Labour is betraying women

Donations to the party

www.opendemocracy.net/en/labour-given-4m-from-tax-haven-based-hedge-fund-with-shares-in-oil-and-arms/

This whole thing of making donations to individual MPs rather than the party. It seems to have taken off in recent years. It was never quite so popular.

I'm not sure I like it in principle - somehow it feels like more directly buying influence than making a donation to the party - but at least they have to declare it and it can't just be buried in party accounts.

Wes now. Plus guests

www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/09/26/wes-streeting-minister-lord-alli-flat/

"Wes Streeting, the Health Secretary, hosted a fundraising event at Lord Alli’s London home where the guests included Sir Ian McKellen. Mr Streeting declared the value of the event as £4,600, which included the cost of drinks and catering paid for by Lord Alli.
The event, which was co-hosted by fellow Labour MP Kim Leadbeater, raised £20,000 in donations for the two MPs.
...

Mr Streeting hosted a high-powered reception at the property in March 2022, prompting speculation in Labour circles at the time that he was preparing for a leadership bid in case Sir Keir stood down for any reason. The 20 to 30 guests included Lord Cashman, the former EastEnders actor, and Linda Riley, the LGBT rights activist."

I will curiously await their solutions to maternity pay gaps that don't involve fewer children or more children in paid care.

You don't have to agree with any of these parties to think it might be counterproductive to have politicians and pundits constantly going on talk shows to explain that east Germans are unsophisticated rubes who don't understand democracy.
Hm, that reminds me of something here in the UK... Can't quite put my finger on it... Some referendum we had.... And then a whole swathe of politicians act surprised when the despised rubes vote for Reform

What did Marx think of visual arts like painting / engraving or performance arts like drama / opera / ballet / music hall? Or writings that people paid for like books and magazines?

I wonder what Marx would have made of this kind of 'wealth creation'!

That, plus the sluggish economy, plus the energy crisis, plus east Germany is still considerably poorer than the west, plus a clown show coalition government in which nobody seems to know what they're doing.

Germany is interesting because the median German voter leans a bit to the left on economic issues and a bit to the right on cultural issues, but thanks to the political party cartel that runs the Federal Republic, they usually get the opposite of what they vote for. This should not be difficult for Brits to understand.

East Germans in particular are absolutely pissed off with their rulers and for a generation now have been voting heavily for any populists who promise to upset the cartel. That used to be Die Linke before the party was taken over by Berlin hipsters, now it's the AfD and more recently BSW. You don't have to agree with any of these parties to think it might be counterproductive to have politicians and pundits constantly going on talk shows to explain that east Germans are unsophisticated rubes who don't understand democracy.

The Greens over there are now in the interesting position where they still get glowing media coverage but the actual voters hate them.

The UK is not the only country with a political class that strongly resembles Principal Skinner wondering why the kids are out of touch.

My kids will use real money to buy things like an electronic hat for a computer avatar in a game.

My partner knows someone who makes a good living designing and creating one off virtual clothing and accessories which she sells to people for their computer avatars. Another person I'm aware of makes 'bespoke' virtual guns and weapons for gamers — again, earns enough to live well and travels the world while working remotely. Both started it as a side hustle, then found it paid more than 'real' work.

It does make it quite difficult to go along with the 'you boomers never had it so good' whinging.

Possible that it's just someone who thinks any questioning or criticism of the left must come from the right.

I think it's a narrative loop we can't get out of. It's centre left media and entrenched

So people talk about this in one way but then bump into facts. Like we can't increase every year can we?

And we can't take everyone so some controls are actually required.

The conversation is woeful though, really so bad. People lose rationality and logic

And yes agree on nature and biodiversity

My friend Rachel spoke about the maternity pay gap at Labour's conference at the weekend and was well-received. Labour is on it: it'll take time to change it, but there a people working on the issue and we can expect improvements.

Conference rejected the abolition of the WFA and it's expected that there will be revisions soon, to ensure the poorest band of pensioners don't lose out.

