Change in focus in equality policy...

[RedToothBrush]

Lucy Fisher @LOS_Fisher
EXCL: Gvt has focused too heavily on “fashionable” race, sexuality & gender issues at expense of poverty & geographical disparities, Liz Truss will say tomo.

Overhaul of equalities policy will see pivot away from quotas, targets, unconscious bias training & diversity statements

In major policy reset speech, Truss will hit out at “identity politics, loud lobby groups & the idea of lived experience” in debate about a fairer society.

She will unveil new approach to equalities based on “freedom, choice, opportunity, & individual humanity & dignity”.

New equalities policy will seek to dovetail with PM’s “levelling up” agenda

Gvt will:
• look to move Equalities Hub from capital to the North
• launch equalities data project
• move Social Mobility Commission into Government Equalities Office

www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/12/16/pivot-fashionable-race-sexuality-gender-issues-focus-poverty/
Pivot from 'fashionable' race, sexuality and gender issues to focus on poverty in equalities overhaul
Liz Truss hit out at identity politics and unconscious bias training, saying her policy reset will instead look at geographic disparities

Trying to think about down sides to this. Focusing on poverty is a key thing for women and the BAME community anyway.

It strikes me as occupying a space that Labour should be, given their roots and history.

This is definitely culture war related, but its also a sensible move, because it is an approach that is needed in many respects.

Wow

Liz Truss is riding high in the conservative members polls right now. I saw a recent one where she was too with a score of + 75!
By contrast Boris was about + 3.
Not sure if it is this brief or more likely the trade stuff but either way she is a very popular minister right now amongst the Tories. Maybe this is a case of strike while the iron is hot?

She was top, not too

I know many of you don't like/trust the Conservatives, but it might be worth reflecting on the deep shit we would now be in if the Labour Party under Corbyn had won the election this time last year.

I reckon Truss realised the situation when she received bucket loads of mail from women all over the country.

I am hopeful about this. Ordinary people of all colours and creeds are just sick of the endless wokery and identitarism.

The narrative of privilege has caused great upset in some mixed race families I know: people feel as though their deep love and care for their children and grandchildren has been attacked, and such attacks have been tacitly supported by the establishment.

It's all so destructive. It's a war against most people's good natures.

There's a lot about what they won't do, and very little about what they will do to address inequality in that speech.

Yeah I think its less about what they say they don't like and what they will actually do.

I don’t know the UK political climate as well as the US but isn’t the Conservative party the party of austerity/small government in comparison to the others? Can they really claim with any kind of believability that they are going to put forth policy that really addresses poverty in a meaningful way?

If a republican in the US started talking about “individual choice” in the realm of economic equality I would know what they really mean is “I’m rich because I chose to be, you’re poor because you chose to be, so nothing needs doing”.

(In the US context there would be the additional “god ordained it thusly” component which I understand you Brits thankfully do not engage in”)

Yes as a general rule (smaller state, more pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps sort of thing, lower taxes) compared to Labour ( bigger state, more government intervention as a positive thing, higher taxes)
but I would also think the Conservatives in the U.K. are actually to the left of the US democrats on many things - supporting state provided healthcare the obvious example. Imo Boris is a liberal really and no politicians here of any persuasion do God

JK Rowling recently quoted JK Galbraith to the effect that real leadership involves directly addressing the major fears and concerns of those you want to lead. Truss seems to be building herself a profile and position on the less feral side of the Tory party by doing just that. Lots of good stuff in that speech, and it's really good to see the BS confronted.

She damned Foucault by name! Yay!

That said, she remains a Tory, and I don't think we can expect her to go all centre left on this. However, if it looks like the Tories could actually benefit from this explicit rejection of identity politics, it could strengthen Starmer's hand. Now that the Lib Dems have gone off skipping hand in hand through their bizarre alternate realities, we really are back with two parties only.

Why have the examples of unintended consequences (single sex spaces, Rotherham etc) been left out of the official transcript?
which states on the page "Delivered on:
17 December 2020 (Transcript of the speech, exactly as it was delivered)"

www.gov.uk/government/speeches/fight-for-fairness

I mentioned this on a separate thread, but I think it's canny messaging designed to put clear blue water between the Tories and Labour on identity politics which doesn't play well with the average constituent in the Blue Wall seats where they're looking to entrench support. Labour aren't going to win the next election if they can't regain Bolsover. This is 'no nonsense', 'common sense', saying what everyone's really thinking messaging. No more talking shops and distractions - we're going to roll our sleeves up and get down to business. Whether you think they'll improve social mobility or not with this approach, I think she's reading the room. Maybe also positioning herself as future leader material. There was a V positive article about Truss in the Independent about how she's the unsung hero of Brexit trade deals this week.

Highly interested that she makes a point of quoting three PCs: sex, race and gender reassignment.

Given the deliberate conflation of the first and last by Stonewall et al, it seems significant.

@FWRLurker

I don’t know the UK political climate as well as the US but isn’t the Conservative party the party of austerity/small government in comparison to the others? Can they really claim with any kind of believability that they are going to put forth policy that really addresses poverty in a meaningful way?

If a republican in the US started talking about “individual choice” in the realm of economic equality I would know what they really mean is “I’m rich because I chose to be, you’re poor because you chose to be, so nothing needs doing”.

