Tory leadership race: James Cleverly knocked out - leaving Robert Jenrick and Kemi Badenoch in final two

IwantToRetire · 2024-10-09T16:53:30+00:00

^There is shock and surprise after the former foreign secretary, who catapulted ahead after Tory conference, is eliminated from the contest.^ ^Tory MPs held a final vote on Wednesday to reduce the field to a final two, who will then go to a ballot of Conservative members.^ ^After picking up 42 votes in the final round of voting, Ms Badenoch re-established herself as the favourite after lagging behind in previous rounds.^ ^Robert Jenrick, her close rival on the right, picked up one vote shy of Ms Badenoch, while Mr Cleverly - who was seen as a unifying candidate - won the backing of 37 MPs.^ More at [[https://news.sky.com/story/tory-leadership-race-james-cleverly-knocked-out-leaving-robert-jenrick-and-kemi-badenoch-as-final-two-facing-party-membership-vote-13230871 https://news.sky.com/story/tory-leadership-race-james-cleverly-knocked-out-leaving-robert-jenrick-and-kemi-badenoch-as-final-two-facing-party-membership-vote-13230871]]

Original poster

IwantToRetire · 18/10/2024 16:49

IwantToRetire · 17/10/2024 17:06

I was being a tiny bit sarcastic, because in relation to children / young people, you will endlessly hear on the MSM that young people today have it harder than any other generation of young people.

Not having to go down coal mines or up chimneys
Not being conscripted into the armed forces
Not being made to serve 5 years (or longer) apprenticeships
Not leaving school at 15 and expected to start work
Not coming of age until you are 21
Not having paid holidays let alone in another country
Not having your baby taken away from you because you are an unwed mother
Not being prosecuted for having an abortion

You have to ask who is making these children / young people feel so inadequate that they cant cope. Or is it that they are being fed a false idea of what life is actually like as opposed to on screen fantasies.

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Should have included:

Not being sectioned or chemically castrated for being same sex attracted
Not being shut away in an institution and lobotomised for being a female who didn't conform

I would hate to think that in fact today's young people would be less stressed if in fact they would be happier living in more restricted times, with behaviour and values mapped out for them, rather than the "stress" of apparently having any number of options.

(I've added apparently as being able to act on choice is in fact usually only open to those with existing privileges.)

OP posts:

Original poster

IwantToRetire · 18/10/2024 16:42

TooBigForMyBoots · 18/10/2024 02:14

Christopher Chope MP is a nasty misogynist and has made a name for himself in the Tory party as a man who can be trusted to oppose women and women's rights.

I'm no fan of Badenoch, but Chope's opposition to her leadership bid stems from his misogyny.

Edited

Well yes, obviusly!

But it is such an overt reminder that any notion that women's liberation or feminism has in any way changed underlying patriarchal attitudes, just hasn't happened.

He said this not only because he believes it, but because he also believes other people think like him.

And people voted him in as an MP.

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EasternStandard · 18/10/2024 11:46

BonfireLady · 18/10/2024 06:38

Good to see Jenrick recognises that he doesn't need that kind of support. This is a good response on his behalf:

A spokesperson for Jenrick also disowned Chope’s comments, saying: “Rob doesn’t agree with this. He’s raising three young daughters himself.”

Yes, he's raising daughters - and they are all still young. Far too often the raising bit is only attached to the woman and the woman's career in the language that people use. Like Chope 😡 His pathetic justification that the relative ages of the children is what makes a difference just adds more weight to the idea that he probably thinks women's careers are a hobby to fit in where possible while the husbands do the real work - the ages of all the children are near enough the same when it comes to what they would need from their parents.

The BBC has a direct quote from Jenrick too:

Speaking during the same TV event, Jenrick said Chope was "definitely wrong".
"Kemi and I both have three children. She's a great mum, I'd like to think I'm a good dad. We will both be able to balance this, whoever leads our party forward," he added.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c62dke21y24o

Good, that was a decent response

To add, a hopefully normal modern response but still, a moment where competing politicians say something in support

MarieDeGournay · 18/10/2024 10:06

So KB would be a bad leader because she's a childless cat lady. Oh wait, no, wrong side of the Atlantic - she's a catless child lady. Or she's too preoccupied with her cats. Of which she has too many. Or was that children?

Too many children, not enough children, cats not children - it all boils down to just one thing: A WOMAN'S PLACE IS IN THE WRONG😡 .

SquirrelSoShiny · 18/10/2024 07:06

I think Kemi Badenoch tells the truth about things and people react badly to it. We are so accustomed to politicians being evasive weasels that people are outraged by public truth telling. After all some people gasp with horror when people refuse to 'be kind' and say transwomen are men.

