Liz Truss to overhaul ‘Equalities’ brief

[TheFleegleHasLanded]

From an article in the Telegraph this morning:

Liz Truss has plans for the GEO. She is giving a speech at the Centre for Policy Studies this afternoon, available on their YouTube channel live at 2pm.

“She will argue that objective data should be prioritised over the subjective experiences of individuals in influencing policy” and will call time on “a small group of self-selecting activists” holding sway over the equalities debate.

No share tokens for the Telegraph but the article is here:
www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/12/16/pivot-fashionable-race-sexuality-gender-issues-focus-poverty/

I will be watching.

That sounds promising.

Thanks for this link Fleegle though I can’t get past the paywall to read Telegraph articles, it looks really interesting (and concerning) I want to see the details of what will be proposed. There’s also another thread on yesterday’s coverage just adding that here for linking things up www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4108519-Change-in-focus-in-equality-policy?msgid=102687226#102687226

Also covered in the Mail, slightly different spin:

www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/12/16/pivot-fashionable-race-sexuality-gender-issues-focus-poverty/

Thanks ChattyLion I hadn’t seen that earlier thread.

The link to the speech is here, live on YouTube at 2pm:

www.cps.org.uk/

This is doing my head in. I've been a Labour voter all my life but the Tories are the ones who can see what we see — that transgender ideology, critical race theory, social justice and identity politics are cults based on belief rather than evidence.

I can't believe I'm turning into a reluctant Tory after all these years.

This sounds good.

Liz really needs to look into Stonewall.and its -tentacles- influence in so many companies and organisations.

I have never voted Tory but my goodness I keep finding myself impressed by certain Conservative women, Liz Truss, Kemi Badenoch, Jackie Doyle Price, Emma Nicholson...

What a relief that at least one political party is taking a stand against identity politics!

I am not yet ready to trust them on poverty and inequality- let’s see.

I can't believe I'm turning into a reluctant Tory after all these years.

Welcome to my topsy-turvy world.

Here’s a copy of the article for anyone who’d like to read it:

archive.is/7eHgI

Oh god. It sounds good but on the other hand... this government is doing it. What are the odds of genuine good intentions? And even if genuine good intentions are there, what are the odds of it being implemented competently?

I would guess this is deeply politically motivated and it's about planting a Tory flag in Red Wall territory. They know that wokeness is Labour's biggest vulnerability. Assuming that's what it's about, then they will have to actually listen to the Red Wall voters and make some useful changes for this to be an effective political strategy. Just launching some projects will not be enough.

But it could be a very effective political strategy. This government have screwed up almost everything they've touched but if they get this right they might survive the next election.

I am very worried about the potential fallout for women.

It sounds from the Telegraph article like a realisation that the current situation splits people into smaller and smaller groups and tries to hierarchically arrange those groups, prioritising some and clambering on top of others and causing division, instead of bringing people together and looking at social needs as a whole, for all. Equally.

FWR has been leading on that pov for years.

Evidence based instead of following the loudest fashionable voices?

Yes please.

Looking at real, evidenced need as opposed to which lobby group currently has best access to politics with an emotive narrative?

Yes please.

@allmywhat

What do you think the fallout would be? (Genuine question: not being argumentative.)

This could be good, but she's a Tory! I'm also struggling with agreeing with them...

Looking at real, evidenced need as opposed to which lobby group currently has best access to politics with an emotive narrative?

However to move towards this fairer, evidence based model, the government would need to stop funding political lobby groups. Since a further inequity of all this is that the loudest voices are often the ones with best funding, much of which is government funding.

[quote SunsetBeetch]@allmywhat

What do you think the fallout would be? (Genuine question: not being argumentative.)[/quote]
She's likely to scrap gender pay gap reporting for a start.

Ace. I bet that her experience with the GRA activists has opened her eyes to this stuff. I know quite a few of us wrote cards and sent messages of support then, too. So I'm glad to hear it sounds like she has got this figured out. Hope so!

She's likely to scrap gender pay gap reporting for a start.

Or she might reinstigate the reporting of the ‘sex’ pay gap as well as the ‘gender pay gap’. Wouldn’t that be an interesting perspective?

She's likely to scrap gender pay gap reporting for a start.

Unlikely. They will wait a bit longer and allow businesses to roll out a few more self-id policies and then say "actually, these data are meaningless". Which they will be when male employees can be reported as women.

@RozWatching

She's likely to scrap gender pay gap reporting for a start.

Unlikely. They will wait a bit longer and allow businesses to roll out a few more self-id policies and then say "actually, these data are meaningless". Which they will be when male employees can be reported as women.

She's already suspended it due to covid be and she runs on a think tank which has called for it to be scrapped, of course it's on the cards.

Outside of the this bubble when people, especially Tories, say identity politics they include feminism. Truss is planning an attack on women's rights, and the cheerleading from some in the gender critical movement has helped her build consensus for that.

They do an awful lot of focus groups and surveys of (now) red wall and they are the party that have understood most clearly that politics is only successful if it is centre ground. I am not a tory voter but for now they are recognising that women are more than 50% and that can be a lot of votes. Cameron understood the importance of women. I like the sound of this stuff but will wait and see

Anyone who doesn't take women seriously is just plain stupid. No if's no but's no maybe's

She's already suspended it due to covid be and she runs on a think tank which has called for it to be scrapped, of course it's on the cards.

And gender identity activism is helping to make the case for it.

Truss is planning an attack on women's rights

Doubt it very much. What would be her motivation for such a thing? She's already shown that she's willing to defend women's rights, and she's taken a great deal of abuse for it.

She's not planning an attack on women's rights they're trying to entrench support in the Blue Wall. They're saying, we're the no nonsense party that isn't going to waste any more time with this gender nonsense and 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'm not a Tory), this looks an attempt to put clear blue water between the Tories and Labour and make the latter look like they're wasting time on talking shops.

They call it the Blue Wall, used to be known as the Red Wall when the likes of Dennis Skinner still held places like Bolsover obvs

Its a shame this second thread has been created as it would be more useful to have these comments on the existing thread!

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4108519-Change-in-focus-in-equality-policy