Emily Thornberry MP web chat

[midclegs]

Sorry for my fairly lame question to Emily for the webchat tomorrow. Hope you managed to get in better questions?

Mumsnet webchats are now ruled by an authoritarian hand. A lot has changed since the days of Gok Wan being utterly roasted over women's corsetry. That was allowed - this isn't.

Roasting Gok Wan over corseting women up was fine - but talking to politicians about proposed changes to law, and children's safeguarding is now subject to major censorship.

What is it about the magic word "gender" or "trans" or "self ID" that makes everyone - MNHQ, Politicians, journalists, comedians - scurry off and bury themselves in the sand?

Thanks Eleanor

Eleanor, I'm going to read some of your lovely stuff about food & archeology as a salve to the soul

Well, I think she has dog-whistled that she doesn't intend to defend freedom of speech.

It's the fact that instead of engaging with a question about it, she just made a statement about something else, which is the dog that didn't bark.

If she becomes leader and she gets elected, making a statement of fact might become a hate crime.

I won't be voting for her.

I have a vote in this election and am still waiting for someone I can vote for.

Working I think you have got a very long wait ahead of you

A strong statement on the protection of single sex provision would have made her a front runner for those really centring women and girls.

It''s nothing to do with trans folk with genuine dysphoria. Why can't they see it's opening the door to arseholes who will take advantage. And we know they will. Predators go to extreme lengths (c.f. Emily Maitless and her horrific experience with a dedicated stalker) - That's why we have boundaries. Not for the nice dinner ladies called Dave.

Oh and another thing

we're finding it increasingly hard to tempt politicians onto Mumsnet because of fears they'll simply be harangued about this single issue and shouted at for not providing the desired response - which ultimately means no one will get to ask any of these important questions to our policy makers.

If they're too fucking cowardly to answer women's questions about issues which directly and indirectly affect us, why are they setting themselves up as our potential leaders?

And why are you rolling out a red carpet and insulating them from us, Mumsnet? Whoever mentioned GokWan and what a mauling he got is dead right - why is it OK for women to stridently challenge an ephemeral sleb (where is he now?) but not political leaders who hope to wield real power over millions of people?

If politicians are too afraid to answer women's questions about trans issues, what are they hiding from us? And why is mumsnet facilitating their hiding, instead of highlighting it?

Gok Wan being utterly roasted over women's corsetry

Well, that's a novel use of bra-burning.

Pissed off lurker here.

As usual:

MP invited onto MM Webchat.

Posters ask lots of pertinent FWR questions.

MNHQ censors the majority of questions.

MP starts Webchat by answering questions enthusiastically and in vast detail on any other topic apart from FWR.

Eventually MP answers one or two FWR questions with vagueness, platitudes and fairy dust.

MP endeavours to answer biscuit question for lols!

FWR MNers are disappointed, get pissed off, and still politically homeless.

Rinse and repeat.

What is the point in these Webchats?

Great blog, Eleanor, thank you.

What is the point in these Webchats?

They keep Mumsnet on the political interview circuit and therefore attract advertisers who wouldn't be interested in a website that only dealt with nappies, housework and leaving the bastard.

I wonder if one "solution" is that whenever a web chat is announced we all email the MP (or other guest) with the questions we would have asked - noting that we are not allowed to ask them on the web chat but that we very much want to know the answer(s) whether on the web chat or off it.

The Emily T and Keir S webchats make me almost nostalgic for the Penny Morduant one. Oh how we scoffed at the time at her evasive non-answers, but even she made more of an effort than these two. And MN censorship wasn't nearly as aggressive.

I'm dreading the Lisa Nandy webchat now. I've been really impressed with her generally and could see myself voting for her, but I kind of know she'll blow it.

When the BBC have phone ins, they allocate calls according to how many they get about certain subjects. They know they can't get everyone on air, so they try and weight the subjects according to what the phone in participants wanted to talk about.

Seems ... well... responsive to users... democratic... accountable... fair?

'I'm dreading the Lisa Nandy webchat now. I've been really impressed with her generally and could see myself voting for her, but I kind of know she'll blow it.'

Yeah, she will. Shes in the TWAW cult too, or at least pretends to be. I did like the cut of her jib, so its v disappointing

The answer to the free speech question was remarkable. Not only did she not address free speech, she chose to see it as support for hate speech!

It's one thing feeling too worried to talk about the trans issue, but free speech and its erasure, is in every paper, on tons of TV programmes and on everyone's lips. It's an extremely topical issue, with little controversy.

I can't work out if it was scarily revealing, or just lack of comprehension.

Eleanor

Great article. I like that style of writing, easy to understand, highly communicative, no nonsense.

ScrimshawTheSecond

She had a hard time growing up, but now she's fine, so too bad for anyone else that is now finding themselves at the sharp end, is that it, Datun?

It was more this scrim

In the 1970s and 80s I was involved in the feminist movement and at that time we were trying to establish that women could make their own choices that they weren't in someway 'lesser men', that we could do jobs that until then only men had done, that we didn't have to wear make up, that we didn't have to get married. We could establish our own identity. I was really proud of being a woman and being part of that movement...

...I hope our world has moved on and I think the younger generation have a different attitude. I don't think you need to be worried about your daughter, I think your daughter will grow up in a world that is more tolerant and understanding and perhaps has learnt from feminism that we can all be different and it's OK.

As though the things in the first paragraph are old fashioned and silly, and have been negated by what's happening in the last paragraph.

It was like it was an either/or.

I'm appalled at the response to the question on free speech. I didn't have ET down as an authoritarian. She would be a danger to this country's democratic freedoms (or what's left of them).

I don't think 1970s or 1980s feminism had anything to do with establishing an 'identity' - what a TRA dogwhistle.

I’m disappointed that MN take such a strict view on curating these discussions. The authenticity of direct engagement is presumably a big part of the appeal for users and if that is taken away and discourse is heavily stage managed, it just becomes a polished PR opportunity for politicians to dish out a bunch of soundbites that we’ve all heard before. What’s the point in that? If politicians don’t really want to engage on issues of great importance to women they probably shouldn’t pretend they do. If they don’t come prepared, on their own heads be it.

The volume of questions and interest isn’t artificially generated either, we’re not bots, it demonstrates the strength and breadth of feeling.

See recent efforts at Downing Street to manage and restrict media questions - there was rightly an outcry. Nobody should be helping politicians avoid the questions that people want to ask of them.

This is just Labour through and through. They don't listen to anyone other than their cherry picked advisors. They will not hear from anyone unless it's someone telling them what good clever activists they are and what a good job they're doing, and everyone else is just an evil bigoted fascists.

Labour is now the party of a tiny bunch of extremely liberal radicals who are so absorbed in identity politics they don't understand what society and community means any more. They have no clue how alien their values are to the rest of the country, even after Brexit, even after the 2019 election, they have no clue. They see themselves as some sort of priestly class who need to save the country from sin. They're going to push on with this because in their eyes they are our intellectual betters and they know best.

The definition of woman is central and fundamental to everything Emily said. All her polished speeches and soundbites are redundant if by woman she means anyone who says they are. Her points on maternity, carers, etc, become less impressive when viewed through the TWAW prism. It makes all the promises worthless.