Kemi elected leader of the Tory party

Pleased she won and interested to see how she gets on

Firstly - thank goodness Jenrick didn't win. (Sorry he is just so terrible, not having him is a priority. Like not having Trump.)

Secondly - brilliant to have an articulate woman leading a party. With the plus that she is a WoC.

But, if I heard correctly, although she won, in fact only just offer 50% of Tory members who could vote did vote.

So as we really need a good opposition to Labour's (not sure what to call it) agenda I think she will be really powerful, but worry about factions in the Tory party sniping at her and briefing the Tory papers. Like they did with Theresa May.

Bur firstly to show that she really is committed to Women's rights, she needs to get some GC Tories onto the Women & Equalities Committee. At the moment there are none. This really brings into question their real committment to women's rights.

But the Tory Party should be able to do well because Labour keeps on making blunders. Even those who think the WFA should be means tested think that by announcing it so early, pre budget etc., just makes it look mean spirited. And now the Budget has upset others, not all, so for the first time in years, an opinion poll has the Tories more popular than Labour. (ANd Reform took a seat from Labour in a Council election.)

I just wonder she does seem to be quite an independent thinker etc., how hard she going to find it to have to represent a "Tory Party" view, rather than her own.

When's the first PM Questions in the HoC? Cant wait. Go get that hollow smarmy suited vaccum who depressingly is our PM, Kemi!

She’s not for me on most political points, but she is good on gender (critical) stuff.

And despite not liking most of her political views, I genuinely LOVE that she a black woman who is a mother of three leading the Conservative Party. It’s a real win whatever your political viewpoint. It’s really quite revolting (and I say this as someone who has voted for Labour for many, many years!) that Labour has only ever managed white male leaders in this day and age.

Perhaps I am being unfairly judgemental of Dawn Butler here but I can’t help but see this comment as sour grapes that the historical record for ‘First Black Woman Leader of a UK political party’ has been nabbed by a) someone who is not Dawn Butler and b) a Conservative.

As the kids are wont to say, this seems like pure cope from Butler,

I think this is on the right track, but I also thought that part of what she was getting at was that the number of regulations on business were affecting their productivity, at least in some cases. And that there are other models for maternity provision that should be looked at.

I think what she's said on this topic is very preliminary, which makes it very difficult to answer the public's questions.

In general, I tend to think she's right with a lot of the problems she identifies. It's a problem that the way educational provision is set up creates a hierarchy of needs. A myopic focus on mainstream integration seems to be hugely problematic in conjunction with that. And maybe more to the point, it doesn't seem to be helping the children, any of them.

Reasonably though the public wants to know what her answers are.

And here is the problem - she doesn't, couldn't, and shouldn't be expected to have the answers to complex questions like that on her own. What's clear is that there needs to be another very clear headed, pragmatic look at how education works for all children. And that's something that will have to be done by a group of people with some expertise, who are not hemmed in by ideological policy assumptions.

There is no way to get to that until people are willing to recognize that there is a need to rethink. And unfortunately a lot of organizations will be too scared to agree to that.

But it's nice to see that someone is at least trying to think about how policy operates at a deeper level, rather than just the optics.

No, I think you're trying to rewrite history. And so is she.

If Kemi was talking about business regulation, and her comments were not at all relevant to maternity pay, why do you think she made the following comment in the same conversation:

"We need to have more personal responsibility - there was a time when there wasn’t any maternity pay and people were having more babies."

Why would she hark back to a time when there was no maternity pay if she wasn't talking about maternity pay.

Just because she knows what a woman is, doesn't mean she gives a shit about women's rights.

I don't recall seeing anyone on Mumsnet arguing for trans-identied people to be discriminated against in employment and housing

You must have missed this thread & the multiple previous ones where posters were doing exactly that in agreement with Kellie-Jay Keen.

www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5186900-trans-activists-gatecrash-womens-rights-rally-as-they-protest-speech-by-kellie-jay-keen-at-let-women-speak-event-in-the-home-of-suffragette-emily-davison?page=1

Imagine the outcry if a white MP made that comment?

It’s an appalling thing to say regardless of what side of the political spectrum.

So what job will she give Jenrick? Home Secretary?

