Duffield: feminists turning to Tories

[ResisterRex]

This was in the Telegraph:

www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/04/23/feminists-turning-tories-labour-making-idiots-womens-issues/

But has also been picked up by the Mail:

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10748529/Labour-MP-Rosie-Duffield-says-party-making-complete-idiots-trans-issues.html

She does, and Matt Forde is a brilliant interviewer actually. Always gives everyone a fair hearing. He is so positive about Rosie.

I'm a feminist, and am completely fed up with this TWAW nonsense from all the parties except the Tories or UKIP - but neither of those are friends of women. As it happens, we don't have an election coming up, but I won't be voting Tory ever.

Too late now, but for local elections you always have the option of standing yourself on whatever platform you choose. You probably wouldn't get elected but it might shake a few of the major parties up.

Our local Labour candidate (a woman) has an annoying trans woman who protested the Filia conference leafleting for her and pictured on her election leaflet. The Labour candidate has not replied to my email asking her about her views on (as well as other matters) self Id . Not a peep from her. The trans woman recited a poem about MVAW on International Women's Day for the local Labour Party . As a DV survivor ,this person appears to mock VAW. They have also posted iffy tweets "mocking " women's fears . How the heck am I meant to vote for a woman who allows a person like that to campaign for them? Our area is really run down and has one of the highest rates of child poverty in the country. No I can't vote Tory or the others but really cannot vote Labour either. They take us for granted.

I'm in a safe Lib Dem seat, I'm an ex member and my local councillors are pretty good on local issues but I can't bring myself to vote for them. I'm considering covering my ballot in respect my sex stickers instead.

Just had a look at our candidates an interestingly the Labour one stood at the last election for MSP who at the time I distinctly recall was very much TWAW seems to have deleted anything to do with trans. Maybe hoping we would have forgotten about that!

I can’t vote Tory, most of this mess happened on their watch and their policies on healthcare, disability, the welfare state etc disproportionately affect women. They’re no friend to our sex, and as a working class woman with disabled dependents I will not legitimise a party that sees me as “lesser” because of my lack of old family money as well as my chromosomes with my vote. But I certainly can no longer vote Labour, and none of the other centre / left of centre parties know what a woman is either.

I’m politically homeless, completely, and so that leaves me to spoil my ballot paper. I won’t be hectored into another course of action by claims of “it’s pointless” or “it’s a wasted vote”. Do you think I don’t already know and resent that?

Having been involved in Elections for many years my view is different. Spoilt ballots are counted and publicly reported alongside successful votes. Where numbers of spoilt ballots are noticeably high, this is always considered a protest vote and questions are asked why. This is NOT the same as not voting.

What @SerotinaPickeler said. If someone has gone to the trouble of registering a vote an spoils their paper rather than vote for you or the other candidates you should ask yourself why. If hundreds of people do it in your constituency , you have a problem that you need to fix.

Do you really think that a spoilt vote has the same weight as a properly cast vote for a councillor. Because when I watch the news on polling day they only report the number of votes cast , they don’t report spoilt votes or stickers or witty responses.

Do you really think that a spoilt vote has the same weight as a properly cast vote for a councillor.
Because when I watch the news on polling day they only report the number of votes cast , they don’t report spoilt votes or stickers or witty responses.

Do you really think that a spoilt vote has the same weight as a properly cast vote for a councillor.
Because when I watch the news on polling day they only report the number of votes cast , they don’t report spoilt votes or stickers or witty responses.

At the Count the Returning Officer will read out the number of rejected ballots and the reason why. No, it doesn't affect who gets elected but it ought to make the parties contesting the votes sit up and ask questions. The candidates and the agents do see the rejected ballots, so they will get an idea of why they were spoilt.

i can't be a one issue poster, if you vote tory just because of their stance on women, then you are throwing EVERYONE else under the bus, and you need to give your heads a bloody wobble, absolutely ridiculous.

There's always a sort of fringe discussion about the worth of spoiling ballots. I did a quick search and found the following:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6988225/Scores-spoiled-ballot-papers-delay-local-election-results.html

And

https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/local-elections-2019-spoiler-alert/

In France, the number of spoilt ballots remains to be seen:

"[Macron] will have to win over those who backed his opponents and the millions of French who did not bother to vote.
Polling organisations estimated turnout of just 72 percent, the lowest in any presidential election second-round run-off since 1969.
Meanwhile, according to partial results, 6.45 percent of voters in the election voted for neither candidate in blank ballots while 2.35 percent spoilt their papers."

https://insiderpaper.com/macron-defeats-le-pen-in-french-election-projections/

The rights of 51% of the population don’t matter? They matter more to me than anything . Without womens’ rights everything else is meaningless. Give your own head a wobble. Luckily we live in a democracy.

Do you really think that a spoilt ballot paper has the same weight as a properly cast legible vote?
because I’ve never seen a political Party canvas for spoilt ballots, they want votes.
and when I watch the news on polling day, the only stats reported are votes received by each candidate, they don’t report spoilt votes or stickers or witty comments.

I’d rather my vote was counted rather than be part of a fringe discussion about spoilt votes

If the Tories were genuinely, actually, feminist, then that would be the one thing that would make me consider voting for them.

They are very clearly not, though, and they make life worse for most people who don't have advantages in life.

If you want to send a message to your local MPs, party members etc - you can literally do that! Send them a message, get involved in discussion. Don't assume your spoiled ballot will do that for you.

Easier said than done, I know.

I live in an über-woke city with a labour/lib dem council which has previously got rid of councillors who have been outspokenly GC. (And tried to get one fired from their day job too.) l cannot in all conscience vote for any of them.
There is no SDP candidate. I shall spoil my ballot with #Labour losing women and #Respect my sex if you want my X.
There is one independent GC woman standing but sadly not in my ward.
(And I bent the ear of the Lib-Dem candidate when he called the other day, told him exactly why I would not be voting for him. Water off a duck's back.)

I'm given to understand that looking at spoiled ballots is a fairly recent thing, they used to just get counted and discarded but there was a change a few years ago meaning that they were looked at. I'm yet to grill any of my local candidates as to what a woman is and what provision they intend to make for female-only services but I imagine I will have a choice of Conservative or spoil my ballot as the rest will be a smorgasbord of spineless virtue signalling.

I'm not sure I can bring myself to vote Conservative but I do think the Tories have realised there's good political capital in chasing the GC/feminist vote (and I think Javid's on manoeuvres here for a potential leadership run, what with the inquiry announcement this weekend and the new HRT tsar). After all, they'd only have to browse the political threads on MN to see pages and pages of women saying they feel politically homeless. Whether it's a spoiled ballot (which might be the better option as any such paper of mine will have "WOMAN = ADULT HUMAN FEMALE, PROTECT FEMALE-ONLY SPACES" on it and will get the message across) or a vote for the Tories, Labour are really missing the boat on this one but I suspect they're too terrified that the Owen Jones brigade will turn on them.

That's surely because there's just not that many spoilt ballots to have any impact, sadly.
My DH has stood in more local elections than I care to remember,and has always gone to the count , has always had a good look at all the spoilt ballots. But sadly the opt-out choice for most of the disenchanted electorate has been simply not voting. Up to now.

I will vote Tory on this. I’ve emailed all my local candidates to ask their stance in womens’ sex based rights. Had the usual “trans rights” response back from Scottish Greens.

Even if they look at spoiled ballots the candidates who get in are the ones with the most votes