In a public speech for LWD at the weekend, Tonia Antoniazzi announced that Labour have stepped away from self ID. I think she can be relied on to have got the go-ahead to say that. Labour are waiting for the Scottish Supreme Court ruling on what sex means in the Equality Act. If the Supreme Court rules that it means biological sex only, they will accept that. More likely that the Supreme Court will conclude the law isn't clear and throw it back to Parliament to rule on, at which point Labour's GC MPs will fight for changes to protect women's rights.

I note that elsewhere people are criticising Labour Women's Declaration for not having Rosie Duffield speak. Rosie wasn't, apparently, available. Last year Tonia chaired the LWD meeting which was held outside the security zone because LWD were not permitted to participate in the conference itself. Tonia stepped up, in the rain, to support LWD.

Annaliese Dodds, despite being minister for Women and Equalities, was unwilling to talk to certain women's groups at the conference. This is not a surprise, obviously: she's a genderist. Very troubling.
https://t.co/qFZaHkcaQg

The link is to an archived Telegraph article by Julie Bindel.

From Pembrokeshire:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/clyl52jz73vo
Lobby your council to do likewise.

I think they very much don't.

I mean, everyone can see, surely, that space is not infinite?

What I find quite odd is that there are a lot of people who seem to think the government should be going crazy on house building who are also, supposedly, environmentalists. I find it really hard to understand how they think that works. It's like they only mean carbon output, they don't care about actual nature.

Speak for yourself. I might well feel politically homeless, but I didn’t vote Tory. Would never in a million years vote for fucking Farage.

Edited to add: is this a not so subtle effort to yet again label FWR as ‘far right’. Getting boring now.

And in some.rural areas second homes and holiday lets are also buying up all.the available property and pricing out residents. I know that happens down South, too, although I suppose the larger scale issues are a lack.of new high density building.

I don't know.about England, but in areas in Scotland the housing shortage is largely driven by changing demographics. Smaller and smaller households; more single occupiers; fewer multi generational households.

I think it's coming back to bite for a few other politicians too now, Merkel's lack of foresight for Germany

I don't actually think you can keep selling ever higher populations

I live on a large council estate built in the 30s on what was then the edge of London. It wasn't just a load of houses; it included a new hospital, surgery, schools, shops, cinema, parks and transport integrated with the nearest Tube station on the newly extended line. The houses aren't big, but they have plenty of storage, and gardens. Obviously they couldn't predict that in the future even working class households would own at least one car, but they clearly sat down and drew up a list of "what makes a nice area for families to live".

Just mindlessly building houses wherever you can squeeze them stores up different types of futre social problems.

I've been saying for years that population growth is a Ponzi scheme and will come back to bite us on the bum. England has the highest population density in Europe barring the various city states and then people blame farmers for us being 'the most nature-depleted country'. Yeah, sure. A massive field near me that used to be full of skylarks and poppies is now covered in bloody houses. Great for agricultural output and wildlife.

You also have to consider social cohesion. I am not anti immigration at all, but I am opposed to continuing high levels to an overcrowded country with a housing crisis.

Obviously it's a Ponzi scheme. It's a short term solution that means politicians don't have to think about difficult long term problems, and that's the appeal.

The trouble comes if they've been putting off thinking about the long term problems since Tony Blair was PM.

Do people want the population always to increase? It's a bit of a Ponzi scheme that pushes the problem forward if so

Also the practical issues. Housing estates are being vomited up on every square foot of green land in my area, at high speed, everywhere. Huge amounts of open space and green land has been destroyed. The housing estates are badly planned, particularly for parking and cars, and the affordable homes are a few tucked in a corner. There is little to no care for infrastructure, the hospital was designed for the population 20 years ago before the explosion of incomers and can't cope, the GPs can't cope, the schools can't cope, the roads are gridlocked because the town was never designed for this kind of traffic, it impacts all users. Flooding is a huge issue and concreting over needed run off and open ground has been done with glee because it brings in council tax to a broke LA and that's all they can see. And when you crowd people together, remove all the green and open space and make services more scarce and over stretched?

Well it's not exactly going to be a happy, contented and thriving population.

And what's discouraging is, you don't get the sense that politicians (in any party) are seriously grappling with this.

And the fact that any government is presiding over a population that is economically discouraged from having kids while doing all of this is part of why it's a kick in the teeth. And that's not just because they can't afford it, it's because education and work culture make it too hard for people to take care of more children.