The "terrifying threat from Labour"

[BigWordAtlas]

I know that Tory HQ staff often come on here and post, and will be doing even more so at the moment.

I also know that Kier Starmer has done a terrible job in gender critical thinking, and members like him, Rayner and Lammy are currently an absolute shitshow when it comes to the rights and protections of women and children. I'm not looking forward to the battle we'll face after the election to reverse the damage that's been done and to protect those rights, and fully bring down all the MRA policies that have formally or informally kicked in over the last few years.

But does anyone else feel like the absolute barrage on here in the last few days about the Holy Bloody Handmaid Terror that will be Labour's government is a bit... overblown? A bit Tory HQ-flavoured? They're absolutely panicking at the moment and will do any kind of astroturfing they can to chip away at votes, particularly in swing constituencies like mine.

No party is perfect, and Labour is currently far from perfect for me and my children. But realistically, I have to vote Labour where I am if I want to keep a Tory candidate out. I hate their gender ID policies, but this nail-bitten tone of total and complete apocalypse (and yes, I've heard posters use that word in this context) feels unhelpful and not really equipping anyone to improve things after the GE. They made me feel extremely anxious until I just hit a wall with the frantic language, and now I'm feeling much more pragmatic and ready to fight with Labour on this stuff, rather than against them and allowing another party to get in.

So AIBU to feel that most of these posts are at least seeded by Tory HQ, rather than actual Labour voters like me?

<hard hat donned>

On a Friday. When he respects his wife’s religion and goes home to spend time with family. Remember all the fuss about Keir’s Beer? That was late at night if you remember.

I’m voting for the single
issue Party for Women to try to force the left to see that this issue will
lose them votes. I don’t feel I have any other choices.

Sorry, Izzard just makes me heave these days. Such a disappointment, to go from "it's a man's dress because I'm a man wearing it" to "actually I'm a girl and terrified girls in toilets when I go in can fuck off with their bigotry".

Yes, I agree, it's not known and at the moment it definitely doesn't look good. But I still believe that we're at a turning point in this toxic ideology, and people like Izzard and his supporters using violent language against women are going to get short shrift from the public sooner rather than later. I hope!

Oh FFS. Voting right isn’t more grown up. Plus - ypu could describe my feeling for the current crop of Tories as hatred (same as Thatcher) but I don’t hate all Tories. Just hateful ones. And I’ve still never called one of them Hitler.

I genuinely don't understand how someone can be 'terrified' of Labour but not be already terrified about the state of our Country?

Yep. I'm terrified about my granddaughters' educational futures given that they're aren't the teachers out there to teach them.
I'm terrified that if I have a massive stroke (like my mum and grandfather) or stage 4 cancer (like my late husband) any care and support I get will be a fraction of what was available to them 15 years ago, and way too late.

My 'I'm terrified about' list is actually too long to continue typing, and every single thing on it is a consequence of 14 years of the Tories. As if course is the trans issue, yet somehow people believe they the Tories will keep their word on that.

@BigWordAtlas but how when it maybe made a hate crime?
In real life right now nurses have been told to re educate themselves when they complained about a trans man.
Another nurse was suspended when she complained.

What about those people who can’t afford to pay more tax. Those that are balancing on a knife edge each month to make ends meet because I can guarantee that it won’t just target those on household incomes of £140,000 or more per year but those with incomes of £40,000 per year and less

Whilst you won’t mind having less in your pay packet can you not understand that others might not be able to afford such things

Terrifying that KS won't work Friday nights? You scare very easily @hamstersarse. It can't be good for you, be calm. If he was ditching his security detail and sneaking off, whereabouts unknown, for a weekend party at the expense of a dodgy Russian then your terror would be understandable but, of course, it was a recent Tory PM who did that as I expect you recall. KS will just be having dinner with his family.

It is life-destroying to live on a financial knife-edge long-term, I don't disagree. But it's 14 years of a Conservative government who have got us to this stage, and if we stayed with them another 14 years there's not a single indicator that it would improve. I think we need to stop conflating what's happened already with what could happen under a different government just because for 14 years the Tory slogan has been "Well, Labour would be worse".