BonfireLady · 18/10/2024 06:38

Good to see Jenrick recognises that he doesn't need that kind of support. This is a good response on his behalf:

A spokesperson for Jenrick also disowned Chope’s comments, saying: “Rob doesn’t agree with this. He’s raising three young daughters himself.”

Yes, he's raising daughters - and they are all still young. Far too often the raising bit is only attached to the woman and the woman's career in the language that people use. Like Chope 😡 His pathetic justification that the relative ages of the children is what makes a difference just adds more weight to the idea that he probably thinks women's careers are a hobby to fit in where possible while the husbands do the real work - the ages of all the children are near enough the same when it comes to what they would need from their parents.

The BBC has a direct quote from Jenrick too:

Speaking during the same TV event, Jenrick said Chope was "definitely wrong".
"Kemi and I both have three children. She's a great mum, I'd like to think I'm a good dad. We will both be able to balance this, whoever leads our party forward," he added.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c62dke21y24o

Kemi Badenoch speaking at a TV leadership event on GB News

Kemi Badenoch dismisses Tory MP's parenthood remark

Sir Christopher Chope suggested Badenoch would be less able to commit to the demands of being party leader.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c62dke21y24o

TooBigForMyBoots · 18/10/2024 02:14

Christopher Chope MP is a nasty misogynist and has made a name for himself in the Tory party as a man who can be trusted to oppose women and women's rights.

I'm no fan of Badenoch, but Chope's opposition to her leadership bid stems from his misogyny.

Original poster

IwantToRetire · 18/10/2024 00:55

Tory MP says Badenoch too ‘preoccupied with her children’ to lead party
“Much as I like Kemi, I think she’s preoccupied with her own children, quite understandably. I think Robert’s children are a bit older, and I think that it’s important that whoever leads the opposition has got an immense amount of time and energy.”
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/oct/17/tory-mp-says-badenoch-too-preoccupied-with-her-children-to-lead-party

Badenoch hits back at Tory MP who said she's 'too preoccupied' with her children to be party leader
Mother-of-three Ms Badenoch's youngest child is five and her eldest is 12, while Mr Jenrick also has three children between the ages of eight and 13.
https://news.sky.com/story/badenoch-hits-back-at-tory-mp-who-said-shes-too-preoccupied-with-her-children-to-be-party-leader-13235266

Tory MP says Badenoch too ‘preoccupied with her children’ to lead party

Christopher Chope’s comments draw widespread condemnation, with Stella Creasy saying ‘dinosaurs walk amongst us’

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/oct/17/tory-mp-says-badenoch-too-preoccupied-with-her-children-to-lead-party

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TempestTost · 17/10/2024 17:47

I certainly think the inherent stressors aren't greater, in terms of war, possible destruction of everything, etc. People in the past, recent and long ago, had all of these things.

I do think that actually leaving school at 15 to work and apprenticeships might have been a lot better for quite a few children. Leaving them dependant up into their teens and even 20s, I suspect is bad for mental health. Maybe even very bad.

Rummly · 17/10/2024 17:36

I think life has got easier, overall, for children of every generation since the 19th century.

Original poster

IwantToRetire · 17/10/2024 17:06

TempestTost · 16/10/2024 01:59

Is that true, that life has never been so stressful? Is it even plausible?

I was being a tiny bit sarcastic, because in relation to children / young people, you will endlessly hear on the MSM that young people today have it harder than any other generation of young people.

Not having to go down coal mines or up chimneys
Not being conscripted into the armed forces
Not being made to serve 5 years (or longer) apprenticeships
Not leaving school at 15 and expected to start work
Not coming of age until you are 21
Not having paid holidays let alone in another country
Not having your baby taken away from you because you are an unwed mother
Not being prosecuted for having an abortion

You have to ask who is making these children / young people feel so inadequate that they cant cope. Or is it that they are being fed a false idea of what life is actually like as opposed to on screen fantasies.

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songaboutjam · 17/10/2024 12:43

I think modern life is uniquely stressful compared to stress in the past. I don't think life is more stressful but perhaps our ability to cope with it has also worn down?

I would argue modern society is the equivalent of the depressed polar bear in the plastic zoo enclosure. Many Westerners live in totally unnatural environments. That which threatens us is often too abstract for our evolutionary instincts to cope with. We're no longer medieval peasants worrying about gathering food for the winter and defending ourselves against the marauding horsemen from across the steppes - instead we're fretting about bills, taxation, the 24-hour cycle of bad news, and whether we might qualify for some kind of financial benefit. And many of us have no religion, community or natural survival skills to fall back on for some sense of comfort - all things our ancestors would have had.

TempestTost · 16/10/2024 01:59

Is that true, that life has never been so stressful? Is it even plausible?

