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.

You see I didn’t koshkat. I take the point that the previous conservative administration had to go, but that labour administration just wanted to be so popular. I cannot forgive Blair for crawling so far up Bush’s arse over Iraq.

But that was later on. At the beginning it felt brilliant to me and a lot of my peer group at the time.
I am just sad that we have no Labour party any more.

Yes, I was there. Alastair did a bang up job I thought.

Was it Mendelssohn who said they have no issues with people getting filthy rich. There was Iraq, multi culturalism, mass uncontrolled immigration, any attempt to talk about immigration was ( still is) shot down with xenophobia, racism etc.. The climate that enabled the Asian grooming gangs up and down the country - as far as I’m concerned, it’s on new Labour. I will not be forgetting the Blair/brown year’s any time soon.

BolloxtoGender those are all valid points and I don't disagree with any of them, but I remember being on a lesbian forum as the Civil Partnership bill was passed, and it was amazing. The 1997 election was amazing, the jaded and cynical Tories under Major were just scandal after scandal (and they saw fit to pass judgement on people from afar whilst having all those scandals) so it did feel like a fresh start.
Tax credits, sure start, spending on hospitals etc (unfortunately dodgy PFI), things got better for a lot of people for a while.
There were positives, it's hard to believe now but there definitely were.

The best legacy of the Blair years, Sure Start, was one of the first to be dismantled, sadly.

I remember that optimism when Blair won - I knew his priorities didn't align with mine, but the government he was replacing was so bad, and I figured that at least having Labour in power would create the possibility that change could happen, and that wiser people in the party would keep him honest.

I've been having a bit of a moment wondering if my younger self would have fallen for Momentum. I was as radfem then as now so I think the gender stuff and the sort of pathetic pandering misogynistic bollocks represented by Owen Jones and his mate with the tshirt would have pushed me away over time, but in the beginning? I'd like to think the authoritarianism would have even without the misogyny, but it seems like once you're in it's a bit like being a Scientologist, to the point where I'm not sure if people really believe what they're saying or if it's themselves they're trying to convince, or they're just hoping to avoid their erstwhile mates going after them. I don't think it's a coincidence that there aren't many older people involved in Momentum though, proportionally. I had a younger friend who was super keen when they first arrived and joined the party to vote for Corbyn, and even then I was going "hmm, dunno about this lot".

Just trying to figure out how this happened really. It's clear that Momentum is electoral poison, and also clear that they themselves don't know or can't admit that.

I think it will be harder to get her to listen to the GC argument though

If true, it rules her out then....( Lucy Powell)

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

Well, yes! New Labour did bugger all for Liverpool, as another example. Liverpool's renaissance didn't begin until it received EU funding for transformative & critical infrastructure developments. It was also New Labour that conceived of HS2 - and promptly left Liverpool off the northern leg.

Was it Mendelssohn who said they have no issues with people getting filthy rich. There was Iraq, multi culturalism, mass uncontrolled immigration, any attempt to talk about immigration was ( still is) shot down with xenophobia, racism etc.

He also informed the electorate that they were now entering a post democratic age, where professional politicians would make all the decisions according to what was good for the proles, and people could just shut up and be done to get on with their little lives and leave it all to the professionals.

That's the root right there of the utter contempt for the electorate, reality and other people's lives and opinions, plus a belief that those not on message shouldn't be entitled to vote or have human rights etc. Which is straight out of the 1950s Stalinist hand book. What his ego was too big to realise, was that when he informed the electorate that they were entering a post democratic age, most of the electorate entered a post politician age.

I canvassed for Labour in my local area most days for the last three weeks. I did so because my MP is incredibly hard-working, someone who grew up in her constituency and wants the best for her people. She's also a passionate remainer as am I. I had to hold my nose – I'm as concerned as the next woman by Labour's misogyny and self ID – but I looked at the alternative and there was none.

