Conservative landslide - how are we feeling as feminists?

[Cwenthryth]

I feel very mixed this morning. So worried about what this means for public services, policing, NHS, social care, mental health services, housing, in-work poverty... all of which disproportionately affects women, either as those needing these services or picking up the pieces when dependents cannot access what they need. We now have an openly misogynist prime minister (we did before, but now he has a secure mandate), who won’t even acknowledge all of his children whilst slagging off single mothers, and has had the police called out due to neighbours fearing for the safety of his partner from what they could hear through the wall.

But there’s a tiny silver lining of it seeming that it seems very unlikely that self-ID would be brought in under this government, at least in the form the Lib Dems were touting for, so we are probably more secure on retaining sex-based rights than we would have been with any other result.

To be honest it’s not really much comfort to me right now.

Tories don’t have the same issue of ignoring their Northern/Midlands heartlands though.

Boris doesn’t even live in his constituency, he lives in Emily Thornberry’s - but Tories aren’t expected to care about local people and local issues the way Labour are.

I’m currently agreeing with Lang and hoping Lisa Nandy will stand (although her expenses are high and she was a player in the failed coup of 2016, so that might be a sticking point). Lisa is MP for Wigan

What do you think of Lucy Powell? I really rate her. She is measured, and maybe would have even broader appeal than Lisa Nandy.

Just you know your Labour onions. Do you think Keir Starmer could be selected to lead? (He’s my first choice so far)

Not sure myself, but I rate Lucy Powell and she says:

"LABOUR MP Lucy Powell warned against replacing Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the party with shadow Brexit secretary Keir Starmer and she claimed the Labour Remainer would be unfit to lead"

I fear I will never see a Labour Gov again. They can't dig themselves out of this by just clinging to illusions.

This was my fear. Then I watched that GMB video someone posted above, and the fear became a certainty. The Graces of the party won't back down, and they are incapable of reflection. That video sums up so well the behaviour that sensible pragmatic people in the party are up against. I feel so sorry for the MPs who have said that they tried again and again to tell the Party that they had a big problem in their constituencies, but were ignored by the London liberal wing of the party. All Grace and her ilk will conclude from this defeat is that they didn't drag the party sufficiently left, and that the electorate needs to be properly educated. My only hope is that the unions - made up of people who have jobs in the public sector, rather than liberal dilettantes like Grace Blakeley, Owen Jones and Ash Sarkar - might understand the value of actually winning an election.

I’m not keen on Lucy Powell, but for no real quantifiable reasons - I live one constituency over and have met her several times and she always seems incredibly insincere to me (plus, I know someone who works in her constituency office and he is totally woke bro TWAW). I think Nandy will be a better choice for convincing the electorate but if Powell was chosen, I would suck it up and get behind her. I think it will be harder to get her to listen to the GC argument though.

I’ve got the Marr show on now on catch up. They said Nandy is on further down the show.

I was impressed with Lisa Nandy on Marr. No idea what her stance is on GRA reform, I'm assuming like Jess Phillips she has just kept her head down.

Blairism lost Labour Scotland. Corbynism then lost it the Red Wall.

At some point, the liberal city dwellers are going to have to see that the thing that joins these two things is them.

Blair got a huge landslide.

I would assess the criteria before judging against it.

These people might be right just think about what could win rather than which identity fits a criteria.

I’m trying to ascertain Nandy’s position on GC matters via GC labour networks. At the very least she will know that people in Wigan aren’t woke.

Yep, LangCleg. I'm starting to see a very definite pattern of arrogance in the left that really doesn't sit well in Scotland, particularly. Defining the left's solutions as the only true way, and anything else as either stupid or evil, basically. An utter inability to consider that the possible alternative viewpoints may have merit, or at least be as valid as one's own.

Defining the left's solutions as the only true way, and anything else as either stupid or evil, basically. An utter inability to consider that the possible alternative viewpoints may have merit, or at least be as valid as one's own

Sounds like Corbyn his followers and Momentum.

Blair cut through because of the ground work done by kinnock to stamp on the left of the party, Hatton, etc had a hold on the party and were an electoral liability.
Rather bizarrely we are looking for the new kinnock not the new blair.

i am generally a lurker maybe once or twice engaged in discussions. I became aware of GC views after lurking here and changed my views from live and let live to oh shit this self I’d is truly scary. However from my vantage view there was far more scarier issues at stake. So I voted labour. I have to admit that I liked Corbyn and his policies.

There seemed to be no good choices because there are no easy solutions for global problems we face. 1.5 billion people consume 75% of planet’s resources and we already consume way more than can be sustained by the planet. Climate disasters are already happening and refugees are created every day. There will be more wars that will be fought on religious and ideological grounds but will actually be about capturing resources.

Wars are generally good for economy specially in a system that money is created out of nothing as banks loan. The right have come very prepared to this fight. They have chosen a very divisive political language benefit cheat vs. Working poor. Just managing against working poor, immigrants against WC, London elite vs. Northern heartlands etc.

Labour has been weak in fighting this narrative. Labour lost in 2015 with austerity lite stance that didn’t sound credible and lost again in 2017 and 2019 with very weak messaging.

We are where we are, plans are being made to privatise NHS. It will be free at the point of service for a while but it will fail and holding private insurance will become necessary. The failure will be blamed on immigrants and by extension on minorities. Everyone will forget that NHS is partly in trouble because many who staffed NHS have left. Don’t get me wrong, I think we should invest in training our own workforce and not rely on immigration ( and I am my self a reluctant immigrant). But many people immigrate because there are jobs to be had. These are jobs that British government has not invested in training British workforce for because it is cheaper to use immigration, in effect other countries’ tax money. In an ideal world this is ok as those countries will get some of our workforce but we don’t live in an stable world.

Interesting Bird

I wasn’t much more than a child when he died but John Smith’s contribution needs to be considered in terms of how and why Blair was successful. We didn’t go directly from Kinnock to Blair and without Smith, it probably wouldn’t have been Blair at all.

Maybe we can cut out the Kinnock and go to Smith? A leader for a couple of years and a fresh one for the next GE.

That's a fair point about Smith I had no time for kinnock at the time, but I think I was wrong, he pulled a floundering party to his feet. I wonder if John Smith would have been able to do that.
It's possible it wont matter who gets the leadership, the labour party may tear itself apart, I realise its early days and everyone is furious but I am worried about how this will go. I would have said a split might be for the best but the centrists wont leave because of what happened to Change UK.

Blair got a huge landslide.

And then lost Scotland due to perceived London elite priorities. The Red Wall decline also began under Blair.

Then Corbyn allowed the Woke activists to speak in his name and Labour lost the Red Wall.

Until Labour can make an offer to the constituencies that clearly now hold the balance of power, it won't win an election.

Public service investment? Yes. Social change? Yes, but only if it is slow and gradual and not dominated by bourgeois queer theory.

Blair was in for over ten years. The most successful Labour leader. If you can get that again then great.

They had that chance Marsha and dibbsed the wrong Milliband.

Absolutely TSSDNCOP. I remember that announcement. I was amazed but in hindsight it was an even worse decision than I thought.

I don’t remember the Blair/Brown years with fondness.

I remember that amazing feeling of hope and optimism we had for the future when Labour got in in 1997.