If there was a general election tomorrow and you were an ordinary woman on an average wage..

[Kreuzberg]

Who would you really vote for ? A party wishy washy on self ID and other trans issues with a gobby brash deputy leader who puts her foot in it and a lacking in charisma but well meaning leader or a party that implemented austerity, savage cuts to all public services, oversaw the deaths of 150,000, deceitful, pork barrel politics, corrupt, but with a teflon coated populist leader, plummy voiced slick mps and a less wishy washy stance on self ID (although not necessarily to be trusted)
What is most important to women earning £30,000 who are going to be hugely affected by the spiralling cost of living, struggling to heat their homes, feed their kids ? Issues very much the result of conservative policies like brexit, austerity etc or trans issues ?
I'm not pro self ID but not cat in hells chance I'd ever vote tory either. Their past record is not erased just because they say they know what a woman is. I'm addressing this to average earners too as they are on the front line.

@MarshaBradyo I don't think it came across that I was uncertain about who to vote for. I just wanted to hear from ordinary women earning an average wage how they would vote and what was important to them - trans issues or cost of living, corruption etc So many threads about this just turn into an anti labour pile on but it's impossible to know how many women really feel strongly about it. So no trap at all. Calling Johnson and the tories essentially corrupt sleaze bags is a good indication of how I feel politically I think. People are allowed to wonder why an inept, deceitful government can still muster 30% of the electorate wanting to vote for them surely ? But some folk get indignant as if it's a personal attack on their values. It's not but why can't we ask why do people turn a blind eye to the abysmal behaviour of this shower ? No doubt in the future books will be written about this in the same way that paul embry wrote about some of the red wall voting tory.

@RufustheFloralmissingreindeer calling people arrogant isn't ?

@EatSleepRantRepeat

Can I please remind everyone that Thatcher left power 32 years ago FFS! She's been dead 9 years!!

Thatcher this, Thatcher that - her policies were shitty for many people, including my own family, but what the men really hated her for was being a woman who wouldn't be told to sit down and shut up.

Blair took us into an illegal war and murdered thousands of Iraqis supposedly to protect us all from Saddam, comparable to what Poo-tin is doing now with Ukraine, yet I'm still yet to hear a formal apology from Labour for that. Over a million of us marched in London against it but they just treated us with contempt - I'll never forget that.

Exactly.

It's a form of an Ad Hominem Logical Fallacy when they bring up Thatcher and it shows they don't have much of an argument.

It seems incredible to me that quite a number of voters here don't realise there's different reasons to vote based on which part of the UK they're living in.

It's no surprise that many vote Conservative in Scotland based on the Constitutional debate and Labour has long been shown to be weak on that. How can Labour show itself to be strong on the Union in Scotland when they keep fielding pro-independence candidates? When their sister party is a Nationalist party in Northern Ireland known as the SDLP? On top of that, people haven't forgotten Labour's arrogance in Scotland under McConnell and their ineptitude with Murphy, Dugdale and Leonard.

Labour is in crisis across the UK. Their last stronghold is Wales and that's not guaranteed either.

Labour, party, activists and voters must take an honest look at themselves here......you can't blame the Conservatives and SNP for all your woes.

Honestly don’t want to vote for any but I’d vote Labour because poor people matter to me and I can’t abide tories.

I agree with MarshaBradyo it started like a discussion and very quickly turned into usual finger wagging about people daring not to vote Labour.

Labour has 20+ year of power here - NHS and education seem worse than English relatives related services and going down hill faster. My Local Labour constituency MP is dire - but if I vote for second party here Tory to get some change I'm single handedly responsible for every bad thing that happens - with ghost of Thatcher being raised.

I think it's telling two poorest districts in my city are one that voted in the independent local councillors.

Labour clearly doesn't know what a woman is - except when trying to silence with gagging orders about lastes sexual harrisment case - or what a working class voter unless near election time - more importantly it doesn't know how to listen and learn and that's shown in a variety of issues including education here.

@HalfShrunkMoreToGo

Labour,

I'm not a fan of their stance on self ID or womens rights, and think they are massively letting down their female voters in this regard but I can't vote Tory because they are absolutely awful and voting anyone else would be a waste of a vote, as would spoiling my ballot.

