Ed Davey wants to listen and rebuild the Lib Dems: let's talk to him

[Shedbuilder]

Just heard that Ed Davey has won the ballot to lead the Lib Dems. His opponent was Layla Moran, the pansexual who sees souls (and also a rather troubled soul herself, judging from things she revealed in a fairly recent interview). So some sanity prevails.

Davey has declared his desire the rebuild the LDs by listening to what ordinary people have to say, so let's tell him. We want an end to all TWAW nonsense and he can rebuild his party and get a pretty instant following if he just stands against the TRAs and supports women's rights. I'm one of thousands, possibly millions, of women who used to be Labour and am now politically homeless. If the LDs were to come out as a party that supported women and girls and not a tool of the MRAs he can have my vote.

Is there a single article/ link I can include in my email to him that demonstrates the plight of the left-centre woman in search of a party she can sign up to? Would Suzanne Moore's Spectator article be any good? Surely Suzanne Moore writing in the Spectator with hundreds of former Labour women applauding should make the point that everything's up for grabs to the party who cares to side with women?

I'd like Davey and the Lib Dems to take a stand and show that free speech and resistance to the forces of Woke aren't just the preserve of the right. Can't see him doing it though (and, depressingly, are there enough votes in it for it to be worth his while?)

Ed Davey is my MP, unfortunately, and it looks as if we are stuck with him as the Lib Dems are well bedded in here, also leading local councils, in a SW London strip from Sutton to Twickenham and Richmond. I don't see much difference between him and say George Osborne, with whom he was in the coalition government, which the Lib Dems, from Clegg down, grabbed with both hands, all just part of the same political class, Oxford degree(s) in PPE and of the same mind and outlook on economic policy and social policy. All quite happy to impoverish female workers through withdrawal of their State pension entitlement, in the name of equality, yeah, a likely story but who cares about poor women? Davey got a lift up to Sec of State for Energy, and afterwards a lucrative private energy consultancy job and a Sir-ship out of it, all the while claiming piety for having curbed the excesses of the 'Tories'. Hum...bug.

Someone mentioned above if he has daughters. He does have one. His first child, a boy, was born severely disabled, and still is, as far as I know, and a daughter followed a few years later. His wife is a solicitor, in housing I think.
At the time of the LibDem leadership contest he declined to stand against Vince Cable, saying he wanted to devote time to the family - understandably, with his son requiring constant care. However he did stand against Jo Swinson and now Layla Moran. I had a sneaking suspicion at the time that he was deferring to Cable. No such inclination when it's a woman contending for the leadership? Anyway, I have no hope for us with him, not that Moran would have been any more welcome. Hopeless, the lot of them, which is how I feel generally about our current political class. Even the Women's Party. There is just no one I could vote for.

Oh dear still no party to vote for. I agree with others the Lib Dems will fade away, with only 11 or 12 seats they cannot make a comeback now they have said they don't really care about women, many of us who used to be lib dem voters.
I too have a vote waiting for a party who can commit to womens rights by defining a woman as an adult human female.

The Lib Dems are "supposed" (in my view) to serve up a classic-liberal version of politics that tends to lie between the Tories and Labour.

Instead, they seem increasing to be at the left of Labour, esp in terms of identity politics issues, which makes no sense and gives them no clear "market."

Labour has had to adopt more moderate views on ID politics issues (certainly, we have been KS leaning in this direction) because they serve a broad church that includes many traditional Labour heartlands areas (industrial, ex-coal mining etc.) and some ethnic minority groups whose position on sex, gender, marriage, family stuff is often not particularly left-wing at all.

The LDs has pretty much become exclusively about white middle-class left-wingers, and as such their politics have just drifted further and further to the left, accompanied by the kind of smug, annoying tone that tends to characterize people who think of themselves as very open-minded yet rarely speak to anyone who doesn't share their views.

@Newuser123123

I was a party member but quit over this. I'm also the one who did the phone in with Jo Swinson so I doubt they'd want me back in tbh.

That was you? It was a fine question.

Politics isn't perfect and every vote is a compromise. However, recognising the existence of women and girls - a bar so low it's a chalk line on the ground - is not up for negotiation. Half the population. Half the voters. If the Lib Dems prefer to pretend we don't exist then nor do our votes, up to them.

I will also say that Davey's dismissal of attacks on women and children in women's spaces as a couple of bad incidents that he can presumably handwave away should disqualify him for office. I am not going to sit and negotiate how many women and children can be assaulted in their own spaces by intruders before Ed might or might not concede there could be a problem because the answer is NONE. His statement has actually sickened me in its open hatred for women. He thinks he can ignore our no. That shows the type of human he is. Let him count his MPs and despair.

