What was it with Jo Swinson?

[Freespeecher]

I was quite surprised with the personal opprobrium directed at Jo Swinson during the electoral campaign as, while I had no particularly strong feelings either way (beyond shaking my head at her swallowing of the woke Kool-Aid when it came to self-ID) it was clear that a lot of people couldn't stand her.

Was it just self-ID or was there more to it than that? And if so, what?

I don't think it was self-ID itself, but perhaps the way she handled discussions about it was a factor. I think the general public probably see self-ID as a tiny issue in comparison to Brexit but they do expect politicians to sound confident in discussing issues and JS clearly wasn't.

Do you have any examples of what you mean? She gets less flack in the media than other female politicians imo.
I didn't see many personal insults aimed at Jo Swinson, but I did see people criticizing her for her policies and her performance in interviews.

For example, I thought she gave a poor, generic response to this;

''An unidentified woman in the audience asked her: “Why doesn’t Jo Swinson show her true colours? They’re blue. You’re a Tory in disguise, state what you are.
“You dare to try and raise taxes on lower earners when the country is in austerity. How dare you.”

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/jo-swinson-channel-4-tv-debate-lib-dems-general-election-a9238441.html

When you add it to this it looks like utter hypocrisy;

'Empathy bypass': Jo Swinson attacks PM

Calling Johnson’s approach astonishing, Swinson said it fitted a wider pattern of behaviour...
“It’s tone deaf. It’s like he doesn’t respond to people as human beings,” Swinson said. “It’s like he has had an empathy bypass. Does he care about anyone? I can only conclude that he just doesn’t really care. It’s a pretty damning conclusion, but that’s the situation.”

www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/dec/10/empathy-bypass-lib-dem-jo-swinson-attacks-pm-in-tactical-voting-call

For me it was self ID and her poor arguments for it. I don't have to show a birth certificate when I go to the loo Of course you don't you flipping numpty, you are a WOMAN! Lesbian relationships are abusive too! and that old chestnut I fight for the rights all woman, be they (fill in with multiple minority groups etc., plus men who identify as women).

She just boils my piss.

Yy FT

the constant racist and homophobic arguments where apparently black women and lesbians distort the definition of woman so much that letting men into the definition is the next logical step is disgusting. And everyone thought boris was the racist

She came across as utterly incompetent. I am sure misogyny plays a part too.

Perversely misogyny usually means the few women who rise to the top are more competent than most of the men because you have to be better to be treated as equal. Thus I find it even more surprising when a prominent female politician fails to be on top of her brief. Especially on the things you would expect to prepare for in advance, like being quizzed on self-id, voting record etc.

Female politicians tend to come across to me as highly competent, even for ones I don't agree with, like Thatcher and Harman. I feel that Jo Swinson and Dianne Abbot both grate on me much more than equivalent incompetent men because of this.

And the thing is that those aren't even her arguments, they're standard TRA talking points, but you'd think that at some point in the process from hearing someone else say it to remembering it to repeating it there would be a moment of "hang on, do I really want to say that? that's a bit bigoted, isn't it?"

@TheInebriati This kind of thing: twitter.com/IsabelHardman/status/1197226744912195584?s=20

I voted Leave but can understand why a small party made such a big claim in an effort to Hoover up all those Remain votes were assured were there for the taking but 'an extremist' seems surprisingly strong to me.

I think she lacked professionalism. She went into interviews unprepared to be challenged and she just didn't seem to be on top of things. Someone I said this to accused me of wanting every woman in politics to be like May or Thatcher or Clinton – devoid of humanity, hard as nails. Not true.

Emily Thornberry, Jess Phillips, Angela Rayner – they are all more fluent, quicker-thinking and can manage humour, chat and difficult questions. Jo Swinson seemed to have none of those qualities and just seemed out of her depth a lot of the time.

I have a friend who used to be a Lib Dem and would still be if it wasn't for the self-ID stuff. She described Jo Swinson as seeming like a nice Boden mum who accidentally ended up leading the party because no one was cruel enough to tell her she wasn't much good. She then went on to say that Lib Dem politics were notoriously harsh and back-stabby, so Swinson must have fought hard to get the position. Whatever skills she used to persuade them to give her the job weren't apparent to me. I wish she'd been better. I don't like seeing women being humiliated.

That Spectator piece seems pretty tame compared to having a different shoe photoshopped and widely shared in the national press and social media on polling day.

I liked her less the more often I heard her voice. Irritating. Lacking in charisma. I did like what she said in Parliament after the BJ humbug incident. But it went down hill from there.

I forgot about the self Id. I saw the bollocks she was spurting. Not sure if she even believes it herself. Showed herself up to be a total fuckwit.

