Penny Mordant's bid for leadership is surely over

[ChristinaXYZ]

Her obfuscation over her views on the trans issue in a long and rather disingenuous twitter thread earlier has brought a "senior Whitehall official," incensed by the perceived duplicity, out to say this:

"A senior Whitehall official gets in touch about Mordaunt and the maternity bill. “She fought AGAINST the change to ‘women’. The way she’s trying to rewrite history to suit her is despicable. While she’s supposedly campaigning on character and values. can’t believe the hypocrisy”

twitter.com/ShippersUnbound/status/1546158477738971138

We all could see when it was happening it was only the steadfastness of the Lords that got the words woman and mother back in to the legislation.

On top of the that she used footage of the late Jo Cox rather cynically earlier too in a bout of self-promotion.

She has no judgement at all and her relationship with the truth seems rather strained. As the first comment in the thread says this is surely her Andrea Leadsom moment.

Penny Mordaunt should step-down before she does any more damage.

I haven’t kept up with process but Kemi will need to be in final two if party membership get to vote (?)

So I guess it comes down to MPs first

I thought her and Sunak had a getting along vibe so maybe if he wins she’ll be high up

100% agreed. If the Conservative party can't work out that we can't have another PM who makes it obvious even from the very start of her campaign that the truth is purely optional, they deserve to be doomed.

You said you agree with her that it’s a side issue, I disagree and I will post what I like.

It's not about toilets.

The implications of not being able to define what a woman is goes way beyond who uses what toilet.

Either you're not really familiar with the issues (in which case stick around on these boards) or you are being disingenuous by suggesting that this is all about loos.

Me too. This is something of a victory.

I reckon (to channel Mitchell and Webb) that Penny Moraunt has, in her own way, made it easier and safer for people to talk about the clash of rights due to her widely-publicised attempts at legislative sleight of hand(s). It has become a solid issue in a Prime Ministerial election for open debate.

Even if the majority of people are asking, 'what's it all about?' because they haven't thought about it much, it's an amazing opportunity for explanations to be offered, even on Twitter. Her connection with TRAs is also being talked about now, with names, because it's in the public interest presumably.

That's my reckon, anyway.

Where did I say that? I said "From the point of viewing of winning the leadership, I think she's right to call it a side issue." In other words, it's not a vote-winner to discuss it at length. That's not saying that I think it's a side issue. Jesus Christ.

You can post what you like of course but it will be more productive if you actually read other people's posts before replying to them.

Her connection with TRAs is also being talked about now, with names, because it's in the public interest presumably

are people talking about that? That should utterly sink her if it gets any traction. Nobody wants a Prime Minister whose family is in the habit of sending the police after people to shut them up. Has she ever acknowledged or admitted being influenced by that person?

And from the Spectator we have this www.spectator.co.uk/article/penny-drops-kemi-soars-in-tory-activist-poll

I used to respect Rishi Sunak and hoped he would soon take over from Johnson. I changed my mind after the revelation of his and his wife's tax affairs. But Mordaunt is so much of a worse prospect, with her contempt for women, that I'm back to hoping Sunak makes it.

I find Sunak better on the economic issues

Badenoch can be in his team I think they’d be good on same side

I find it tough when the media - and whoever pushed it -do stories like a spouse’s tax because I’d prefer people decide on policies first

We could be in a far worse position if inflation spirals and I include Labour in that for the next GE

Truss will hopefully be out.

Mourdant's choices were:

True believer: stick with what she'd said knowing it would go down badly with much of the membership who can't be shamed with "well, you're a bigot then".

Trumpian/Johnsonian: what happened then has shifted to an alternate reality and in this reality it never actually happened.

Apostate: I held those views, but since then I've reflected more, see that the situation is more complex, and so have changed my views to recognise conflicts in rights.

Self-interest ruled out the first and fear of the consequences of apostasy ruled out the last, even though it would be the truthful and most principled. Effectively this was a test of character and she failed it. Bodes badly for how she'd be as a PM.

Nauticant. Absolutely.

Tactically speaking, there is merit in the Trumpian/Johnsonian approach. She probably viewed "trans" as a side issue for the relevant constituencies and if people were banging on about the slightly obscure and complicated story of her handling of it in the past, she could keep denying and would be able to deploy against her opponents "you're a bit obsessed with this, aren't you?"

Incidentally, the BBC is already doing some helpful work in pushing the "you're a bit obsessed with this, aren't you?" line. It's a rare report indeed when a BBC accurately characterises the issue as being about integrity and nearly all I've heard have been talking about candidates rowing over "trans rights".

From the point of viewing of winning the leadership, I think she's right to call it a side issue.

I agree, but that's the same with almost all of the issues. I suspect that the main topics for most party members are fuel prices and if their grandchild can afford a house/the number of new houses in their area

I can't see any candidate dismissing climate change or the war in Ukraine as a side issue.

She's on bbc with Sophie right now. She doesn't come across well and doesn't look comfortable with the policies she is projecting. Her body language says a lot. I don't think the Johnsonian approach will work somehow.

I think the "side issue" idea could have been one of those that comes from PR types. Along with "optics" and "control the narrative". (All terrible ways in which to approach talking to the public, as it's always so obviously constructed as to be controlled such that you can't have a say.)

I could well imagine that the idea was to get it out there, dismiss it, and then say "jeez just move on", with the intended effect being that you'd look far too PM-like to get bogged down etc.

Only it's backfired/is backfiring. Because that is a risky approach precisely because women care a lot about this, and if you don't understand that then you're playing with fire to dismiss it (as doing that looks like dismissing women), as we are perhaps now seeing.

Hey, I’m happy to move on and let it be a side issue. It’s the people who want to change law, policy and social mores to accommodate a chimera that are the problem here.
im happy to let those people bleat on Twitter for the rest of their lives while we ignore them

Absolutely

let them take their own ‘culture war’ where I don’t have to see it and it has zero impact

I think that there's a false assumption that the general public and Tory membership haven't a scooby about trans issues. It's impossible to have a situation where single sex spaces are being removed in places like M&S and pronouns are being introduced at work, yet 'normal' people don't notice. If us normies don't really care, why shut down anyone who speaks up?

reframing the definition of woman to mean “adult human female & men who have ‘womanly feels’ but may not have them all the time or present in a female way don’t be such a bigot they’re still women” is not a side issue

it is utterly impossible to measure the impact of any policy on women of the adult human female variety only because of the definition being widened ti include men

if mordant doesn’t understand that she’s a bit thick. If she does understand that but doesn’t think that matters then she clearly doesn’t give a stuff about women. Neither is a great look

Dickhead journo on BBC News just now saying the sex vs gender question is just a trivial carping but of nonsense.
Mate, you have no fucking idea

Just listened to Sophie Raworth. Asked Penny why she lied about having no veto on Turkey joining the EU. 😮. She’s not one for backing down. She’s not coming across well at all. Won’t answer the question asked, evasive

I’d agree it was a side issue if it wasn’t impacting on women’s rights to free speech and safe spaces. I don’t actually care how people ‘identify’. Not sure how that’s a ‘side issue’ at the moment, though, as I would be likely to lose my job if I said these things in public.

And that’s the thing isn’t it @bellinisurge the constant framing of the erasure of womens rights as “trivial”