I'd rather Labour wins with their awful stance on women than Tory win because I and others like me didn't vote.

This.

Oh good lord…

I jokingly (ish) say your thread is a trap (because people answering in good faith have been called liars and bots for two reasons)

You start calling for evidence that you are something i never said you are, get defensive and say you never insulted anyone

I say that i feel that calling people bots and liars is insulting

This thread is fucking full of insults….its like lunchtime at school, that poster calling labour voters arrogant isn’t sitting there saying ‘but i haven’t insulted anyone’

You…the OP of the thread….have

[quote Kreuzberg]@MarshaBradyo I don't think it came across that I was uncertain about who to vote for. I just wanted to hear from ordinary women earning an average wage how they would vote and what was important to them - trans issues or cost of living, corruption etc So many threads about this just turn into an anti labour pile on but it's impossible to know how many women really feel strongly about it. So no trap at all. Calling Johnson and the tories essentially corrupt sleaze bags is a good indication of how I feel politically I think. People are allowed to wonder why an inept, deceitful government can still muster 30% of the electorate wanting to vote for them surely ? But some folk get indignant as if it's a personal attack on their values. It's not but why can't we ask why do people turn a blind eye to the abysmal behaviour of this shower ? No doubt in the future books will be written about this in the same way that paul embry wrote about some of the red wall voting tory.[/quote]
Oh and to be fair to you

I absolutely took from your first post that you preferred labour

That wasnt the trap bit

Ooooooo ooo ooo

One last thing

I agree that any thread about how dreadful the tories are turns into ‘but labour’

That’s pathetic whichever way it goes

[quote Kreuzberg]@MarshaBradyo I don't think it came across that I was uncertain about who to vote for. I just wanted to hear from ordinary women earning an average wage how they would vote and what was important to them - trans issues or cost of living, corruption etc So many threads about this just turn into an anti labour pile on but it's impossible to know how many women really feel strongly about it. So no trap at all. Calling Johnson and the tories essentially corrupt sleaze bags is a good indication of how I feel politically I think. People are allowed to wonder why an inept, deceitful government can still muster 30% of the electorate wanting to vote for them surely ? But some folk get indignant as if it's a personal attack on their values. It's not but why can't we ask why do people turn a blind eye to the abysmal behaviour of this shower ? No doubt in the future books will be written about this in the same way that paul embry wrote about some of the red wall voting tory.[/quote]
Of course you can vote for whomever you like, everyone can.

I’m not really up for telling people they are wrong to vote the way they want to, and in return I don’t want to defend why the things I find important are do to me - so I do usually avoid threads where they are majority insults and calling people bots etc

I’d say though that on here there are plenty of threads where it’s not the labour supporters receiving this - so many threads end up the same way with a pile on - where’s X and Y bots etc (the only few posters who seem ok with being attacked by many) so I very much disagree that Labour supporters don’t have a strong voice on this site.

Whoever is most likely to get the Tories out.

I find the Tories actively cruel and venal and absolutely don’t agree that all politicians are the same.

@RufustheFloralmissingreindeer i didnt call anyone a liar. How can a thread asking the average female voter what's important to them turn into an argument ?
There have been plenty of accusations of arrogance from some posters who are aggrieved that others wonder about their motivation for voting a certain way. Can't deny the abysmal record of this government but people still support them, surely it's reasonable to ask why ? We are allowed to discuss how badly they are doing aren't we ?
Fwiw all the parties are in crisis. Most tory mps were ready to ditch johnson a few weeks ago but so spineless and devoid of morality they didn't. Labour in turmoil over trans issues. Lib dems are invisible.

Have you not been here long?

It always turns into an argument 😀

But I dont want to argue so im going to leave it here 💐

I don't think all politicians are the same but I don't think the good and bad split nicely on party lines

Whilst you may not agree with the stance labour take you can't insist that it's because of the issues you highlight above because they don't hold up to scrutiny.

I disagree. I think they DO stand up to scrutiny and I think that if you have daughters, as I do, in state schools and you're concerned with education and girls having access to education, then Labour are a bigger threat to that than the Tories.

