Keir Starmer on Sophy Ridge

[EdgeOfACoin]

On just now.

Asked about trans rights. Said that they didn't go far enough and the current process to transition is demeaning.

Criticised both sides (ie TRAs and feminists) for 'tearing lumps' out of each other.

Expressed sympathy for women who were victims of domestic violence but refused to say whether refuges should be single-sex or not (fence-sitting).

Vaguely related to this tangent, I've literally just read this.

1. is the parent's perspective on a teacher not using the staff toilet.

2. is the trans teacher's perspective.

Make up your own mind.

www.womenarehuman.com/male-teacher-now-transgender-demands-access-to-washroom-for-elementary-school-girls/

ourliveswisconsin.com/article/open-letter-from-vica-steel-madison-metropolitan-school-district-is-currently-enacting-a-transphobic-policy/

But how the hell have we got to the point where the extreme left is considered is considered target audience

A lot of young people joined the Labour party under Jeremy Corbyn ( my two sons included, and I even re-joined myself, for a while) and alot of the old leftists were re-invigorated too. Constituency parties and council wards have been taken over by this crowd - and it is they who select and vote on candidates. If you have won your candidacy on the basis of that vote, then you are invested in protecting it.

@MoltenLasagne

She can't afford to alienate her target audience - which is a Momentum type crowd.

But how the hell have we got to the point where the extreme left is considered is considered target audience?

I posted the Alan Johnson video upthread. I can totally understand that he doesn't want to step up for leader (more's the pity) but I find myself increasingly wondering if someone like him would even join the Labour Party now, never mind rise to some seniority.

Labour's political purity tests means its no longer acceptable to admit there might be two sides to a position, actually taking a centrist line is verboten. Who are we left with if Starmer was removed? The deselections over the last few years have decimated the talent pool of anyone with middle ground appeal and basic common sense.

If someone like him joined the Labour Party they'd find that no one tool a blind bit of notice of them — that's the experience of so many women in the Labour Party. Although if we're talking a man, he'd be given a bit more latitude.

Labour will never hold power while it tries to appease the far left. We need a third, pragmatic, centrist party. I'll go check out the SDP. Maybe their time has come.

Labour's political purity tests means its no longer acceptable to admit there might be two sides to a position, actually taking a centrist line is verboten.

They haven't simply lost the middle ground though, they've lost swathes of their traditional heartlands. That was (I think) Alan Johnson's point - talk to ordinary people in working class areas and very few liked Corbyn or his extreme ideas.

The problem labour have is that there are very few things that "the working class" completely agree on. And they've lost sight of the thing that holds them together - wanting decent standard of living for the ordinary, lower-waged workers in the country.

I enjoyed Alan Johnsons memoirs and in the second book, he talks about how as a young man he learned the art of arguing vigorously but without rancour. It seems to be a dying skill.

Regarding the SDP, I've just had a look at their membership packages.

Scroll down aaaaaalll the way to the bottom. It's worth it, I promise.

Forgot link

membermojo.co.uk/sdp

they've lost sight of the thing that holds them together

They've completely lost touch with the reality that the working class voters of the Labour heartlands have no time for middle/upper class, London based professional politicians with little to no experience of a real working life, never mind any relatable experience in the issues of a working class community, issuing orders on what to think while focusing mostly on their own career interests. And calling them rude names if they try to share information on what reality is like outside of the ivory tower.

Increasingly we have a political elite who seem to think everyone else is some kind of goldfish memoried type of masochist when it comes to voting. Or, like Mandelson, believes that it would better if the wrong sort of people just didn't have votes at all.

The fundamental thing they have lost sight of is class based analysis of oppression.

You can't use class based analysis if you can't objectively explain the common attributes of the people in the class.

Lately I've taken to watching the SDP. I hope they're watching this shitshow too.

Yes, me too.

Rather off topic but do hope that rumours about Labour adopting pro-PR position are true.

Parties have just become too broad church and it would be better for people to have their own parties which could align more closely with their actual beliefs.

