We are going to end up with a Conservative government AGAIN at this rate, is that ok with everyone?

[MentholLoad]

following a thread on AIBU I think about who would vote Tories again.....the main (only?) reason people are citing for voting Tories is the GC issue. Women totally abandoning social politics over a singular issue. declaring nothing else matters, if Labour can't get this right then, they won't vote for them

I can't work out if these people were Conservative voter's anyway/actually do agree that Conservative policy and practice generally, is in our best interests compared with Labour

OR they are prioritising GC issues above and at the exclusion of all else? because alot more women will have a lot more issues, if we have yet another round of Conservative Government

And they are ignoring that Labour (finally!) defined women as adult human female

AND ignoring that this whole debacle has happened under the Tories 🤷🏼‍♀️

Womens rights are very important, but don't let the Tories pull the wool over your eyes with this trans issue.

Public services were so, so much better under Labour. I'm old enough to remember the Tory government before 97, public services had been completely run into the ground (not quite as bad as the Tories have succeeded this time though). The Labour government made HUGE improvements to the extent that our health service had its best ever satisfaction rating and was widely regarded as the best in the world. This was just by bringing it up to European spending average. They also massively reduced child and pensioners poverty and introduced Sure Start centres. They signed the Good Friday Agreement (John Major and the Tories also deserve massive credit for this as well though). Even on the economy (which for some reason and against all evidence the public believes the Tories manage better) the had the economy growing after the global financial crisis. The the Tories came along with their austerity ideology and ruined everything.

For some reason the public (groomed by the right wing press) decided they didn't like this and wanted crumbling public services and poverty instead. And that's what we got.

Labour's biggest mistake was the Iraq war (and I haven't voted for them since) the Tories were equally (or more so) enthusiastic about that though so it's not like we could have dodged that without them.

Anyway, going on past record, yes I think Labour would be much better.

I don’t see it as a ‘trans issue’ at all, but women’s rights

Any talk of ‘dog whistles’ is straight from TRAs

Women don’t need to be reduced to that.

@Kendodd totally agree. The public services under Labour were dramatically different to now. That’s what matters to me. That’s what I’ll vote for.

Is that a reason not to try and change the current mindset, which is that rape is pretty un punishable?

We need action on the shocking attacks on women and 3 murdered each week in a domestic setting & the Tories are promising nothing at all.

Beyond me why a Govt with a 70 seat majority cannot change the GRA but has to go to the EHCR but of course they don't, they can repeal or reform it but the Tories are as split on Trans rights as anyone else, so kick it into the long grass :(

The fact that people are willing to overlook the worst government in living memory because of this ONE issue means its a dog whistle policy I'm afraid.

I disagree. You are doing the bidding of TRAs posting as such

I’m sure they thank you for it

You won’t however be voting a time machine in so best to look at actual funding plans

There is no extra funding. Labour will be cash strapped and with limited promises

Nope. I just take a broader view than one issue. Try not to be so blinkered.

Not blinkered at all. I prefer to give women more credit than repeat TRA lines

By voting for a Tory government? Yep, doing women a great service there.

If you care so much about women, there are going to be women sitting at home today, in Tory Britain, crying with tooth pain and unable to find a dentist. How many women today, do you think have visited a food bank because they can't afford food for their children? How many has Tory austerity killed, 150,000? At the very least half of those are going to be women. Women today are struggling with zero hours contracts, insecure, inadequate, cold, expensive housing, unable to find dentists for their children and worried the school roof will collapse on top of them. And on top of all that they get called stupid for not putting trans women and small boats at the top of their agenda. I just can't believe the nerve of Tory politicians pointing at the other side , and describing them as having 'luxury beliefs'.

Self ID was a Tory idea in the first place and we affectively have self ID anyway and Johnson reduced the GRC fee to £5 so everyone could afford one.

Labour are anti women and have no extra money.

I can’t see the pay off

Let's see what Starmer says (or doesn't say) this afternoon.
This is his big opportunity.

