Lib Dem’s Equalities R4 now

[PaleBlueMoonlight]

Right now

Thank you to the PP who linked the podcast. I have been trying to articulate for so long now why this is all a shitshow. Nick Robinson has, in the space of two minutes, given me my stock answer.

@Michelleoftheresistance i love your mum!

I think she was very brave dealing with anti-semitism and have really liked her but very disappointed in her shallow thinking on this. It is a complex issue and politicians have to acknowledge that! Sarah Ditum did a good Twitter thread on it.

God this is embarrassing.

I do hope when the utter car crash brexit organised by the twice sacked for lying lying liar of liarsville Johnson begins to bite these idiots will have the common decency to pause and think that maybe, just maybe they could have stopped it if only they had the guts to publically admit transwomen are not women and do not belong in women's spaces.

I doubt it though.

"Maybe part of this cluelessness is the reliance MPs place on their unpaid intern researchers, current and recent students active in student politics."
This could explain quite alot about why mps haven't been thinking through the ramifications of these ideas if applied as policy - or maybe the other way around, they haven't questioned what ideas actually underlie the policies which they have been asked to roll out.

Just over a year ago during the consultation, there was really no BBC coverage of this issue. On the very last day women's hour covered it. It shows how much has changed - thanks to all those women who have been PUUUULLLing - that now we have a BBC journalist actually asking the relevant questions. It's shouldn't be much to ask but there we are.

The Conservatives should be trying to woo feminist voters by articulating a strong defense of sex segregated spaces

This is what I don't understand.

They could quite easily just start asking questions of the other parties. Do you advocate that men who say some magic words can access the bra fitting changing rooms at Marks & Spencers?

Can men, who say they are women, be sent to female prisons?

What is your definition of woman? Mother?

It would be so easy. Expose their sexist ideology, and then say you don't subscribe to it.

and recent students active in student politics. Maybe not the best source of information?

Great point. And since universities are unfortunately at the epicenter of the new totalitarian tendencies, it also explains why there is consensus rather than rigorous debate. Two of the main parties are in complete thrall to this aggressive lobby group. The Conservatives, who once upon a time could have been relied on to strenuously resist this nonsense don’t seem to have a discernible position on it. Like the General fighting the last war, they don’t realize that this is a time for a pushback against authoritarianism dressed up as liberalism. But their researchers are from the same hive mind pool...,,

Datun, it is baffling. But then again, unsurprising. Politicians seem far more concerned about provoking a Twitter tempest, than casually undermining the definitional characteristics of 50 per cent of voters. What utterly bizarre times we live in

The comments on the tweet are glorious.

Lots of men saying ‘well hang on can a man identity as a woman and play sport?’

Am loving Michelleoftheresistance's story about her elderly mother. It sounds as if Luciana Berger has just managed to peak trans a whole section of the electorate who were previously either unaware of the issue or who thought we were all exaggerating.

It's a wonderful irony that Berger, who represents a huge catch for the Lib Dems and provides a chance for them to show off their egalitarian principles in the wake of the Labour anti-Semitism row, could be the person who ends up alerting the country to the LibDems' complete disdain for women's rights.

Also, I’ve not seen one reply in support.

I expect the Tories are aware of how potent this issue could be to include in their campiagn but also realise that it might just not cut through to ordinary voters leaving them nonplussed. Then there's the real downside of it being used to as "evidence of transphobia" by the Conservatives.

The Conservatives could gain little while being seen as toxic by younger voters.

Raising this issue is potentially useful but maybe unpredictable as to how it will play in real life.

I was thinking exactly the same thing how would it play out (too much Succession). They could draw all the heat and ire from the trans community which would run and run.

The Lib Dem's are so arrogant on this they can't even be bothered to brief their own MPs properly before they wheel them out to talk about it.

While turning off most other people who don't grasp the issues and think "why are they banging on about this stupid PC stuff?"

What utterly bizarre times we live in

Bizarre hardly begins to convey the sheer ineptitude of an entire political class that is unable to capitalise of an issue where 85% give or take of the population are in agreement.

What kind of politician ignores 85% of voters on a contentious issue? The lack of nous is staggering.

Then there's the real downside of it being used to as "evidence of transphobia" by the Conservatives.The Conservatives could gain little while being seen as toxic by younger voters.

No doubt that is their calculation. If they have even bothered to think about it at all. This reinforces my point that instead of rigorous debate, what we have is politicians in servitude to whatever is trending on Twitter. I have never had much time for politicians, but I have never felt as much contempt for many of them as I do now

Thing is the Tories, or any other party, don't need to frame it in terms of trans anything.

They could for example say 'we will ensure you are treated on single sex wards if you have to go to hospital'.

Single sex wards are populat. Trans isn't mentioned. The detail can include 'sex as determined at conception and observed at birth' but most of the public won't read the detail, they'll just see the headline 'protecting single sex wards'.

The lack of nous is staggering.

I agree. It doesn't have to be nuanced, or complicated.

Just go with sport and rapists in prisons.

No one could fuck that up. Make your opponents claim that men should be competing against women, and that rapists should be given access to incarcerated women as part of their punishment.

I am sure I read somewhere that Boris has done polling on this issue to see if it was worth getting into it?

I agree with you BovaryX. Somewhere along the line politicians became scared of leading and now follow. Which has given us opportunists like Johnson who'll go along with whichever group is sufficiently noisy and drape himself in their colours.

Arnold, as nauticant and others have pointed out, I don’t think it’s a lack of nous. I think it’s

A) fear at drawing serious flack from social media and its most aggressive lobbyists

and

B) a grotesque sense of entitlement to women’s votes. This particularly applies to Labour and Lib Dems

tv2east.dk/artikel/snart-… In 2021 Denmark will reopen a women only prison due to the ongoing sexual assaults by men in the female estate

Can we run a clip of this on the site? On loop would be good.

Like Luciana I too am Jewish. She will know, as I do, that there are people who pretend to be Jewish in order to defend Corbyn from claims that he is antisemitic. An entire group was set up in 2016 called Jewish Voice For Labour that is purely there to protect Corbyn from claims about antisemitism. Many of its members aren't Jewish. Twitter is often full of #asajew hashtags which has swelled our tiny population to at least twice its size!

So.... how Berger of all people can calmly say that any man who wants to call himself a woman must be treated as a woman, by law, when she knows as well as I do how much this identify-as-I-please nonsense has hurt us Jews is beyond staggering.

I'm deeply disappointed. She follows me on Twitter as - bizarrely - does Layla Moran! I've sent Luciana a DM asking if by any man she includes convicted rapists, perverts and paedophiles. Or men who get off on trying on women's knickers in the women's changing rooms at Marks then post pictures of themselves.

I don't think Lucians is a bad person, far from it. I think she's naive at best. Possibly tho she is stupid. A conclusion I truly don't want to come to.

I like to think we Jews who value education so very much have well-functioning bullshit detectors. Maybe deep down she knows this is bollocks but she has to say what she has to say to be in the LIb Dems? But isn't that worse? Don't we want politicians who are true to their principles?

@RoyalCorgi and @Michelleoftheresistance I have a lovely vision of M&S cafes across the country teeming with peak transed elderly folk this morning