Imagine if the Labour Party was the largest party and negotiating a govt with the SDP. The SDP could then demand say, protection for single sex domestic violence shelters as a price of entry. Labour activists would probably accept that as the price for being in government rather than having an internal fight.

You'd still have political arguments and disagreements of course! But compromise positions could be found more easily if everyone wasn't being forced into parties that no longer really fit with them.

Thank you Sophoclesthefox, I may not have to spoil my ballot after all.

@Justhadathought - sure you can spoil your ballot as well, or not vote at all, or vote for a different candidate. I'm just saying that if you want candidates to know why you're not voting for them, it's much more effective to write to them than it is to spoil your ballot paper. They're unlikely to see the spoilt paper personally - the people who do look at it will only be looking to see if it can be counted as a valid vote, and that's only if the result is so close that the spoiled ballots might make a difference.

They've completely lost touch with the reality that the working class voters of the Labour heartlands have no time for middle/upper class

If that’s the case why did so many ‘red wall’ seats fall to the Tories?
Sorry, the questions sounds aggressive - it’s not meant to but it’s hard to convey tone in print.

@PothoIeParadies

Regarding the SDP, I've just had a look at their membership packages.

Scroll down aaaaaalll the way to the bottom. It's worth it, I promise.

Hahahahahahaha! To be honest, that they have a sense of fucking humour has pretty much sealed the deal for me.

My second biggest objection to identity politics is that it is an absolute fun vacuum.

@Andante57

They've completely lost touch with the reality that the working class voters of the Labour heartlands have no time for middle/upper class

If that’s the case why did so many ‘red wall’ seats fall to the Tories?
Sorry, the questions sounds aggressive - it’s not meant to but it’s hard to convey tone in print.

Labour's inability to tear itself away from theoretical post-modernist bolleux, the left-wing press (LOJ etc) giving the impression that labour thought all those who voted for Brexit were ignorant racist arseholes, while not actually doing anything for remainers, not being able to see or articulate any concerns people had over things like the Rotherham sex abuse scandal have all fed in to the idea that Labour no longer stands for the WC. Labour has lost its grip on the effects of material reality on the electorate and this has left the Tories with easy pickings. The WC didn't leave Labour, Labour left the working class.

If that’s the case why did so many ‘red wall’ seats fall to the Tories?

Because they weren't Labour?

And possibly because at least they are honest about who and what they are. Angry betrayal is the best way I can describe what I've heard ex Labour voters saying as they bitterly explain they come from a family that would spin in their graves about a Tory vote. The rants have been furious.

And the Conservatives are not treating them with such open contempt for having opinions and experiences that don't jive with the current RightThink.

@GCAcademic

He must be the most spineless fence-sitter ever to have led a political party.

Agee. He was such a weasel on here. I am so disappointed, I detest JC and hoped that Starmer might be a ray of light.

Angry betrayal is the best way I can describe what I've heard ex Labour voters saying

Yes, this is my experience too.

Hahahahahahaha! To be honest, that they have a sense of fucking humour has pretty much sealed the deal for me.

Yeah, that's where I am with it.

I could never vote Conservative personally, but I can certainly see from a sound bite perspective why, given the choice between the Tories appearing to promise patriotic pride, more money in your pocket than the other lot and the chance to fulfil your aspirations or Labour castigating you for not agreeing with them on everything and pissing about with almost-exclusively white middle class identity politics, plenty of the latter’s heartland voters would finally swing to the former, even if they weren’t very happy about doing it.

have met trans women who are women. Not trying to fit in,not going through a phase - women whose body does not match them and everything they think/feel.

TistheSeason - the assumption here is that there is some universal woman-way to think and feel. This makes no sense. Despite decades of experience I have no idea how other women think/feel inside. How could I? And how would someone biologically male know that their inner feelings were actually 'woman' feelings not man feelings?

For 'female gender identity ' to mean anything at all, it has to be a universal feeling shared by all women regardless of biology, so male bodied people can share it too. But I don't feel like a woman, I feel like me and I'm still a woman regardless of any inner feelings.