To think it's time for a woman to be Prime Minister

[Cinnamon77]

It doesn't look like Starmer is going to be PM for much longer but all the favourites to replace him are men.

Every female PM we've had has been Conservative - no woman has ever led the Labour Party before.

Wouldn't it be an improvement to have a left wing woman running the country, like we've seen elsewhere? There are many good female MPs in Labour like Raynor, Mahmood, Huq, Phillips, Siddiq, Leadbeater, Thornberry, Dodds, Kendall, Haigh, Butler and Reeves (Ellie, not Rachel).

Why aren't any of them contenders and wouldn't we be doing better if one of them was in charge?

The problem is that, other than Thatcher, who, in many ways out-manned the men with her approach, the media don't really like female PMs. They barely disguise their contempt for female MPs, holding them to much higher standards than their male counterparts.

I was no fan of May, but she was the only one with the guts to stand up and be counted to try to fix the Brexit shit show left behind. Grenades thrown at her from all directions as soon as she came into office. Truss was clearly completely incompetent, of course.

But the media detests high profile female Labour politicians even more. Raynor never stood a chance, a single mother from a working class background - hounded out of office within a little over a year, for doing something (and admitting to it) that other senior leaders (Farage) have done (and not admitted). The double standards applied is staggering.

They're going after Reeves with everything they've got and trying to get Jess Phillips removed as well. Disagree with their policies as much as you like, but are they really less competent than their male counterparts?

The names you’ve listed aren’t competent. That’s the problem. What’s wrong with Streeting?

My argument is that technological developments which facilitate ever increasing ways to "liberalise" that obviously predate Roy Jenkins but are accelerating. An electorate can squabble over the best way to alleviate poverty, for example. That's an argument based on the means to achieve an agreed end. We no longer share agreed ends, no shared vision of a common good. We are in conflict over irreconcilable matters which have only been made possible due to technology that previously didn't exist. What is a woman? When does life begin? Culturally we can't keep up. And as I said I a previous post, it seems willfully naive to deny that social media isn't causing extreme and rapid polarisation that the only historical analogue would be the printing press. And its invention took out 30% of Europe's population.

This.

Bahahaha. I was with you to some extent but then you suggested Nicola Sturgeon was competent - and most offensively - progressive- and that Scotland ‘did well’. Come on, where have you been for the last few years?

I would prefer Bell Ribeiro-Addy personally.

I generally associate the left with rather narrow minded older men who like telling everyone how they should live their lives. The women seem to be cast in supporting roles.

She's very impressive

I think you massively underestimate the level of sexism in the U.K., particularly now that the straight white men feel hard done by in everything…

I don’t support having a female PM just for the sake of having a female PM.

And any woman who would take over from Starmer would just be handed a poisoned chalice

This is no time to experiment. We had his Chief of Staff Sue Grey, NOT successful.
If they change Starmer it needs to be someone with a few years experience of running something political. A female Mayor would be good but are there any?
Would running a Union like Sharon Graham or Frances O'Grady be enough? I think they would trip over the rules and methods of House of Commons.
Long term I can see Mahmood in the senior role. Currently there is no vacancy, Keir will cling on partly because he is stubborn (he wrongly thinks that is strength) and the turmoil of change temporarily would wreck the Party. One could also say that a Leadership Contest in Labour would stall UK politics and take 2% off GDP and add 2% to interest rates.
(discuss) 🤔

Sounds like it's not a case of if but when. There's a story on the BBC today about a growing rise of frustration among Labour MPs with talk of votes of no confidence and plotting to attack in May 2026. This time next year there is no chance that Starmer will still be PM.

We should all rally around Mahmood. She seems like a decent woman who would do a better job.

Idgaf which sex the PM is as long as they are competent.

Same. But the men aren't really competent, are they?

Someone said this is no time to move. But Labour MPs are already moving - so we're going to have 6 months of backstabbing, meanwhile the economy and Islamophobia will just get worse.

This is the time for a competent socialist woman to be in charge.

Competence is in the eye of the beholder.

“What was wrong with Truss and May?”

Is that a joke?

Truth. None as sexist as the old militants and new intersectional "feminists".

Well you would. She would bankrupt the country with a 18 trillion pound reparations payout.

You have no idea of the problems Jacinda the Performer caused in New Zealand. Properties, population. Terrible.

I have a New Zealand friend who told me she was excellent.

Apparently there's a lot of far right incels in NZ who made a lot of noise about her at the time.

Socialism involves the government owning and controlling everything. You have to have an awful lot of faith in your political leaders to think any of them would ever be up to the job.

I don't care who does the job as long as they're competent. The challenges seem overwhelming at the moment.

Labour made it obvious in various ways that they have a woman problem, which is why I lost patience and no longer vote for them. I can't think of any Labour women that would be a safe pair of hands. Rosie Duffield has integrity but is no longer Labour.

PP is quite right that the Tories seem to use placeholder women to clear up the mess that men made.

Yes it was

Baffling that people are still referring to Starmer's Labour as "Left".

We're a year and a half in, and there is no evidence whatsoever of them being any such thing.

Well thank fuck for that