Original poster

IwantToRetire · 14/10/2024 20:14

The Socialisation of Mental Health

While people talking about mental health is a positive, the socialisation of mental health so everyone has to treat you differently has failed to improve people’s mental health outcomes. As one academic put it, across the West, ‘the meaning of ‘safety underwent a process of ‘concept creep’ and expanded to included ‘emotional safety’… The subjective experience of ‘harm’ became definitional in assessing trauma’. Psychological and psychotherapy professions numbers went from 102,000 in 2002 to 223,700 in 2023. In 1999 the NHS spent £4 billion on mental health, which had risen to £16.8 billion by 2023/4.

This approach now offers economic advantages and protections. If you have a neurodiversity diagnosis (e.g. anxiety, autism), you are in a category similar to race or biological sex in terms of discrimination law and general attitudes. As a child, you may well get better treatment or equipment at school – even transport to and from home. If you are in the workforce, you are protected in employment terms from day 1, you can more easily claim for unfair dismissal, and can also require your employer makes ‘reasonable adjustments’ to your job (only revealed after you are employed). By 2024, mental health was the number 1 issue for new welfare claimants, with this as the primary claim for 41% of all new disability related benefit claims.

primary claim for 41% of all new disability related benefit claims
which is presumably a fact.

But without further research how can you claim it is about people hitching on to an issue, as opposed to what some claim, which is that life has never been so stressful.

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TooBigForMyBoots · 14/10/2024 20:04

It's at the bottom of page 6 in the document. Here's a not very good screenshot.

Tory leadership race: James Cleverly knocked out - leaving Robert Jenrick and Kemi Badenoch in final two

Original poster

IwantToRetire · 14/10/2024 19:53

Have found a link to the pamphlet in this article.

Politics is no longer about class in the old sense – increasingly, whether you are high income does not drive your voting patterns. Educated voters are moving left, and many private sector voters on average incomes are moving right. Brexit was a symptom of deeper currents across the West, not a cause of them, and we need to think more intelligently if we are to ride this wave of change and not be drowned by it. This voting shift is part of a series of wider changes.

In nearly every country, a new progressive ideology is on the rise. This ideology is based on the twin pillars of constant intervention on behalf of protecting marginalized, vulnerable groups, including protecting us from ourselves – and the idea that bureaucrats make better decisions than individuals, or even democratic nation states.

This ideology is behind the rise of identity politics, the attacks on the democracy, sovereign nation state, and ever-more government via spending and regulation. It is driving the economic slowdown seen across the West and social polarization in country after country. A new left, not based primarily on nationalization and private sector trade unions, but ever increasing social and economic control.

A new class of people, a new and growing bureaucratic class, is driving these changes. More and more jobs are related not to providing goods and services in the marketplace, but are instead focused around administering government rules. Often these jobs are in private sector bureaucracies, confounding the old split between the public and private sectors.

Part of the article which is quite long https://conservativehome.com/2024/09/30/kemi-badenoch-conservatism-is-in-crisis-and-we-need-to-be-serious-about-getting-it-back-on-track/ and has links to the actual pamphlet with is even longer.

Kemi Badenoch: Conservatism is in crisis, and we need to be serious about getting it back on track | Conservative Home

More and more jobs are related not to providing goods and services in the marketplace, but are instead focused around administering government rules.

https://conservativehome.com/2024/09/30/kemi-badenoch-conservatism-is-in-crisis-and-we-need-to-be-serious-about-getting-it-back-on-track

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TooBigForMyBoots · 14/10/2024 19:48

It's a 40 page document that's easily downloaded. Most of the news articles have a link.

Original poster

IwantToRetire · 14/10/2024 19:42

TooBigForMyBoots · 14/10/2024 19:27

The National Autistic Society has responded.

https://www.autism.org.uk/what-we-do/news/the-national-autistic-society-has-responded-to-kem

Agree with the statement, but unfortunately haven't seen the actual pamplet her comments are based on.

So just wondering it, as with the trans issue, she is raising the possibility (fact in terms of trans) that there are those with actual issues and those who abuse this reality for their own ends.

Has anyone seen, got a link to, the actual article.

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UtopiaPlanitia · 14/10/2024 19:42

IwantToRetire · 14/10/2024 18:22

I suspect you are right.

What Theresa May proposed was actually a reality that we are still skirting round, and in fact care for older people has got worse.

Her idea may not have been the right one, but the issue needed and still needs to be fixed. But the media just used it as a way to attack her.

And suspect, from what now seems to be a pattern with KB, that she does believe in rights, and fighting for them, but doesn't like it when they are misused, exploited.

Although on this issue there is a fine line between enabling someone with a condition of any sort to be able to work, and for it not to be seen as giving someone an advantage.

Or, though not having read the actual article, when a genuine condition is then adopted by any number of people who claim they too have it.

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KB might have a point in some ways - I'm thinking of how in the USA lots of people have been unmasked for taking advantage of initiatives created to address racial imbalance in university or employment. KB's right that, if you create a category that offers disadvantaged people help, there will always be canny people looking to take advantage of that opportunity that doesn't truly belong to them.