I think she was a weak leader unable to persuade and lacked gravitas. Unfortunately, I think she believed the hype that there was a groundswell for remain. Don't get me wrong there was and still are a lot of voters who favour remain but I believe she arrogantly got carried away especially when some MP's defected to Lib Dem and went to far with the revoke article 50 position. She stopped listening and got carried away with the hype. Ultimately this was seen as undemocratic and she was punished for it.

Not sure if she even believes it herself
Course she doesnt.

We are constantly told they are such a small percentage of people it wouldn't make a difference.

So if they are such a small group of people most of which are apparently dead, dying or lying beaten up on a toilet floor somewhere ( as per the constant reminders of how in danger etc they all are) then who and how many are there to actually vote for this

As politically it made no sense if you actually believed a word of it.

I watched very little of her before the election but what I did see was someone not really cut out for political spotlight. Zero charisma and the way she talked just lost my attention (admittedly short-lived as it is).

What did make my ears prick up was seeing Holly (can't remember her surname, sorry) on This Morning asking her to explain herself as women were concerned about her views about self ID.
Holly didn't push it far enough, unfortunately - not that JS was forthcoming anyway - but I hoped the whole issue might have had a wider airing about how dangerous this is.

Just a few more women realising that a predator in women's clothing would be a very easy thing to hide behind and a quiet Ladies is the ideal place for them to commit a crime should be enough to help people see what's happening.

The only sticking point is that women I know and speak to are afraid of being labelled transphobic.

Showed herself up to be a total fuckwit

This pretty much sums it up for me.

I was never going to vote Lib Dem - I haven't forgotten the coalition, and I disagreed with Swinson's view on gender ID. I still had some respect for her, though.

That respect went when I heard her 'there are abusive lesbians too' comment.

I desperately wanted the Lib Dems to do well in this election as I feel a return to more moderate centrist politics would benefit us all. However they made a huge mistake with their assertion that they would just cancel Brexit - I'm a passionate remainer but you can't just ignore a vote you don't like.

Then Jo Swinson herself just seemed to misfire a lot. She just seemed woefully out of her depth and she came across as quite hectoring. Complaining about not being in the initial debates because she was female rather than because her party only has a small proportion of the seats, was a silly move.Difficult to live up to Vince Cable as well I suppose.

I imagine though her being a woman hasn’t helped her either. Misogyny on the rise.

She herself is as guilty of dishing out the misogyny as she's doubtless been on the receiving end. There is no greater form of intermalized misogyny than informing other women that they should shut up, put up, and move aside for the endgame of making men feel more comfortable.

Women's comfort, safety and dignity can all go hang.

She sounded clueless on the self id thing.

But

Ask BJ to answer that question and give even an intelligible answer (never mind right or wrong). Is unimaginable. I never heard him engage with an argument properly: just ‘bof bof bof’

I’ve been asking myself the same. I really don’t like her and I find it hard to identify why. It’s not misogyny as I like and admire other women MPs like Jess Philips and Joanna Cherry. I think she grated on people and part of that was her apparent sense of entitlement. Also a willingness to threaten legal action instead of trying to win the argument - over the leaders debate, over an SNP leaflet in her constituency that she disagreed with, and I’ve heard, at her count when her request for a recount was turned down as they’d already done one. (May just be a rumour). Oh, and Self-ID.

She's a nice, bright, educated middle class woman. But I think she was too young and her voice and manner not authoritative enough.

This is spot on - “She described Jo Swinson as seeming like a nice Boden mum who accidentally ended up leading the party because no one was cruel enough to tell her she wasn't much good.”

I felt sorry for her when she did her speech and commented she'd been picked over for her voice, her hair, her dress sense, her earring etc.

However both Male and female politicians are, from Boris, and his weight, his hair, thorough to Jeremy and his anorak and everything in between, you seldom hear Boris stand up and say I wish people wouldn't talk about by hair, weight and what I look like. Rightly or wrongly it goes with the territory. And she put herself front and centre, with the whole "jo swinsons Lib Dem's". You don't see anything saying "Boris's tories" or " Nicolas snps".

On a personal level I didn't like her either, I thought she lacked gravitas, was very self absorbed, totally out of her depth on many occasions and yes I felt her dress sense was lacking for her position, from her hot pink shoes to her crumpled jumpers in the house, because I'd expect a leader of a major party to dress with some semblance of authority. Particularly when they lacked the gravitas to deliver their message at the best of times.

And I'd say the same if Boris, Nicola or Jeremy fronted up in the house in crumpled jumpers etc and couldn't even be arsed to don a suit. Sometimes you need to dress for the role. To command respect, to look smart.

However as said, I did feel sorry for her, she should never have been elected to that position and was woefully unprepared for it. Compare her to thr likes of sturgeon, whose politics i strongly disagree with, sturgeon is always suited and booted, hair tidy, and she is one of the most eloquent and articulate female politicians there is. She can form an argument, she can put and defend her case, and she never turns up in a crumpled jumper and big dangley earrings.