Helen McEntee will introduce amendments to the hate crime bill next week ! ! !

[DeanElderberry]

https://www.rte.ie/news/2024/0921/1471201-hate-crime-bill/

Gosh, I wonder what they will be?

It makes for great headline but The devil is most definitely in the detail.

I do think it is an element of general election engineering in this decision.

The law was extremely unpopular.

I'm fascinated to see that there is already a developing spin that 'Elon Musk didn't like it' rather than 'the electorate didn't like it'. The official narrative on this will be interesting and worth examining in detail.

@DeanElderberry Elon Musk did say he was ready to bank roll a challenge, even better wind up X and move it out.

Also the absolute mess that was Scotland when they introduced with a crazy number being about the Scottish FM.

The devil is still in the details and it still be sneaked through back door if they leave it vague enough.

Hate speech is being removed. So all that remains is hate crime.

https://www.rte.ie/news/2024/0921/1471201-hate-crime-bill/

But without the amendments known, the hate speech aspect could still be introduced.

Or else leave the legislation open to manipulation

True, but they know they're under scrutiny, and it now seems unlikely that we'll be in danger of being prosecuted for calling men men.

Isn't poor H McE an awful warning against overdoing the botox.

I never noticed her lack of expression until you mentioned Botox now I can't unsee it.

I'd been wondering for a while but only saw still images - and also feel people, particularly women, should be free to present themselves any way they want without comment - but watching that interview, with the forehead moving a little from a few inches above her eyebrows while the rest of her face stays immobile, leaving her with an oddly inhuman appearance made me wonder why she'd make that particular choice.
I think I prefer faces that give me some clue to the person. I had to go and look at some old pictures of Mary O Rourke to see a politician with a reassuringly lived-in face.

True, but a lot of cosmetic surgeries is more commonly due to the opinion of other people and/or insecurities.

She is very young to be on the road of Botox though. I can see it in my DIL she started when she was 25yrs and gets it several times a year. It is a lifelong road.

That's it. I would be disinclined to trust a politician so insecure they he or she let their appearance be distorted to please real or imaginary other people.

Botox and orange make-up and Putin fake six-pack all equally repellent.

The speech aspect has not gone away.

www.independent.ie/irish-news/politics/hate-speech-decision-not-a-complete-u-turn-and-laws-could-be-introduced-by-next-government-micheal-martin-says/a228082272.html

Behind a paywall so I can't see it in full

So now women politicians are openly judged on their personal choices of their body 🤦‍♀️.
Oh the irony, hate speech thread and misogyny.

Men politicians too - as I specified. I feel every bit as dubious about a man as expressionless and bland and falsified. A male politician who looks as stiff and mask-like as H McE is Jeffrey Donaldson. I've been judging him on his looks for decades.

The way they choose to display themselves is a part of their political message - it's why any day now the country is going to be festooned in pictures of them.

The fact you actually as an adult are saying you judge a person's capacity to do a job is a very sad indication of todays society.
What on earth has their personal choices got to do with their capacity to do a job. Hopefully you are nowhere near EDI or HR.

Are you happy with the way Helen McEntee has done her job, and if so, why?

Elections are all about judging their capacity to do their job, and their presentation choices are part of that. They spend a lot of time and money on it packaging precisely because it is a way to send a message about their beliefs and priorities.

I'd always cut a woman politician more slack than a man because we come under so much pressure, but not so much slack that I won't pay attention to her messaging and the way it compares to what she has achieved in the job. That would be very naive.

I judge her I am really unhappy with her record as MOJ.

She had the opportunity to really do something about VAWG and she has done nothing of substance.

Higher sentencing is of zero value when there is no minimum sentencing.

We cannot have minimum sentencing because the prisons are over full

She was also junior minister for mental health at the start of the South Kerry CAMH scandal. Her big achievement has been making it possible for a TD to get maternity leave, which was important, but she did that because it affected her directly. Things good for everyone else, not so much.

I know there is only so much that a Minister or Junior Minister can do (and, for instance, she was landed with Drew Harris) but she has never struck me as making much effort either to nibble away at current messes or as trying to set things up to improve in future.

I would like to see some positives she has achieved within her role as MOJ.

And I do not consider CUAN as an achievement when the CEO Stephanie O'Keeffe was the ND who was over the NSS while women had to go to court to make the state take responsibility