Conservative Asian Female Home Secretary accused of bullying

[MsSafina]

If this were a BAME female Labour Minister, would the reaction be different? Just goes to show, it's nothing to do with gender or race but all about politics.

"That's why I think you should judge people by their performance and not ethnicity or gender."

We are trying to judge Priti Patel by her performance - it's you who keeps dragging ethnicity and gender into it.

Her comments threatening to starve the Irish if they didn’t agree to back UK gov Brexit demands were vile

Long time lurker here. Senior adult human female. "Bully" is an emotionally manipulative word which I never accept at face value. Tell me the behaviours. In the adult world, absent supporting details, I view it as a childish, weak and petty argument akin to whining. Often when details do come out, they are trivial. I admire strong women and strong arguments.

I'm reminded of something a poster once said about the Assange case. "Everyone's making it a choice: either he's a rapist, or he's the victim of a conspiracy so that he can be extradited. How about the answer is both: he did it, but we all know that most rapes are never even investigated let alone prosecuted, so the fact that this rape is being chased up is down to other motives, namely the desire to extradite him."

I think there could be an element of the same going on here. Patel genuinely is a bully (from everything I've read, it seems she is; these accusations have been pretty thoroughly covered, with first person accounts from the victims) and yet she's being held to account for behaviour which normally is left unchecked - so why her, why now? Race and sex probably have a huge amount to do with that.

She is a bully, but the fact that she's being held to account for it is down to other reasons, because there's lots of bullying goes unpunished.

And again, Johnson standing by her is nothing to do with his judgement that in his eyes she's blameless, but rather entirely down to the fact that she's pro Brexit, a yes-woman, and sufficiently incompetent that she doesn't show him up (he likes to surround himself with second-raters).

@CaraDuneRedux I do think thats a valid point but the fact she has been in trouble before with all the dodgy stuff PP have already mentioned is also likely to be a high factor in the investigation being made into her bullying. I imagine there are a lot of people within the party who are embarrased she is home sec!

I would put money on there being substantial truth in your post at 07:50:05, CaraDuneRedux.

And also in LivingDeadGirlUK's point that it's the cumulative effect of very public incompetences which are embarrassing for the country.

I don't think Priti Patel would want to be judged by her ethnicity and possibly not by her gender.

Though the main criticism should be of the white man who has not sacked her.

As for the second-raters that Mr Johnson likes, true, and also likes to have women in the cabinet jobs where there is little or no political credit to be gained.

Imagine convincing yourself that diversity and inclusion is high on Boris Johnson's agenda

Have you ever heard of internalised racism OP?

Priti, as a woman of colour gets a harder time than any man ever would. However, it doesn't mean she isn't a bully. I would imagine everyone at her level is to some extent.

Priti, Javid, Badenoch, Kwartang only seem to speak on issues related to immigration and race. Do you think its coincidental post Windrush its always a person of colour chosen to front whatever abhorrent policy the Tory's are deploying? Or speak to race and issues facing ethnic minorities.

Is that what equality and progress looks like to you? Is something better than nothing? Do you think these people are really respected for their skills or the for being frontment?

Sunak is the only noteable Tory who seems to have been given a position based on his skills. He is clearly smarter than that whole of Bojo's cabinet put together but considering the Tories have had massive success because of the working class Xenophobic vote, I doubt he'll be in the running for leader as thats the only thing really keeping the Tories in at the moment.

Have you seen the racsim the far right throw at him and Priti?

Do the 'lefties' (whoever they are) do the same?

It does seem that any criticism of her is often dismissed as being because of her ethnicity and being female.

Both things can be true. There are no doubt people who criticise her and they are only doing that because she is a high profile Asian woman.

There are also people who criticise her because of the way she does things, the policies she introduces and the way these policies have been carried out. In exactly the same way they criticise other politicians for the same thing.

Yet when she is criticised, it's dismissed because people say that the only reason she is being criticised is because of who she is and her identity.

The same thing is often said when prominent Labour MPs are attacked such as Diane Abbot. Some criticism is deserved - but I suspect a lot of this criticism comes from people who have an issue with prominent female MPs, people from a BAME background.

@toomanytrees

Long time lurker here. Senior adult human female. "Bully" is an emotionally manipulative word which I never accept at face value. Tell me the behaviours. In the adult world, absent supporting details, I view it as a childish, weak and petty argument akin to whining. Often when details do come out, they are trivial. I admire strong women and strong arguments.

Senior, adult, human, very strong female here. Bullying is never trivial. This attitude is nothing but victim blaming. Would you suggest that a the way that a woman dresses invites rape? No, of course not. Bullying destroys health and lives. Highlighting bullying is not whining, it is not childish, and it is not petty. It takes enormous strength of character and bravery to shine a light on bullying, and Priti Patel was independently investigated because some of her victims were brave enough to do that. For every one that does, there will be many others too scared or intimidated to say anything.

Yes, I agree that sometimes a minority of people might bandy around the word and make allegations without cause. Just as a minority of people bandy around other words as weapons against others. But actions that have been independently investigated and found to be true hardly fall into that category.

If we were talking about behaviours in a school, this board would light up with indignant posters demanding action against some 8 year old bully. I find it astonishing that there is so much support for a government minister of any gender or ethnicity who behaves in a way that we expect 8 year olds not to.

But then I guess she was smart enough not to get caught saying rude things about Carrie... I bet the story would have played out very differently then. It's ok to abuse and bully your employees, but not the bosses girlfriend.

moondust1001 nicely put 👍

OhShutIt Rishi Sunak was promoted on the condition that he accepted what Dominic Cummings wanted, and Sajid Javid did not. Not on ability, and indeed he is nowhere near as skilled a Chancellor as say (George) Gideon Osbourne or Nigel Lawson.

Off topic a bit but your "progressives" have facilitated this:
twitter.com/PrisonPlanet/status/1330661005614047232?s=19
Which may explain why your derided "gammon" don't vote Labour anymore, your "massive racists" prefer to vote Tory. See if this gets through the ban hammer.

Off topic a bit but your "progressives" have facilitated this

Who is the you that "your progressives" refers to? You seem to be trying to pick a fight but I can't work out who with. Has Owen Jones blocked you so you've had to bring it here?

Has Owen Jones blocked you?

Err no. I don't follow him.

Indeed, TesselateMore.

I think this is one of those incoherent OPs that basically goes, "Lefty bad: I'll get back to you on how".

"Lefty bad." Well, a lot of complaining on here about trans issues which would definitely get a free pass by the Labour Party but is regarded with contempt by the so called "right wing" which is another name for not bat shit crazy which, increasingly, the left wing looks like with all the bat shit crazy trans ideology, fanatical pro EU etc.

Internalised racism.

What in the world does this even mean? I have actually been subjected to racist abuse. It was one idiot and I don't call the whole country racist as a result. Is it possible for you to understand that there are people like Patel who feel deeply patriotic towards the UK and don't want to see the country's asylum and refugee laws abused?