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?

She went into multiple interviews unprepared to answer questions about things that were in her party's manifesto. I'd hope that any candidate who did that would be greeted with scorn.

Boris and his bunch still got in, tho.

But how many people in real life have you heard discussing self-id and being a reason not to vote for a particular politician. I dont think that was the reason she got slammed. After all as we know, most men dont give a shit about this major impact to women's rights and women's lives. As mentioned above lack of charisma and vagueness more likely.

Self ID definitely was a problem but she generally seemed incompetent and ill prepared. Also 2 faced at being very capable of being insulting to other politicians but playing victim herself. Just not clever enough to be a party leader I'm afraid.

Basically I think she has zero self awareness. She hid behind misogyny, the low cut top thing and glass ceiling in her losing speech but dished out insults right left and centre.
To suggest she would make a better PM than the others was just ludicrous - anyone stupid enough to say that as part of a campaign is an idiot.
She came across as self righteous and shallow.
Compared to other women she's a total lightweight. Barbara Castle, Jenny Lee, Yvette Cooper, Clare Short, Mo Mowlam etc etcm.
I think her PR background showed.

Having read the LGBT Lib Dem twitter feed, I knew that the Lib Dems had some loud activist members , but I didn't realise how much they had dominated the party until I heard her talk about biological sex and Self ID.

It's one thing to argue over the meaning of the legislation - the truth is that as there have been no test cases the legislation is unclear.

It's another to be fully onboard with the ideology (sex doesn't exist, we are all assigned a gender at birth).

It made me doubt all her policies.

Unfortunately, I think she believed the hype that there was a groundswell for remain.

If you count all Parties that weren't Brexit or Tory as remain parties, most people voted for a remain party. The problem is that to do that you have to include the SNP, and as Swinson found out, at this point in time some people in Scotland care more about leaving the UK than they do about simply remaining.

Yes misogyny definitely played a part, and by that I mean her own. Telling women they don't deserve single-sex refuges is pretty appalling.

She came across as under prepared, and like she didn't even know herself what the rationale behind her policies was. Very shallow, no attention to detail, no intellectual curiosity, just an arrogance of thinking she had all the answers when she actually had none. No self-reflection either on her own voting record, and also the fact it was clear she put herself first and to hell with other women (with the Lord Rennard sexual harassment issue where she "went to ground" rather than have to deal with something that was her own brief because it might make some men sad).

I wonder about misogyny being a big factor though. There are more women MPs than ever.

I would probably have voted LD if she could've clearly articulated what she counts as a woman. And if the rest of the party hadn't called GC women bigots.

I think women who intentionally shit on women are judged more harshly than men who just don't really think or care much about women.

I must say I would prefer a man who forgets to consider women ahead of a woman who knows the issues and knowingly goes out of her way to make women's lives more difficult and dangerous.

I wonder about misogyny being a big factor though

IME from the most recent election it is absolutely still a factor.

Long before the self ID thing came about I realised she was a self serving highly inefficient MP. She wanted photo ops more than to actually help people. Wasn’t sad to see her go. She was an awful MP, a questionable human being and no loss to her constituency

I'd had some personal contact, that was enough to dislike her patronising willingness to throw women under the bus as long as she was ok.

I speak out in support of other prominent female politicians even those whose politics I disagree

For Jo it is that she'd betray us all for her career whilst lecturing us

For me it was simple. If you don't even know what a woman is, how the hell are you capable of running a country?

She was useless, basically

Nothing to do with being a woman. But her not knowing what a woman is really did not help.

I loathe her because of her voting record. Happily cosied up to the Tories in coalition so she did. That's enough to make me hate her. Was brilliant seeing her ousted.

passionate remainer here, voted Lib Dem last time purely about this, now unable to do so on the self ID nonsense. Don’t care what she wears but she has to be more knowledgable than she appears. But the anti lesbian stuff finished them off as far as I was concerned. However I do think the other party leaders should have been asked equally challenging questions about self ID policies.

She has no charisma and doesn’t come across well.

Misogyny as well as being crap and waffling
Didn’t connect with people and didn’t present as someone electable
I’ve met her and I liked her, she’s quite good face to face and in a one to one conversation but when she was chosen over Ed Davy I told DH that was the Libs chance of doing well in the election

Combination of lots of different things.

I hate to say it, but her voice... Aagh. I tended to switch her off when she came on the radio.

As a pp said, it went right through me too. To make matters worse, when she was challenged by interviewers she would talk faster and higher and louder - it made her sound panicky and out-of-her-depth. She should've done a Thatcher and had elocution lessons.

In terms of content, she was muddled. She just doesn't project authority. Tbh if she was my line manager at work I wouldn't take her that seriously.

The really superficial stuff - hair, clothes etc. Sorry, yeah, she often looked a bit of a mess. It shouldn't matter, but in politics, it makes a difference.

On a personal level I find many individual Tories deeply objectionable, but their election campaign was crystal clear (not that I think they will get Brexit done any time soon) and they appealed to everyone who is sick of Brexit and not that interested in politics, which is a lot of people. By ruling out any coalition with Labour, JS succeeded in splitting the Remain vote.

Half the population has an IQ below 100. If you want to do well in a democracy, it doesn't do to overcomplicate things.

I know a lot of people really dislike her I cant work out why. I don't think its because she's a young woman though. My daughter said she didn't like her she said the only thing she did like about her was she is a young woman, and wanted to like her but found her false. I don't have any strong feelings about her

Not knowing what a woman is, and supporting self-id, show her to be appalling. She should have planned her interview better, and not waffled.
Tbh, I am Not sure what the Lab position on self-id is, but as a woman, she ought to have understood some of the problems more than maybe a male politician.
Saying she was going to be next prime minister, came across as arrogant. She should have instead maintained that the LibDems could have held the balance of power or formed an alliance with Labour.
Her stance on Brexit was definitely not confused, but also spoke of disregard to those who had voted leave. Instead she should have taken a position on a second vote, which would have been more acceptable to lots of people.
I have also seen criticism of her clothes, which might be misogynist, except Boris is criticised for his hair, and JC has previously been criticised for his clothes (Not recently, but last year at the cenotaph). I guess she likes the bold colours as a way of standing out, where men just wear dark suits all the time.

Self ID. The fact that she waffled in interviews and came across as arrogant and out of her depth. Finally, the decision just to ignore the referendum and decide what the nation should do off their own bat.

Right wing economics combined with queer theory social policies meant that she never stood a chance with me. Worst of both worlds in my political book. So she was always a non-starter.

But what disgusted me beyond belief over the course of the campaign was her rampant, vile, virulent homophobia in continually using the (non existent) violence of lesbians as a gotcha on trans questions. I'd have cut my arm off rather than vote for a woman who said those things.

Leaving aside self ID, I think all women in politics are affected by misogyny, (whether or not I agree with their politics) and she was always going to struggle to sell the idea that either a Lib/Lab coalition wouldn't be headed by Corbyn as PM, or that a Lib/Con coalition would revoke article 50.