Traditionally yes.

HOWEVER a big shift has occurred in uk politics where the Conservative party have flipped from being economically conservative to be socially conservative. And this is now dominating uk politics rather than economic considerations (see brexit and johnson saying 'fuck business'). The converse has happened with the Labour party who were previously more socially conservative and in recent years under Blair tended to priortise business interests (the rise in neo-liberalism started under Blair not the coalition).

The public in the UK a majority lean towards socially conservative (its worth pointing out that in the UK even socially conservative people now support gay rights and the principle of womens right by a majority so this tends to be a difference with US politics which isn't as tolerant).

It was more neo-liberal in supporting free operation of business without the interference by government. This has also shifted somewhat. There is more desire to regulate and for protectionism than there was (even if this comes at a cost and is at odds with what is actually said), because soveignty.

Labour hasn't been terribly good at spotting and adapting to this shift.

Instead they are trying to push social values which are fundamentally at odds with the majority of the public. And therein lies their issues.

They have also in pushing for identity politics the public don't like, also been tone deaf to the associated economic issues. The 'most vulnerable in society', as a term used by Labour party activitists has been used to describe rather middle class well off individuals based on their identity rather than whether they actually are vulnerable.

So its a bit more of a complex answer in saying that the Tories support this and Labour support this.

The Conservatives are actually in many respects harking back to a period in their history prior to the rise of the Labour party where you had this working class blue collar group who tended a to have an old fashioned protestant attitude to hard work reaping reward. It also fits with rose tinted views of Victorian morality and ideas of philanthropy (rather than the state providing certain things). This isnt austerity. It has similarities but is more Cameron's failed vision of Big Society but revamped. Johnson himself is quite keen on the idea of big infrustructive projects too - similar to the construction of Britain in the 1800s. The problem with this is a lack of resources to be able to do this though...

How uk politics have shifted - and differ from the US, perhaps diverging in ways that havent really been well identified - is a really fascinating subject.

The Tories tend to have been able to define what they stand and to be crucially connect that to the relevance of peoples lives in a way that Labour haven't. Labour is adrift having abandoned its historical roots and purpose and have lost touch with the relevance of the publics' life. In other words when is the concept of 'lived experience' really reflective of the lived experience of the public or just a buzz phrase to silence people who don't share the same political values?

Sorry, I'm rambling a bit.

I don't trust the Torys at all and I don't think undermining unconscious bias awareness and indirect discrimination is a good thing.
I think this is a backlash against the progress disadvantaged groups have made, namely women and people of non-white British heritage.
It means we can wrangle about data and what it means, rather than deal with discrimination.
Invisible Women shows that we don't collect data on how women are disadvantaged. So how are we going to tackle systematic sexism under this regime? I feel this could be a trojan horse deployed on GC feminists.....

This is a government that was found by the courts to be discriminating against disabled people with mental illness and had to be forced by the courts to "stop" discriminating. Discrimination against people with mental health disabilities is still at the heart of PIP and ESA.

It has fuck all to do with people's "identity" as a disabled person. The government has deliberately created structural nightmares for disabled people and deliberately impoverished them. Never mind taking the pandemic as a chance to row back on their civil rights.

The reason why disabled people can't obtain and retain employment is all about individual choices and agency, not systemic or structural? You'd have to be really stupid to believe that.

But, yeah, sure, we should totally trust them. I'm sure this won't make life harder for disabled people at all.

I also don't think people who believe that "people are only poor because they're lazy" can be trusted to address poverty.

I'm hoping it shifts the Overton window enough to allow Labour to focus on the fact that women's unpaid labour props up the economy and maintains their oppression.

You'd hope it would be a wake up call for Labour

Many aspects of that speech at one time would have been spoken by a Labour leader or minister. Now of course they're so in thrall to the identity politics bullies that their "debate" consist of threats, mantra chanting and cries of bigot aimed at anyone who expects to discuss and debate (see Rosie Duffield as a classic example).

What a tragedy and where the hell it leads those of us who would quite like to vote for the Labour party in the future I have no idea. The plus side is if this puts an end to the Stonewall / lobby group gravy train, everyone will benefit.

The lack of virtue signalling in that content is noticeable though, and notable for its rarity. Sex mentioned several times along with gender reassignment rather than any other term, FGM is clearly mentioned and the type of feminism that leaves women on their own to fight for child care.

It's not PC, it's not of the current fashion. That's an interesting signal by itself. But the govt are preparing for a country facing very real immediate issues like imminent food shortages, massed unemployment and worse; it is not going to be an electorate with much patience for first world problems, or for the traditional Labour heartlands responding well to being told they're too white, straight, heteronormative and lots of other wanky jargon when their kids are going hungry.

Luxury beliefs aren't going to be going down well in the near future.

failing to defend single-sex spaces, hard fought for by generations of women

Are the government going to stop funding Stonewall who are trying to do away with single sex exemptions now then, please?

@yourhairiswinterfire

failing to defend single-sex spaces, hard fought for by generations of women

Are the government going to stop funding Stonewall who are trying to do away with single sex exemptions now then, please?

She mentioned evidence based policy.

Not sure that's really Stonewall's strong point, these days, so hopefully not.

*hopefully not giving them any more money to try to steal our rights, that is.