I think too it is an opportunity to clarify. Sunak put a reference in his speech. Let's see

Labour anti women, heard it all now, proportionately twice as many female MPs as the Conservatives, all those female MPs hate themselves!!!

So sitting on your hands and allowing 98% of men to get away with rape is "pro women" is it.

Lab or Tory, there is no extra money, unless we tax more, just a better way of spending what we've got.

Yes i hope Starmer makes his views 100% clear.

Rights hoarding dinosaurs

And ‘no one is talking about it’

You can enjoy that all you like, but no thanks

Rights hoarding dinosaur VS 98% of rapes going unpunished mmmmmm tricky decision!

The Labour List article on Lammys speech, makes it clear he was NOT call women this, as plenty of women have come out in favour of Trans rights e.g T.May or LizTruss and her spirited defence of the GRA.

However, i'm no fan of Lammy, i'd like to see him go the way of Nandy or Lang Bailey

Let's face it, choosing which party will do the most for women's rights - Labour or Conservative - is like judging a world's shortest ant competition.

Have we really set the bar at "well THIS party will save the NHS but you'll need to share a hospital bed with a rapist and your estate might be turned into a managed prostitution zone but THIS party will save women only spaces but your children will have to get fed by foodbanks and you'll never get a rapist prosecuted".

It's a joke. When have we allowed our expectations to become SO LOW. We are 50% of the population.

The head-patting "all women voters really care about is getting a GP, their local schools and the price of a supermarket shop" is patronising guff and often wrong (many of the biggest women's rights activists I know live in absolutely dire circumstances).

Also the PPs on here need to stop assuming not voting for Labour is a vote for Tory. My Tory MP is the biggest TRA going.

What I most resent about the "You nasty women who won't vote Labour over a VERY MINOR ISSUE" hectoring, is that most if not all of the ex-Labour women I know are the most left wing, politically engaged, community activists around. They volunteer in food banks, raise money for local women's and children's groups, lobby their councillors & MPs, sit on police boards, organise women's rights events & campaigns and are trustees, PTA and school governors.

But no, the head girls for Labour have decided that not putting our X in their box every 5 years makes us EVIL TORIES.

Labour won’t have funding to do much on pretty much anything. It’s very easy to say we’ll spend but I want to hear we’ll fund. I’m not hearing it.

As an aside I know posters were incredibly pro lockdown but it backed up the court system beyond compare

I was on jury service and the one month trial next door was knocked to seven months.

Words are easy. Starmer shifts with the wind I don’t hold any to have much weight. And that line below on catching people is just what? Like everything no substance, how exactly will it work

Just like ‘smash the gangs’ or the defending the Eq A it’s fluff, with no legislative change how will single sex spaces be protected

I’m yet to see an answer to that one

If that one issue is reducing me & all those of my sex to second-class citizens, you'd better believe I don't need to 'take a broader view'.

This is incoherent.

What is your issue with his CPS record?

I don't think being a lawyer is the insult you think it is, and he did very well from himself from fairly modest beginnings. You need to be hardworking, bright, logical, a good communicator to be a lawyer. Yes you need to sometimes use language carefully, not the same as being a liar or smarmy. It's just that some issues are complicated.

Labour's position on brexit is a bit frustrating but fundamentally smart, leave it to the Tories to own their mess. Coming out with anything in the aftermath of the vote would have been pointless and put off some voters for no good reason. They've indicated that they'd take us a bit closer to the common market, that's a million miles better than the Tories and Singapore on Sea Sunak.

Re balancing the books - the Tories now have the largest public debt on record, even after those years of miserable austerity that were supposed to pay it down.

Labour get nailed for the Iraq War and the financial crash - in both cases, Tories wanted to go in harder with involvement and deregulation. Both things would have been worse under them. And any party that can put Truss in charge can't be trusted with the economy one iota.

You have articulated my thoughts on this issue so much better than I did.

Being sneered at by Labour voters when all I want to be able to vote Labour is to have basic rights as a woman is astonishing. The Labour Party really has learnt nothing from the past. It’s almost as if they don’t want the female vote.