But LD have been completely Belchered - there’s no hope of change for years if not decades from them

Why do so many people fawn over Belcher? Belcher is awful.

@MichelleofzeResistance

How exactly is discrimination against trans people (unspecified as to what and how) going to be fixed by men sacrificing female rights and spaces to other males?

Exactly. And why is treating a specific group of males the same as any other male in denying them access to women's changing rooms, toilets and other sex-specific spaces - discrimination? What about the discrimination towards women? Oh yeah ...

And what about privacy and dignity for women? What about our feelings? Ignorant, arrogant men like Davey never give women's feelings a single thought.

The patronising 'listen' is an absolute cop out. KS did that too, and it's just another way of fudging issues.

Politicians appear not to listen and when they do, they wilfully misunderstand.

Yes, highame. It's very patronising. 'I'm listening' - sitting and waiting like a benevolent emperor awaiting his subjects' petitions. Fuck that. If he wants to know what's going on he can do a bit of reading and research, actually get out there and speak to people. Old fashioned politics, I know, but it might work.

👍

Well he said to Iain Dale that he has listened and ‘ I don’t agree with them’, them including women who say they’re not comfortable being naked with males. It’s not something he should ‘disagree’ with. It’s so patronising. Who is he to tell any girl or woman they’re wrong to not want to change with males.

@highame

The patronising 'listen' is an absolute cop out. KS did that too, and it's just another way of fudging issues.

Politicians appear not to listen and when they do, they wilfully misunderstand.

Yup. This "talk to me" charade is really getting old now, I'm not buying it. Even Owen Jones did it, whilst carrying on blocking women who tried to talk to him.

This is where the Lib Dems are today: policies that impact women and/or LGB people are determined by late transitioning males. The rest of them see women and non-conforming men as some sort of "non-men" category. This is not progressive politics, and their reaction to dissenting voices is deeply illiberal.
Same with Labour, they have Peto and co dictating what women can and can't say.
They don't care about women's rights, that's not new, but what I can't understand is their indifference to how this impacts kids.

the couple of bad incidents thing does my head in

we changed our law around gun ownership because of Dunblane we didnt go "ooooh well most people who own guns dont shoot up schools so it would be wrong to base policy on that #notallgunowners"

Ian Huntley led to the requirements around CRB now DBS checks - we didnt go "oh well most adults who work with children dont murder them so we dont need to improve safeguarding"

and yet when a TW attacks a woman its immediately "hey #notallTW it woul be wrong to base policy on that"

it fucks me off so much that women being harmed is seen as just one of those things we have to put up with in society

Really good point, kit19

I don’t expect him to agree with me but dismissing my concerns and telling me I can’t even debate an issue means I will never support him
Met him once, he seemed nice. DS told him he looked like Donald Trump!

But LD have been completely Belchered - there’s no hope of change for years if not decades from them Why do so many people fawn over Belcher? Belcher is awful.

The only explanation is that there is something specific about HB that marks HB out above women.

Can’t think what that could be.

My vote is there for the taking. Defend women's rights & you can have it.

Even if you're the Monster Raving Looney Party. (Ok, I might draw the line at whatever Farage's mob are calling themselves these days...).

Davey has been very clear; he doesn't consider any of my concerns 'legitimate'. So I won't consider voting for his party until they sort that out.

Often women are very successful in the technology industry and make a lot of money which gives them power and influence. A lifetime of female privilege boosts your confidence too.

As a long term lib dem voter I always felt they were reasonable and caring. I really liked them under nick Clegg and do think they were the good fairies ameliorating the tories, free school meals for example was a wonderful policy.
For Ed Davey just to say 'I'm a Liberal, do what you like' is a total cop out. My right to extend my fist stops at the end of your nose. If they want to win any support they need to sell a compelling vision of what a caring Liberal society looks like not just appeal to a fringe group of nutters.

There was a thread on here a while ago about a new iteration of the SDP. They are stronger on sex-based rights:

sdp.org.uk/policies/transgender-and-biological-sex-based-rights/

(No mention of toilets and changing rooms though, I notice.)

Not saying whether they're any good or not, just bringing them up as an option for the politically homeless!

I looked into them, they're ukip, women stay at home, total nut jobs unfortunately. Not at all related to the SDP of old

Female privilege???

@Newuser123123

I looked into them, they're ukip, women stay at home, total nut jobs unfortunately. Not at all related to the SDP of old

How did you conclude that?