Kemi Badenoch through to next round

[InTheCanteen]

If you have a Conservative MP and want to protect the rights of women and safeguard children please email them TONIGHT and ask them to support Kemi.

Penny Mordaunt still the bookies favourite (and they aren't often wrong) but we need to let everyone know how dangerous it will be for this woman to become PM; I don't believe she has changed her mind for one moment.

It depends on what's most convenient at the time.

How was borrowing in 2019 compared to 2010 @MarshaBradyo ?

Yes, it might be nice to see a policy approach that would allow mothers to stay home but protect them if things went wrong. As opposed to just this atomized protect yourself by entering the workforce and paying someone else to look after your kids thing.

The latter contributes to GDP - and also to the bottom line of the corporate world - and the former does not. Which is possibly a reason the latter is what we see.

For all some posters think it is shocking for a feminist site to be interested in society being able to accommodate mothers who want care for their kids, I think it's strange that people who think of themselves as feminists to adopt economic and social liberalism so easily.

Well Ireland has already compromised the safety of women and girls so you've nothing left to lose in that respect, it's true.

Did KB actually say "family values"?

No that was John Major, and look how he ended up.

This is what she said

As is the link with the family. Family break-ups increase housing demand, and the unaffordability of housing in many areas stops people establishing the family life they want. Family is the first line of welfare, and strong families reduce the need for a larger state

Families come in all shapes and sizes and, as a strong supporter of same-sex marriage, I reject any idea that being pro-family is about prescribing how others should live. It’s about supporting love

@MangyInseam · Today 21:34
Did KB actually say "family values"?

I googled her name with “ family values” and could not find her actual words.

But she does mention families in her manifesto in the Telegraph (below), including families in relation to housing and immigration. I have copied an excerpt but there is more before this part.

www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/07/16/conservatives-must-return-first-principles-ensure-get-basics/

Excerpt:

As is the link with the family. Family break-ups increase housing demand, and the unaffordability of housing in many areas stops people establishing the family life they want. Family is the first line of welfare, and strong families reduce the need for a larger state.

Families come in all shapes and sizes and, as a strong supporter of same-sex marriage, I reject any idea that being pro-family is about prescribing how others should live. It’s about supporting love.

So I will look at how our tax and benefit system can support family life and the joys it brings. Coherent, Conservative conviction leadership is what I will bring if you elect me as prime minister.

Could not find the actual words ‘family values’.

I don't have a problem with anything she says there. Sounds pretty liberal to me. What's the problem with it - can someone enlighten me?

@beastlyslumber

They just don’t like her.

So if the claim is that "family values" is a sort of dog whistle, then it's basically irrelevant if she didn't use it.

Unless any mention of the importance of strong families is considered problematic, but to me that's the extreme political viewpoint, not what KB said.

You won't find much disagreement that the worst of all outcomes is for a toxic relationship to stay together "for the kids".

Maybe KB wants to look into ways of helping people avoid those toxic relationships in the first place. I've no idea. All academic now anyway.

Presumably Kemi also objects to people owning more than one home, and especially those who own 12?

So I will look at how our tax and benefit system can support family life and the joys it brings. Coherent, Conservative conviction leadership is what I will bring if you elect me as prime minister

This sounds like a nod towards feminist Marxism ideas of recognising the unpaid labour of women in society.

beastlyslumber · Today 21:51
ScrollingLeaves · Today 21:48

I don't have a problem with anything she says there. Sounds pretty liberal to me. What's the problem with it - can someone enlighten me?

No, I don’t see what she says here as short-hand for a policy intended to put women down/ ‘family life’s’ political meaning as suggested by Miffee.

Not that it lays out details.

That sounds like fairly standard Conservative viewpoints. What exactly are the naysayers expecting her to say?! 🤯

Presumably in the interests of the tax system supporting families she opposed and voted against April's regressive increase in NI?

I always thought the most radical feminist approach to motherhood was to be a sahm, potentially with partner taking over for a good period of time when baby was more independent. Except we live in too much of a capitalistic and patriarchal and even misogynistic society to be able to accommodate that. And it's getting worse. Couples generally have to both work full time to accommodate the lifestyle and housing costs.

I was too wuss to be a sahm.

Being a full time mother isn't seen as having much value in monetary terms. (or father- even less so, which boys ever aspire to this?)

Well, I'd be more than happy to see her challenged on the details of how she hopes to achieve what she's stated in terms of taxation, affordable housing etc. But nothing she's said so far implies she's in favour of some sort of extremist, dystopian vision that leaves women chained to a kitchen sink with an abusive partner.

It sounds like not much at all. It's academic now of course, but I'd have liked to know what she actually meant there, what ideas she might have about policy.

Policy?

Government has been a policy free zone for a couple of years now.

👏👏👏

Pretty sure that he is pretty skint, due to all of the maintenance payments.