That's a horrible thing for her to say regardless of what her or Kemi's politics are.

A good choice for leader of the opposition but I hope she never becomes PM. She's very right-wing and supports several anti-women policies. No thanks.

No, she didn't! She said that business regulation was too excessive. Meanwhile the interviewer tried to insert Maternity pay in the middle of her outlining her previous point. She was trying to explain that all benefits are a function of taxation and was then going on to explain how this system can work as a detriment, and how it could possibly be improved.

The job of journalists in our 24 hour news culture has become to goad and twist and spin. The best ones don't do this, though, even if most now do because it creates sensationalism and headlines - on which the public love to feed.

That she said something she actually didn't has now become a common truth.

Dawn Butler is a bloody disgrace.

Good grief - and we wonder why so many people are unable to engage in civilised debate. If this is the response of a senior Labour woman parliamentarian you can only imagine what the racists out on the street are saying.

Being anti-trans does not make you pro-woman ...

And being pro-woman doesn't make you "anti-trans". I would have left here long ago if the predominant sentiment was to make life hard for trans-identified people. I don't recall seeing anyone on Mumsnet arguing for trans-identied people to be discriminated against in employment and housing, or not protected by police from abuse. But when other people's rights, to women's spaces or free speech for example, are attacked, those rights need to be defended.

Above all, from my perspective as a parent, I want to see trans-identified people protected from ideological based medicine and for truth to be spoken about the harms of hormone treatments and surgery. If such treatments can be demonstrated clearly to have benefits which outweigh the harms in some cases, I suppose I will have to accept them. At the moment, the harms appear to me to outweigh any benefits in all the cases I have direct knowledge of.

Gosh that's nasty

What is it with Labour MPs and this kind of stuff

Well isn’t Dawn a treat. Can’t even be gracious in respecting a fellow black woman in politics without getting nasty

This is great - an articulate and thoughtful leader for a change. Hopefully she'll be great opposition!

The current CB thing is completely nonsensical! Surely that’s an easy reform to make?

I don’t think Kemi and I have many common views beyond opposing gender identity ideology but I suspect she’ll be a fabulous opponent for Kier Starmer at PMQs and it feels like it’s been ages since we had a truly oppositional opposition so perhaps both parties will end up better for it?

Labour surely can’t keep up the IDPOL crap when their leader is male, pale and stale and the conservatives have a (relatively!) young black female leader?

If Labour can get back to projects like Sure Start and building affordable homes and undoing some of Goves work (thus improving teacher retention in state schools) that would be great for everyone, all this fannying about with EDI stuff just causes bigger social divides and increases resentment.

The Martin Lewis BBC podcast on the budget is an interesting listen - a very speedy reaction and he highlights things Labour haven't done - they haven't reformed child benefit which means that it's still based on the highest earner's wage not household, disadvantaging single parents (usually women). They also haven't extended the cut in stamp duty and haven't improved the cliff edge with carer's allowance (if you go over a certain income level you lose the lot - very relevant if you're on minimum wage and your April pay rise takes you over the £151 a week eligibility threshold).

Edited due to typos.

Being anti-trans does not make you pro-woman, and in fact if you look at most of the most vocal anti-trans politicians across the western world and take a look at their attitudes to women in general, you might well notice a trend

whereas you can guarantee that any “pro trans” politician will have not even stopped to consider women in their headlong rush to ensure men don’t have to be told no

@RoyalCorgi

What a vapid nasty comment. I am a mixed race woman myself, but even if I wasn't, do you believe we must all blindly agree with all women and all PoC on all issues or we are suddenly misogynist or racist? All you've demonstrated here is you have no argument against me except taking cheap personal shots, and ones that don't even make sense at that. I would love to see KB stand up for women's rights (or for immigrants and the children of immigrantsfor that matter), but I have yet to see her do that at all, and I think you're sorrowfully mistaken if you think a right wing Tory is likely to do so. Being anti-trans does not make you pro-woman, and in fact if you look at most of the most vocal anti-trans politicians across the western world and take a look at their attitudes to women in general, you might well notice a trend. In future if you don't agree with me, try addressing the content ofmy actual comment instead of some pathetic "huh huh you disagreed with a black woman that makes you racist" playground taunting.