To be completely shocked about someone I used to know

[EWAB]

When my youngest was at primary school I really liked this woman who had kids either side of mine.

She was in the PTA equivalent and was just a nice woman. There was no drama around her.

I remember having a day off and went into the local cafe, and she invited me to sit with her friends. She was funny, warm and witty.

Significantly, she had friends of all ethnicities and her best friend was Asian.

Everybody will relate to being busy but I think if it was a different time in my life or we had kids in same year we would have been mates.

I am absolutely shocked that she is a member of a right wing political party and has a presence in that party, utterly and completely shocked.

I know it’s not illegal but God.

All three of my siblings are Tories, I’m not someone who thinks everyone has to think like me but I am stunned.

Mumsnet hates this, but I have had a physical reaction to the news. I am just Gobsmacked and weirdly let down and I do know that’s a stupid, irrational thing to say.

No it doesn’t.

It may not for you but it would for me.

But still pretty much irrelevant as they ever have been? Yeah? Just a bogey man to wheel out and hold up next to other parties like reform to try and disingenuously lump them together.

@EasternEcho

Out of interest and given that @pikkumyy77 has refused to answer, which mainstream UK party aligns with fascism?

It is all well and good for posters to come on and talk about the politics in a country that they don't reside in but when they come in to suggest that voting in a certain way is voting in an authoritarian regime, I'm going to give them very short shrift.

Words like fascism have a very specific meanings and should only be used in circumstances where it exists. You may not like the politics of the 'right' but to say or to imply that there are akin to fascism is simply wrong.

That’s why you don’t have an answer

Actually THIS is what you said:

Their policies are written to appeal to people who don't understand how things actually work

Not belittling their policies but rather those thickos who may be gullible enough to fall for them - right? Ignorant and patronising as I said upthread.

Meh. Loads of people voted UKIP including my lovely father in law. He was one of the sweetest men ever. Unless she's a raving send em home bigot of course

Truth hurts.

And yet the so called ‘experts’ did not see Brexit coming at all. It was unthinkable at the time - even whilst seismic changes were under way on the ground. The ‘experts’ did not envisage the outcome at all.

It is the lived experience that shapes the values of society, and influences the way they vote collectively. It is at grassroots level where the change happens, as it did with brexit, unseen and out of awareness. This is now taking place across many parts of Europe. The ‘expert’ analysts can only predict and interpret past history and the current facts available to them now, they can’t predict what they can’t see.

In a functioning democracy the change and movement on the ground will eventually be visible at a national and regional level, eventually rising into the consciousness at an international level.

Let’s take the climate debate as an example. This was a fringe group of activists unknown to anyone outside of Greenpeace etc. In my younger days it was led by us, students in the main. Now the topic has covered the globe and is on every political agenda across the divide.

Intellectualising politics is essentially the same as reading tea leaves, it is a spectator sport in the main.

As you do not even live here I am surprised you are giving it so much headspace but maybe you are curious, or a student but you are not an ‘expert’ on here. On here you are just another voice of equal value to another.

Your lack of real life experience and authentic understanding should be considered by other posters, because all of your information is ‘second hand’ this is not your life, nor your reality. So of course you are limited and reduced to guess work and speculation because you have no real experience to draw on.

Then you’re equally judgemental.

I appreciate your honesty.

You do, like many Labour supporters, feel intellectually superior.

So about those 'women' with penises and your leader's reluctance to engage in the sensible concerns of women based upon biological reality?

Do they? Bizarre if so. I can’t see why it would be the case, nor really any evidence to show it.

No, I wasn't offended by the English language.

I was appalled by your referring to immigrants as 'these sort of people' who apparently populate crime gangs and live in council houses.

To speak in the dehumanising way you did about others, to reference the 'standard' of humans like they're appliances, was what offended me.

As I think you know.

The problem is it’s not ‘the truth’ at all is it. The current Labour shower are staggering unpolished, uneducated and inexperienced. I can’t actually believe this is the best they have been able to come up.

It is truth. Have a look at their “policies”.

Oh there are definitely a large proportion of Labour voters like this. The ones who are entrenched in the good / bad , left/ right of politics.

They are probably the same as the ardent remainers during Brexit, who instead of addressing the concerns of those who wanted to leave the EU called them stupid instead.

N.B. I have always voted Labour in the past and voted remain. This issue over the way the left is treating women esp. Rosie Duffield has meant the scales have fallen away for me.

It probably explains some of the posts from some but I can’t say I see much evidence supporting those lofty claims

Why should I answer a question posed based on an assertion made by another poster that had nothing to do with me, nor related to anything that I've intimated. That's weird.

Blossom please, it’s the truth according to you and it has its limits.

Is that you taking a graceful exit?

The fact that you do not think that politics itself is in a large part intellectual study show me that you are not worth engaging with. You are conflating two issues, when there is a clear distinction between politics as an intellectual exercise and the practical consequences of policies.

You can be surprised all you want about why I may give it "headspace". Again, I don't think based on your previous comment, you have the capacity to understand. Also, given that allegedly, I don't have anything of substance to add according to you, you continue to engage. You can waste your time with another pithy, in your opinion comment if you want, but I don't intend to waste anymore of my time with you.

Have you looked at Reform’s policies? You haven’t, have you? Truth doesn’t have limits.

How many immigrants are gang members.and dealers, versus how many indigenous people? Have you got any evidence that it is 'many', and more than those who were born here? I haven't seen that.

It's ok to state that different people are different, obviously. But PP wasn't doing that. She referred to 'these type of people who are in gangs and live in council houses and who are lower standard' (paraphrased as too lazy to trawl back for the quote). She wasn't recognising difference, but attributing less value to groups of people because they are immigrants rather than indigenous. That's not ok.

You sound intimidated by the questions and have chosen avoidance instead. That is a matter for you. Politics are shaped by people not strategy and forecasting, at least in this country. I am very proud of the democratic values thar are still upheld in this country. I am glad the people have a voice.