Kemi Badenoch on Today

[frankentall]

Talking about the new policy announcement define what a woman is. She couldn't answer a single question about the details and squirmed. When Michal Hussein asked about Truss appearing on that bloke's podcast she claimed to know nothing about it (yeah right) and got angry.

I had previously thought she was one of the brighter Tories but on this performance she was ill-prepared and bad tempered.

I'm watching her now on itv news morning programme.
Ed Balls is trying to get her to explain, but she's not being at all clear and is being contradictory.

It sounds very much as if she's mixing up "sex" and "gender".
Susannah is trying to clarify.

It's just an example of the bollocks you get when you have fuck all intention of delivering.

At this stage in the game it looks like senior tories are having to share the rizla they are working out their policies on. Clearly today wasn't Kemi's turn.

Susannah just asked a very clear question about hospital wards - no good answer.

It's really odd - a lot of people on MN have been citing this as the killer issue for them. The Tories seem to think so too, but they aren't going to make much capital on it if they can't answer a couple of simple questions about it.

I agree, @frankentall . This would have been an excellent opportunity for Badenoch to state clearly the Conservative line, and about protecting women in certain spaces. An easy win I would have thought. Especially the question about the trans patient and which ward.

The Today interview was a car crash. What a missed opportunity.

Indeed. On mn I've seen don't vote Labour because of this issue but the Tories have no idea either. It appears none of the parties knows what a woman is.

If they are going to use this to expose Labour they need to get their ducks in a row. It's not difficult, define gender and sex, outline the key issues and say its 'biological sex' and keep using 'biological' if Labour say 'sex'.

I think they do need to say why they haven't changed the Equality Act. Labour are saying they won't change it - no surprise there.

If Labour are so sure of this they need to come out and be bold about their beliefs so women know they are not respected by Labour and they need to expect all the things they've worked so hard to achieve taken away because men will be allowed in their spaces.

Her actual proposals make sense though.

She's said that clarification is needed as it is clear public authorities and regulatory bodies are confused about what the law says. Can't argue with that.

She said the changes would provide new protections for biological women in places such as hospital wards and rape crisis centres, and men playing in women's sports. What we've been asking for.

They've also committed to making gender reassignment a reserved issue for the devolved parliaments. To avoid a repeat of the Scottish fiasco.

Not a great interview, but still. Now let's see what Labour says...

To be fair, @CranfordScones that's not how she explained it, or answered the questions. Your points are very clear, she was obviously unable to explain them.

@CranfordScones if only you had been there to explain what we want. Unfortunately we had a complete car crash of an interview.
I hate that they are using this issue to gain votes rather than using the last 14 years to implement it.
And now when they are finally using it (entirely for their own advantage) they fuck it up.
I wanted a clear cohesive argument that would make everyone go, come on Labour you have to agree. They have blown it so far. Grrrrr
Useless lot of idiots.

I didn't hear today, but she came across very badly on Times radio. She sounded defensive and belligerent and refused to answer questions about other subjects.

If it was a tilt for the leadership after the election, it was a disaster.

They have had 14 years to do the and personally Badenoch has had years to get this done. Or get on top of her brief which she was not.

My take has always been that the Tories play this for gain and game but never actually deliver. They whip up a lot of women on this basis and keep them on the hook. This election is just the same behaviour; the question is if anyone is still daft enough to fall for t

Will MN be doing interviews with Sunak and Starmer? It would be helpful if we knew and could send in questions.

I was a Tory up until EG declartion

This woman - why on earth was she chosen????

Honestly, I cringe when I see her trying to give a tv interview

not everyone is cut out to be a Minister and is definitely not

TBH, its not her fault but the fault of the man that appointed her

Just "todays"???😂

It wasn't a great interview but I had no trouble understanding the point she was trying to make.

The problem is the difference between the actual law and the impact of a decade of misrepresenting the law, made possible by the conflation of sex and gender in the original law (which was common vernacular at the time). Clarification is the only way to stop that continuing misrepresentation of law, threats to businesses and the consequential impact on women.

The original law was never intended to conflate biology and internal representation - it was to give a respectful status to those with gender dysphoria who would have been assumed to be post sex reassignment surgery and a long medical process.

It wasn't particularly useful to the listener to divert off to who Truss was on TV with in the US - Truss is chip paper and would be a nobody in future government even it it were Tory.`

She added: "Changing your clothes doesn’t change who you are, we want people who are trans to be protected as well, people who want to change their clothes should not be able to exploit the scenarios we have prepared and the laws we have put in place to protect those people who are genuine transgender people, those who suffer gender dysphoria.
"Just putting on a different set of clothes does not make you transgender."

That doesn't sound that clear that the party knows what a woman is

It wasn't particularly useful to the listener to divert off to who Truss

Oh it was. It gave her the opportunity to display her arrogance and abrasiveness. She could have said that she wouldn’t have done an interview with a misogynist personally but Truss made her own choice. As it was she just lost her temper.

Bah. It showed how limited she was and is. It’s not that she is some crack mind being oppressed by the BBC, it’s that she is not very good.

Given that Reform are about to eat the rest of the Conservatives using a much more aggressively popular ticket I think her time is pretty much up - though her promotion staff will doubtless be here to say she’s thinking on matters, actually doing while in power would have served her better. That is assuming she could do any of it legally, which was question she could not answer. Too technical…

The Tories all along have known what a woman is. Someone who if they are raped is very unlikely to see their attacker face justice, or if they do it will be a very long wait.

She said she knew nothing about the man - that being the case how could she say she would not do an interview with a misogynist? I wouldn't blindly accept someone else's opinion on a third party either.

Playing the "angry black woman" trope is always popular. She wasn't angry, she was simply refusing to engage in comment about someone she didn't know. Good for her. I might be the opposite side of economic politics from Badinoch but the posts on here trying to portray her as stupid and angry are a strong echo of comments about Abbott on the other side.

The problem is I strongly suspect she was lying about being unaware of the person or his podcast. Even if she wasn't lying she ought to know about the issue and have distanced herself from his remarks about Jess Phillips.

Playing the "angry black woman" trope is always popular.
No one called her an angry black woman, that's been added by you.