Andrea Leadsom - please stand for leadership!

[Millyonthefloss2]

Anyone agree?

A reporter yesterday was trying to get her to say that God is speaking to her inside her head and telling her what to do.

Like george bush I guess

Maybe ... i don't know much about either Geo Bushes.

Everyone (media, MPs) seems desperate to put AL in a very poor light, worse than any other politician. Either its warranted, and I am missing something, or its simply that TM (who was hitherto reviled) is perceived as the PM least likely to declare article 50?

Vri123 sorry - George Bush was recently quoted as saying God told him to go to Iraq.

Didn't AL slate single mums or something in the past?

I think she mourned the breakdown of 2 parent - everyone-under-the-same-roof families for their impact on the children. Its not exactly anti-single parents that was a distortion. (I haven't exactly studied this - I caught a brief glimpse of what she said and it seemed to be centred around her interest in child development.

She's the perfect example how a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.
And she still hasn't published her tax returns.

But this is the thing, Vri123... as PM, you really want someone outstanding. None of the candidates seem suitable to me. BUT if you have to select based on merit, it would likely be TM... as much as I don't like her views either.

Really, Vri? So will she be bringing in penalties for spouses who walk out on their children and marriages? No? Oh what a surprise.

What she said about single parents was "the child of a single parent family is 70 per cent more likely (than the child of a two-parent family) to have problems at school, and even to become a drug addict or a criminal.”

Lovely.

Really Vri?

Well maybe, maybe not. As I said in the disclaimer, I didn't read it too closely as I'm not that interested so what I wrote was just a brief impression. i think was a blog post from years ago that is the basis for the story today. Sorry, that's all I know... but if people want to know more they can do a bit of googling and find the blog.

as PM, you really want someone outstanding I couldn't agree more, but when was the last time we had one of those?

I found it!

www.andrealeadsom.com/working-for-you/andrea's-blog/at-last-we-are-admitting-the-family-does-matter/50

Its not exactly anti-single parents that was a distortion.

Vri, I came here to post and saw that JudiCoolibar had said it already, that AL had gone down the "children of single parents 70% more likely to be drug addicts or criminals" route, which is pretty anti-single-parent however you slice it.

And, Vri, even the headline AL chose for that article is really insulting. I am a single parent. The household unite that I have with my son is a family. We both have extended family, too. Just because I am not living with his father does not make what we have not a family. It's really offensive, and it's just plain inaccurate, too.

Not to mention that she's against single-sex marriage.

Luckily, they are not my words, so i don't have to defend them against your feelings of being offended. All i did was post the link to the article so that people could read for themselves exactly what AL said and when she said it (2006).

I certainly have no wish to debate with you whether your child is best off with you, or my children are best off with both parents.

As to the statistics quoted (the 70% thing), is the objection that they are inaccurate or misleading or you just don't like it having it pointed out even in a blog post that was written a decade ago? Are they even true - I have never heard that before.

I heard her talk about the gay marriage issue a couple of nights ago on tv. She thinks that marriage is something between men and women, and that's why civil partnerships were created for same sex couples, so that they could have something of equivalence.

I can't see her banning them now though, can you? Maybe the most she'll do is allow the individual vicar / priest / minister to be allowed to refuse to marry a same sex couple if they don't want to do it.

Er, Vri, you did defend that article. You posted it as a way of showing that it was "not exactly anti-single parents" when it pretty clearly was, right there in the article.

I don't know if the 70% statistic is true or not, but it's meaningless either way, because it doesn't attribute cause and effect, just assumes it. If it is true, is the crime/addiction link there because people discriminate against single-parent families, or because one person is doing two jobs, or because single-parent families are more likely to be in poverty, or what? Bashing single parents - and claiming that they aren't families is so much easier (and nastier) than actually addressing and seeking to solve any problems that do exist. And it's not like single parent families will cease to exist if you shame them and hate on them hard enough - bereavement happens, domestic violence happens, irreversible breakdown of a marriage happens, spouses men behave badly and then abandon their families. Some people do plan to be single parents, but many more find themselves so unwillingly and unexpectedly.

And on the equal marriage thing - if you deny a gay person something you are happy to allow a straight person to do, then that's pretty much the definition of discrimination.

I'm not psychic! I said very clearly that I wasn't very familiar with the story when I wrote that.
The chronology was:
First I said that I had only a vague idea of what it was, but I had the impression it was ...
Then I said I thought the story came from a blog post but I hadn't seen it - i hadn't even seen the website
Then I googled and found the offending blog post so that anyone interested could read it in full and judge for themselves rather than rely on others sampling from it to suit their own agenda.
Finally I said I won't argue about it with you

I find it very difficult to believe that you could post an article about something without even catching a glance of the headline (you know, the one which implies families like mine aren't families at all) , never mind the content. That doesn't require psychic powers.

If you don't want people to engage with what you are saying, why are you posting at all? I am genuinely curious.

I watched her talking about the gay marriage thing on Newsnight. Not only was she against gay marriage, and dissembling by going on about civil partnerships, but she explained her POV by saying that marriage should be kept as a special Christian thing. So either she doesn't realise that civil marriages have been around for [I don't even know how long] in which case she's ignorant, or she does know about them but doesn't consider them to be real marriages in which case she's also prejudiced against non-Christian married couples.

I glanced at the headline, and then read the content after I posted.

Honestly, this is not about what you think of me. Or how credible you find my actions. take me at my word, or don't. But I won't have an argument with you because I am just not willing to discuss this with you (or anyone else).

Breakingdad raised the subject first - why not go and try to start a fight with him?

What I am interested in is the double standards regarding treatment of Christians versus other faiths. That was what i posted. Other people raised other stuff and I responded whilst explaining that I am relatively unfamiliar with the subject. So I was saying this is what I know, but it might not be right.

Until a couple of hours ago, I've never even asked myself: what exactly is a family? Is that hard to understand?

What double standard? One of the pieces of information I gleaned from Newsnight is that both candidates are practising Christians.

I don't think trying to ascertain whether the person with their finger on the big red Nuclear Warhead button is doing stuff because God tells them to, is indicative of Christian persecution. It's sensible.

It may be because it reminds us that Tony Blair believed God was behind him going to war with Iraq. According to his aide at the time, Blair believed it was a Christian battle.

So damn right it's sensible to question this.