I canvassed in mainly traditional working class areas and was dismayed by the number of people who you might have expected to vote Labour but were adamantly anti-Corbyn and many of them very pro-Tory. There was no logic to it. They'd complain about the NHS and Universal Credit and then tell me triumphantly that they were voting Tory and I could fuck off.

We got our Labour MP back in with a larger majority than before so the awfulness has been slightly mitigated. I'm still trying to get my head round the number of working-class Tories we encountered, the apparent lack of critical thinking and the hard-line Momentum member I canvassed with who lives in social housing in London and also owns a home in this area. I mean, when did being hard left mean you had a second home, thus depriving a local person of accommodation?

I feel as if I need therapy, frankly. Part of me, knowing how many traditional working class people voted for a party that will make life even more difficult for them now and for decades to come, feels released from the need to care. That Terry Pratchett quote is wonderfully apposite.

My partner and I have been spending the day looking at places to live in Scotland. We have friends who are seriously considering going too. None of us have to live here and Scotland seems marginally more sane and marginally (barring self-ID) more in line with our core beliefs. I'm sad it's come to this.

I've always considered Mandelson a creep of the first order. "The Post-Democratic Age"? WTF? Did he really say that?

My partner and I have been spending the day looking at places to live in Scotland

If the separatists get their way I will be considering a move to the north of England.

Timelady he really did.

Yes, people do tend to forget the extreme level of sleaze in the dying years of the Thatcher/Major government. Minister after minister were caught having affairs, in some cases the very same ministers that vocally criticised single mothers! Archer went to prison. Aitken went to prison. It felt like a never-ending tide of bad behaviour. Then along came Tony Blair, offering youth, optimism and a promise of social change.

I walked through Westminster the day after the 1997 election. It was a beautiful May morning, I was 21 and it felt like a new dawn...

My partner and I have been spending the day looking at places to live in Scotland

If the separatists get their way I will be considering a move to the north of England

You could do a house swap.

Yes, Maybe Doctor, I was considerably older but I won't forget that day. My first general election was 1979, when Thatcher got in. We had 18 years of Tory rule and who knows, we may be in for another 18 years if Labour can't get their act together. As someone upthread said, it's highly likely that I'll live the rest of my life under Tory administrations unless I move.

It would actually be quicker and easier for moderate Labour to split away, rename themselves and start again.

And yes, time and again on Friday and yesterday I found myself wondering what would have happened if David Milliband had been selected instead of Ed.

I've wondered similar, Kitten. But I was young before neoliberalism rotted everyone's cultural brains, so perhaps not?

Greatly relieved. We'll have a stable government for the first time in years, the self-id nonsense is off the table, and we have more female MPS than ever before. I just hope that Boris will get Brexit done in the best way possible and sort out the SNP.

I'm also hoping that the spectre of a misogynist, anti-semitic and patronising left-wing dominated Labour government is now also gone.

Yes I also remember the Sleaze and moral corruption that took down the Tory government. I believe corruption is what happens when a government has been in too long. New labour coming along was like a clean start and clear out.

Oh and I’m also not forgetting Brown s pension raid which drove private final salary pensions to close down, whilst the public pensions are guaranteed by taxpayers.

Is there an argument for a two-term maximum?

bollox what about the theft of 50s women’s pensions?

Lucy Powell used to be my MP and I don't particularly like her. She seemed a bit insincere and dismissive of anything that didn't involve identity politics or the local buses (IME).

Bear in mind her constituency has quite a lot of uni students in it, not sure how GC stuff would affect her.

Not sure Angry. I was young then so the waspi pension thing did not come on my radar. Was that on New Labour?

By the time I was in my 30s I just remember thinking I’m never going to be saving enough to retire and I’m not even sure if we will still have a state pension by the time I retire. Still think that.

IIRC ftse index hardly changed from 2000 to 2010, so even though I was saving monthly, it seemed futile.

2008 financial crisis, under Labour ‘s watch ( not necessarily saying that s their fault).