women to act as a buffer that he can defer to and say 'oh well it's their area not mine' or to set up as a fall guy (sorry should that be girl).

I'm not convinced that having a situation where jokes about light bulbs are appropriate, makes for good lawmaking.

Don't forget we have a bunch of committees which sit to hold cross party discussions on key subjects. We have the women and equalities select committee to have these type of discussions. So why are we effectively creating another sub committee to in effect discuss much of the same things?

It makes no practical sense. May's failing was her inability to resolve differences and her approach of giving roles which overlapped played a major part in the problem.

So I'm curious about this and whether this is essentially making a similar mistake which is only going to result in a headache further down the line, because Starmer doesn't want to go too near the problem himself. (May wanted it to appear that Brexiteers were in charge of Brexit and dispel the issue of her being a remainder by creating distance).

For the benefit of the lurkers.

It is not for the law to have opinions or multiple positions. It is for the law to have singular definitions and singular positions.

We refer to case law to clarify in certain situations, but establishing case law is expensive, time-consuming and can lead to injustice where people do not have the ability to establish case law.

Thus we ask law makers to avoid this situation and to carefully consider definitions when making law so we don't get into a right pickle of arguing for example 'what is a woman?'

It's not about arguing about opinions. That's the point! The one you are missing.

It's about removing opinions of definitions of law so that everyone knows where they stand, there is absolute clarity and no one is disadvantaged by not having access to a good lawyer or a decent prosecution from the CPS.

Law can't be about opinions. It needs to be absolutely and in stone. Otherwise people fall foul of the law because no one actually manages to understand the law or because the law is different depending on the day of the week and the political views of who handles your case.

Good law - justice - is based on the principle that the public feel it is fair and treats everyone equally and without prejudice.

The second you lose that clarity the law becomes open to abuse and the perceptions of those holding power not the principles of fairness which disregard status and identity in society.

As someone said here: "whatever"

Anyway, can't be arsed arguing with people who cannot tolerate any opinion that isn't their own. Good luck to JP and thank fuck for a Labour government who are going to do something about VAWG.

When is it ok to refer to 'her penis' in a court of law?

When the defendant is in the dock or only after when found guilty of rape?

Is the victim relevant or aren't they worthy of care? Is only the defendant relevant because they are yet to be found guilty and therefore their feelings are more important than a potentially traumatised individual?

Does sex hierarchy play into this?

Whatever. Are we going to flex the expert line in a minute?

I am allowed a different opinion to you without it being "missing the point". Ideological purity tests for whether a politician can do their job do my head in, especially when 1) its not relevant to the job and 2) it's always aimed at women.

No she's not. She's got your point. Your point is you are deliberately missing the point and are trying to argue your way out of that from that starting point.

Don't forget Labour want to add misogyny as an aggravating factor in law. This means it would carry a stronger sentence. But being unable to define whether someone was a woman or not, would have an impact on this. As would defining a male as a woman. Thus leading to differences in sentencing and a feeling of injustice.

We are already seeing cases where transwomen are not being treated equally to men for similar crimes where the victim is a woman.

This really isn't ok.

Because its still domestic violence? Way more likely to be committed by men??

Unless you think the legal system is somehow biased to be more forgiving of women DV offenders. I don't believe that,but I know certain people do.

You are missing my point.
If the police decided to reduce toothbrush theft, knowing red toothbrushes were way more likely to be stolen, then your favourite toothbrush would be less likely to be stolen. Even though the thief pretended it was purple.

Look I'm not arguing that we shouldn't define women. I'm arguing that in the case of reducing VAWG it's important not necessary. And giving politicians a hard time for "not knowing what a woman is" is a hindrance rather than a help.

Even if they’re categorised as women? How does that work?