Rod Liddle in the Sunday Times today

[MargeH]

Go Rod...

"My favourite politician, Harriet Harman, has come up with an ingenious plan, as is entirely typical of her. She has suggested that the next Labour leadership election should be contested only by female candidates. The men, she says, can “jostle” for the position of deputy.
This is presumably an attempt by Harriet to stop the macho bullies of Momentum winning the race. But there is a problem she may not have foreseen. Labour’s National Executive Committee recently decided that all-women shortlists can include people who identify as women but are not, actually, women. So the next leadership election may be your first and last chance to see Andy Burnham wearing a gingham frock or Sadiq Khan resplendent in a niqab. Men are endlessly inventive when it comes to getting their own way."

SuitedandBooted
That's a really good point. Having been reading comments in the Times for some time now (having abandoned the Guardian in sheer despair) I have noticed how often people see all this as a bunfight between feminists and transactivists.
This is about safety, protecting children, mutual respect, privacy and dignity, honesty and truth, gaslighting and abuse and women being marginalised. This is a concern for everyone - right, left, centre, men and women.

There's so much crap that comes with the Sunday papers that it's like "behold this tree that we killed just so you could see the kitchen of some supposed celebrity who you've never heard of".

If you think that we can win this without the support of Middle England then you're welcome to try, Gnu. I don't like the guy, but I don't have to like him. Self-ID is fucking nonsense and the more people saying so in the media the better.

Seconded. I won't say it doesn't make me uncomfortable ever even a little bit because it does. But we are where we are. And it's not as though I'm not perfectly capable of telling Rod Liddle he's being a wankstain when he's being a wankstain. Cos I am.

And while we're talking about the Times - today they publish a shocking (and almost unbelievable) investigation about how the police are protecting paedophiles at the expense of abused children AND an article about the number of British born children sold into slavery.
Really important journalism!

"GnotherGnu"

I understand what you are saying, but we have to take support where we can. If the GRA issues only gets written about by journalists with suitably leftie, PC credentials we might as well give up now.

So it's absolutely fine to get into bed with racist, misogynist bigots who support ethnic cleansing so long as they agree with us on self identification.

'Get into bed with'?

I can assure you I have never 'got into bed with' him.

Regardless - in your purist vision, who do you think are acceptable allies?

Who is without sin?

Gnother it's fine to agree with someone on one point and disagree on another.

Sure, but there's a dividing line between simply disagreeing with someone for having a different opinion, and disagreeing with someone because their views are bigoted, and knee-jerk racist and misogynist. The problem is that if someone shows themselves to be an arsehole in virtually every other area of their life, do you really want to align yourself with them? After all, if they are generally bigoted there's a serious danger that the perception will be that all their opinions, including this one, are bigoted, and that others who hold the same opinions are likewise bigoted. I have to say that if I found the likes of, say, Jimmy Savile agreeing with me even in relation to something I felt very strongly about I wouldn't be publicising that fact.

Haha, yes, point taken. Even a stopped clock tells the right time twice a day.

@GnotherGnu isn’t the point that once it’s out there being discussed in the mainstream then opinion pieces and articles and debate countering any racist/misogynistic/bigoted thinking can be addressed ... but if it’s not being discussed by anyone then it’s pointless as we’ll never get anywhere.

I don’t like Ricky Gervias much. I think he’s too close to the “mocking for cash” line on trans people. There’s a chance if he came out in support of the petition that things would be really uncomfortable because then you’re assumed to agre with everything he says. Nevertheless - he has a MASSIVE reach to “ordinary” people. Most of whom will agree self ID is mad. So it’s better to be able to say “I don’t agree with much of what Ricky Gervais/Rod Liddle says but did you see that thing he said about self ID?” to your colleague/friend/man in street than “have you seen this petition on women’s rights?” Because there will be a raised awareness of WTF is going on. At the moment there’s none.

I mean in response to Brandy.

Brandy, I think the real question is - who, if anyone, would you regard as not being an acceptable ally? Or are you prepared to align yourself with literally anyone, including rank and blatant woman-haters, if they support your views on this?

The problem is that if someone shows themselves to be an arsehole in virtually every other area of their life, do you really want to align yourself with them?

It's not as though A Woman's Place is going to be inviting him to speak at a meeting any time soon for heavens sake.

Nobody's aligning with him. People are agreeing with what he says on one issue and being glad about it because he reaches people who would not usually listen to feminists.

What do you think feminists should do if Rod Liddle says something they agree with? Say they've changed their minds and they now disagree because Rod Liddle said it?

You're being silly.

Rod Liddle is an intelligent man and a good writer when he actually decides to think rather than churn out pointlessly provocative crap. I am glad he is using his powers for good rather than evil for once.

How is saying that he's right about this one thing aligning yourself with him? If the loathsome Katie Hopkins were to say "curry is delicious" I would not then never eat curry again on general principles, because that's stupid.

I’m happy that this is being discussed at all. This isn’t a left-wing/right-wing issue. It’s an issue that affects all women, regardless of political beliefs.

Years and years I aligned myself with misogynist bigots in the local labour party because I believed they were playing for the right team.

That went well.

Kittens you are funny.
Hitler was a vegetarian who loved animals. Perhaps as a person with Jewish blood I should be giving all my vegan acquaintances a very wide berth?

Not so, Baby. I don't agree with self-identification. One of my issues with Liddle is that he frequently says things he doesn't genuinely believe purely for effect or because he thinks that they line up with the political views of his paymasters. I am particularly mistrustful of a known misogynist purporting to agree with feminists and wouldn't want to be in any sort of alliance with someone who wouldn't hesitate to stab me in the back at any moment.

For heaven’s sake!!! This is nothing to do with right or left. This is about our human rights and common decency.

Mohammed loved cats. That's it, I'm abandoning mine as a protest against mandatory hijab in Iran, because that's totally logical and not at all an attempt at derailment.

Doesn't matter whether or not he agrees with feminists as long as he agrees that people with cocks aren't women and have no business being in women's changing rooms.

Very few prominent people on the left are supporting us though. I am really disillusioned with the lefty liberal establishment who would rather tell men and girls they have to have men in their spaces and pretend they're women than be called transphobic for suggesting maybe the men who want to pretend to be women are the ones with the problem.
They think it's like gay rights and are too stupid to see it's the opposite of gay rights in supporting stereotypes. Also decriminalising and normalising homosexual relationships had no adverse effects on people who weren't homosexual, and gay rights don't involve hormones, surgery and denying biology and common sense..

The lefty media establishment won't backtrack on this until they're forced to by an obvious shift in public opinion (which is actually less of a shift and more of a them making assumptions about what most people think without bothering to check whether or not they're true, and that's the generous interpretation).

The lefty media establishment won't backtrack on this until they're forced to by an obvious shift in public opinion (which is actually less of a shift and more of a them making assumptions about what most people think without bothering to check whether or not they're true, and that's the generous interpretation)

Exactly this. If you actually did a poll in the street, asking people if they think men can become women, and should have free access to everything intended for women, how many people would agree?

That's what I find so depressing about this, how out of touch our so-called leaders are. All just playing PC Top Trumps in their echo chambers....do they ever get out there and actually listen to people?