I don't think KBs necessarily making an argument for doing away with providing this help to allow people to compete on a level playing field, I think it's an argument for having strict, objectively measured, factual criteria (that are not open to expansive readings of the qualifying measure) to ensure you're helping those who really need it.

TooBigForMyBoots · 14/10/2024 19:27

The National Autistic Society has responded.

https://www.autism.org.uk/what-we-do/news/the-national-autistic-society-has-responded-to-kem

The National Autistic Society has responded to Kemi Badenoch’s views on autism, as seen in the ‘Conservatism in Crisis’ pamphlet.

https://www.autism.org.uk/what-we-do/news/the-national-autistic-society-has-responded-to-kem

Original poster

IwantToRetire · 14/10/2024 18:22

illinivich · 14/10/2024 18:00

I'm reminded of when Theresa May wanted to do something about the cost and accessibility of long term care for the elderly, but it was spun as her wanting to increase tax, so it was put away and never spoke of again.

Maybe theres something in this, or maybe not. But if no-one can say anything nothing gets solved.

Maybe she should just smile, wave and promise to bring back penny mordaunt? It seems a more popular strategy with the media.

I suspect you are right.

What Theresa May proposed was actually a reality that we are still skirting round, and in fact care for older people has got worse.

Her idea may not have been the right one, but the issue needed and still needs to be fixed. But the media just used it as a way to attack her.

And suspect, from what now seems to be a pattern with KB, that she does believe in rights, and fighting for them, but doesn't like it when they are misused, exploited.

Although on this issue there is a fine line between enabling someone with a condition of any sort to be able to work, and for it not to be seen as giving someone an advantage.

Or, though not having read the actual article, when a genuine condition is then adopted by any number of people who claim they too have it.

OP posts:

illinivich · 14/10/2024 18:00

I'm reminded of when Theresa May wanted to do something about the cost and accessibility of long term care for the elderly, but it was spun as her wanting to increase tax, so it was put away and never spoke of again.

Maybe theres something in this, or maybe not. But if no-one can say anything nothing gets solved.

Maybe she should just smile, wave and promise to bring back penny mordaunt? It seems a more popular strategy with the media.

Original poster

IwantToRetire · 14/10/2024 17:38

oh dear, having said at least if KB was leader of the opposition, she would be able to take a stand for women's rights, seems that maybe sometime her bluntess does more harm than good.

This wasn't taken up at the time, but there was a leaflet at the Tory Party conference, with a forward from KB, saying that the swing in support of those with autism and other conditions had gone too far, which now means they have unfair "advantage" as employees.

The essay said being diagnosed as neurodiverse had gone from “an individual focused challenge” that “meant you could understand your own brain” to something that “offers economic advantages and protections”.

It said diagnoses of anxiety or autism were being treated similarly to race or sex discrimination, and that children with the conditions “may well get better treatment or equipment at school” including transport to and from home.

It added that an autism diagnosis in the workforce came with better employment protections against unfair dismissal and a requirement for workplaces to make reasonable adjustments.

The essay said it was positive there was more openness around mental health, but the requirement for schools and workplaces to make adjustments for it had “created costs and failed to improve people’s mental health outcomes”.

A spokesperson for Badenoch told the i that it was “wrong to infer any prejudice” from the report and that it was “essential that we are able to talk about these issues without the media deliberately misleading their readers for the sake of easy headlines”.

“If we are to resolve the problem of deteriorating mental health, we must be able to point out that it is happening and how society has changed its approach to it and determine whether that approach is working,” they said.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/oct/14/kemi-badenoch-conservative-leadership-autism-campaign-pamphlet

Badenoch criticised for pamphlet’s ‘stigmatising’ remarks on autism

Former cabinet colleague of Tory leadership candidate says ‘muddled’ campaign essay does not take ‘correct approach’

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/oct/14/kemi-badenoch-conservative-leadership-autism-campaign-pamphlet

OP posts:

Snowypeaks · 14/10/2024 13:55

Might end up as a quiz question, but she'd still be on record as UK's first black female party leader.

Rummly · 14/10/2024 13:52

WhosPink · 14/10/2024 13:34

It means even if she wins this leadership contest it is extremely unlikely that she will still be leader at the next election, and even more unlikely that she will be leader at any election that the Tories can actually win. They will likely cycle through at least one more leader before the next election and, assuming they lose that, another couple before the following election, which is reasonably the first they have a chance of winning. The party had five leaders in six years, and typically the leader churn is higher in opposition than in government.

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Maybe, maybe not.

But that’s got nothing to do with post that was being replied to, which was straightforwardly about Badenoch - a Tory - prospectively being the first black female leader of a major party.