There are schools here that Muslim girls are effectively excluded from because they don't have single sex toilets. I'm sort of aghast that people think this is fine in 2022 in the UK - for a certain subset of girls (although I'd imagine most girls don't actually want mixed sex - particularly during their periods) to be excluded from education because of an ideology that only a tiny minority sign up to.

Mixed sex toilets in schools flies in the face of all that the evidence about what's important for safeguarding girls and in order to enable girls the world over to access education.

It's not a maybe, it's not a fringe issue, it affects 50% of the student population. It's misogyny to dismiss that.

Everyone arguing on here and throwing insults it’s mad.
Some of us won’t be here by the time the tories are finished with us (I’m poor and not ashamed of it) They’ve wiped the floor with the poor and now they’re working up the ladder it’s going to be interesting come the next election how it pans out.

You wanted to know what ordinary women on average wages would do, OP. Some agree with you that they will vote Labour and some don't, for whatever reasons. Hope you felt your thread was useful.

There are schools here that Muslim girls are effectively excluded from because they don't have single sex toilets. I'm sort of aghast that people think this is fine in 2022 in the UK - for a certain subset of girls (although I'd imagine most girls don't actually want mixed sex - particularly during their periods) to be excluded from education because of an ideology that only a tiny minority sign up to.

Yes - under our current Tory government!

Ordinary woman, I'll be voting Tory, exactly like I did at the last election, because they are the party least likely to erase the rights of women.

My historically Labour voting women friends will be voting Tory too, for exactly this reason.

Annabelle69 I wonder how many are felling the same way. Some of my friends are

It’s not a criticism. The discussion of women’s rights being eroded has moved on from social media. It took the popular press for it to be this way and yes that means the DM. Im personally happy with that the more people are aware the better

That Labour are not able to deal with the issue with straightforward answers the straightforward questions is down to the party to sort out

The UK has a lot of conservatives including me. Anyone can post on this thread and explain how they will vote. Labour needs to do a lot of listening to Tories if it hopes to win the next election in England which is where it will need to win as it seems to have lost Scotland forever.

I agree

We are a conservative country with a small c

Labour are always the party that need to try harder to win votes but often too caught up in small issues or in party squabbles. And Labour need floating and middle voters to win they need to be listened to not dismissed as they do not fit the ideal voter

What’s frustrating for many like myself who are centre left is the party never seems to learn form their mistakes

Labour needs to do a lot of listening to Tories

But surely thenLabour would become identical to the Conservatives?

Labour needs to do a lot of listening to people who used to vote for them and can no longer bring themselves to.

Here's an example of not listening:

A poster said this about the tories - They have scrapped plans to ban conversion therapy. That is condoning serious harm to a minority group of people.

In fact the government are now going ahead with a conversion therapy ban for LGB people but have decided not to include T at this time.

Is that because they hate trans people? That would be a bit weird, considering it was the tories who proposed GRA reform, and considering the huge outpouring of support this week for the stunning and brave tory MP with all the dodgy companies.

They're not including the T because the proposals are so vague and lacking in definition that they risk criminalising anything other than affirmation-only therapy for gender distressed people, including children, and criminalising anyone trying to help detransitioners. We're still waiting for the final Cass report on GIDS but this is being rushed through?

Of course, leaving the T out makes the whole conversion therapy ban obsolete because the kinds of thing that LGB people face in terms of conversion therapy are already very rare in the UK and already illegal under existing law.

Loads of people, many solidly left wing, are talking about this and writing about this but labour are not listening. It's just too easy to not look beyond the headlines and to just say 'evil tory bastards dropping plans to ban conversion therapy' because on the face of it that sounds really bad and just like something the nasty tories would do.

See also 'make misogyny a hate crime' - ask yourself why feminists are not over the moon about this suggestion. Go and find out why.

The left need to grow the fuck up and stop seeing everything in overly simplistic terms of good/bad, villains/heros etc. They need to stop kneejerking and learn to read the small print of the causes they adopt.

I look forward to voting labour again once they have sorted themselves out. In the meantime I make no apologies for spoiling my ballot.