The Conservatives may be the only party left where women and LGB people can speak freely about their rights

The problem with socialism is sooner or later you run out of other people's money.

We measure poverty in a way that guarantees people will always be in poverty.

Debt advice and people learning to live within their (and the country's) means is vital.

You can't give everyone everything.

Fuller employment is essential to solve the worklessness problem that is killing the country.

We have medicalised anxiety. Everyone wants a badge because that means more benefits.

How can we encourage good mental health and resilience without accepting reality of the financial circumstances?

The action that created the gender ideology is the GRA 2004 under Labour.

What a load of rubbish

Thanks Retire. On the substantive issue it doesn’t surprise me that it’s the Conservative Party where you can actually have a sensible discussion about women’s rights these days. They have, quite sensibly, seen it as a vote winner for them. It’s an 80/20 issue and, despite the attempts of many brave and principled women, one on which Labour, the LibDems and the Greens are really not to be trusted. Like Trump against the Democrats (KH is for they/them) the Conservatives can weaponise this. What we really need is for all of the other parties to come back to sanity, to recognise that women are real human beings with actual rights. We are closer than we were but we’re still a long way away.

Realistically we’re in the same position BAME/POC were immediately following the Race Equality Act 1968. The law is clear, but society has a long way to go before it catches up.

And oh my Penny Mourdant. Here’s hoping there will be enough wise Tory grandees realising that she would tank a much needed electoral advantage at a time when they don’t have many of those.

They can say what they want, the Tories aren’t in power. Even if they are the party for women’s rights, which I doubt they would be if they got back in, they have the wrong approach to nearly everything else so I would never vote for them.

In fourteen years they did so much damage that will take years to undo. They failed to invest in infrastructure or people. And the reason the water companies are such a mess are because of previous conservative ideology to privatise everything possible.

And did the Tories think it worth anyones while to repeal that legislation?

Well they’d need a mandate for that. Would you like to see it repealed?

The problem with billionaires is sooner or later they run out of other people's money....

You can't give everyone everything - but some do their level best to steal as much as they possibly can.

We have medicalised anxiety - if more people get treatment that makes them feel better, this is a good thing.

Everyone wants a badge because that means more benefits. - A complete canard; you don't get benefits merely for being anxious, you have to demonstrate how anything (loss of limb, mental health, ...) impacts your life significantly.

How can we encourage good mental health and resilience without accepting reality of the financial circumstances? Quite. The UK has a lot of money as a country but the distribution of it is so appallingly skewed that far too many are living (in fear of plummeting into) deprivation; that eats away at the mind and body in the most insidious fashion so it is no surprise that it damages people's health (mental and physical).

Maybe you didn't notice but they had one from 2010 until 2024.

A mandate for a specific action. Did you want them to repeal the GRA in that time? If a party proposed to repeal it would you vote for it?

Yep, my MP Rebecca Paul is a Tory, she's trying to get to men out of Downveiw women's prison and find out how Surrey Police allowed the peadophile and head of Surrey Pride Stephen Ireland to evade investigation. She's hard working and normal and jnvolvec in local affairs I'm voting for her again

The value in the article is making clear to people what banning conversion therapy actually means.

My MP, not a Tory, is gender critical - and my point there is that there are gender critical allies in Westminster regardless of party. It is more valuable to have an informed conversation about it with your own MP. Book an appointment to see them in person and discuss what you want them to do. Write to them if you can’t spare the time for a face to face. That is how we shift the dial on the issue.

So tired of opinion pieces in the news. It gives the author licence to write fictional scaremongering under the guise of authoritative concern.

I agree too the first parts were unprofessional caricatures:
In the background, a group of young lads in suits were spluttering at each other about business rates with the boyish enthusiasm of plane-spotters. Smiling indulgently to myself I looked down and saw a cold baked bean left over from lunch, fused to my top with cheese. After heading to the loo to scrub it off, and emerging with a large wet patch around my left boob,…

I love this bit These are not fanciful readings oh yes dear author they are flights of dystopian fancy. No court is going to send to prison a spouse that says frilly lingerie comes out of your personal spends vs household budget or convict a parent of child abuse for restricting what that child watches on TikTok.

Note the LGB mention but then complete erasure of the B in everything she wrote.

I wanted to ask which other forms of mental distress we treat by altering healthy bodies, Seriously?? most cosmetic and reconstructive surgery is to counter mental distress. HRT alters healthy bodies to address the mental distress of going through peri. Every medication for mental illness alters healthy bodies- why do you think people on antipsychotics have to have kidney and liver function tests every few months? We have prophylactic masectomies for women experiencing health anxiety that they might get breast cancer.

But he was a nice chap, doing his best, so I let it go. or maybe you let it go because it is an idiotic soundbite?

In summary, thanks bean for your puff piece on the conservative conference but that party has done too much damage to the country for me to forget or forgive.

The value in the article is making clear to people what banning conversion therapy actually means.

No it does not. This is one woman’s opinion on what she thinks it might mean and frankly, it is my opinion is she has written a bunch of scaremongering tosh.

You are free to agree with her, but keep in mind it is opinion and therefore not subject to any fact or bias checks or any journalistic ethics.