And who would actually make it better, if you don't want to vote Labour? (That's not rhetorical, I just haven't seen any manifestos or financial plans that make me think aha! That's the one that will improve the UK economy for sure! I mean, even the IFS have put question marks next to every party's plans.)

So we should not even try to get them to pay their way?
They don’t do it in great numbers because 1) there’s a reason they chose to be here (will be different for each one) and 2) the tax burden on them here isn’t really that big.

In my mind I wish everyone who supports a party voted for them! If everyone who is currently saying ‘I’d vote for X but it would be a wasted vote because they’d never get in’ actually voted for the party they want they might actually stand a chance

@saraclara I so agree. And because the economy is in such a state (I don't blame the Tories alone - the world has had a tough time, but they do have a LOT to answer for. PLUS, I cannot stand their happy little dances about how inflation has come down --- whoopee doo, my shopping and mortgage costs are still about 40% up on where they were 2 years ago...), I worry constantly about how the safety net just doesn't seem to be there anymore.

I live in leafy surrey so I supsect we are cushioned from a lot of things, but we're still seeing the effect in our own lives and the lives of the people around us. And it' feels like it's getting worse. The Conservatives have proven they can't solve these things so I don't understand why anyone keeps voting for them.

"On a Friday. When he respects his wife’s religion and goes home to spend time with family."

Re finishing work at 6 pm on a Friday the Tories .have been accused of anti semitism for weaponising this.

Up 2 flights of stairs from his office.... Not exactly MIA.

Just consider in 14 years what the Conservative party has done to protect women

The left dominate everything apart from actual government which has overwhelmingly been right wing for the whole history of democracy in the U.K.?
How can people be so deluded?
The rest of your post is utter nonsense too.

but I'm just not convinced that the second Starmer's in power women will cease existing completely in legal form

Perhaps BigWord. But much of the problem is about social and behavioral norms changing, not just legal status. Labour is much more likely to swallow the ideology and continue to permit the law to be abused or ignored in favour of being progressive. We see this already where legal exceptions are not being applied and women are disadvantaged and pushed to take legal action themselves by default.

And as for the comment about Starmer stating gender ideology will not be taught in schools. How does that square with their manifesto stating there will be no ‘conversation’ therapy for gender identity? Which is basically saying only affirmative care is permitted. This completely contradicts the Cass recommendations.

We pay £800-900 more a month in tax because we live in Scotland. We could easily move to England, with the advantage that it’s low hassle as it’s still in the UK and we have no particular family ties, but we don’t move and neither do a surprising number of others as we cannot be bothered.

if Labour put 20% on the top rate of income tax people will move. But if they just added a percent or two people wouldn’t.

I'm not one to call ism at every possible slight but this, @HarrietPierce, I agree that's what it is and it's a particularly seedy nudge nudge, wink wink, to certain voters. Intentional and disgraceful.

FFS. He’s Schrödinger’s Starmer. Simultaneously rinsing the rich and transferring all money and power to them.

Raising the tax threshold has really helped me, I was in nmw and I just above but slightly raising my tax and ni has been good.
Not amazing, and I still pay some but it's definitely helped a little.

At this precise moment in time, I'm just about balanced.
Do I think keir will help me? Perhaps he's said so and I've missed it?

In fairness that’s a nuts and Tory shill type worry though so I can see why people might conclude that’s what you are. University has no free alternative people could choose. It’s quantifiably different from a private school.

Absolutely this and the massive mess Labour have made over getting involved in gender ideology.

Yes, you're right, lots of this is social norms, and as wise women on here have said on the FWR board, parents who have transed their kids will be extremely hard to win around on the disaster of gender ideology for all children and wider society.

But there's a much wider issue with women's rights that both women and (good) men are waking up to and will have more luck fighting for under Labour than they did under the last government. Sick of all of it, sick of women having to fight these legal battles, sick of the increased violence against girls and women, but it still seems like Labour is our better bet.

@PowerTulle it's so embedded into our fabric of Society it needs teams of specialists to un pick it.
Keep the obvious good stuff and bin the rest.
Stonewall reach is far and wide. They have even got into women's refuges asking them to take trans men.
It's mind boggling.