Carly-May Kavanagh

[NitroNine]

There are rumours circulating on Twitter that Carly-May Kavanagh (the one who screams at babies: Daily Mail) has, despite her “apology” been suspended from the Labour Party. Presumably such a suspension would have an impact on her job as Lloyd Russell-Moyle‘s head of policy?

Apparently if she is suspended it [probably] won’t be made public. Given the reason for her [potential] suspension; if Labour actually do take action, you’d think they’d want to reassure people that they expect their members to uphold certain standards. I mean, “not screaming abuse at infants” is less upholding a standard than it is failing to trip over pebbles of basic decency…

Clearly one cannot put too much weight into Random Person Says Unevidenced Thing. However, it would be a foolish rumour to start without cause, so I thought it was worth starting a thread here to see if there are developments to follow.

Should Kavanagh face consequences for her behaviour it will be a watershed moment: Labour acknowledging women have rights all their own, including the rights to assemble & to speak on issues of concern to them, such as their need for single sex provisions.

I've just looked on twitter and there's a photo of her yelling from the women's side and archive of her tweet where she accuses the women of throwing a smoke bomb at themselves.

CMK was not scared of this man and his baby. She would not have been shouting at a BNP member with her face that close to theirs without risking a head butt. I think she knew full well that that man and his child pose no actual risk to her or anyone else in Brighton.

Aye. That's a common theme. The expression on their faces is always gleeful grins while doing this stuff - they're enjoying this so much, and they feel safe doing it.

Real people standing up to someone dangerous look far more tense and alert.

Recall also the people at the Dave Chapelle protest - utter confidence that they can provoke as much as they like, and there will be no retaliation. All the "repent, motherfucker!" and "he's got a weapon!". (And if there is the slightest retaliation, they'll scream blue murder to the bastards cops).

Aye. That's a common theme. The expression on their faces is always gleeful grins while doing this stuff - they're enjoying this so much, and they feel safe doing it

This! And the masked, booted men in black. Dressed like that so that they can pretend they are doing something subversive and dangerous. All their ' be safe' shit to each other. Like a GC laughed at the Senedd event, ' what do they think we are going to do? Follow them home and hoover their house?'

They certainly did not deserve to be shamed about their body though. That had nothing to do with the action they chose to take and has no bearing on the points of discussion.

Those who made those comments were simply indulging in their own prejudices.

I can't say I feel a huge amount of sympathy, for two reasons. One is that it's basic manners not to go round shouting in people's faces, particularly if they're holding a baby. It's certainly not something you'd expect from someone with a publicly-funded role.

The other is that she works in politics, so she has plenty of opportunity to read up on other people's views. Of course, like many TRAs she probably uses blocking software to avoid reading gender-critical views on Twitter, and I expect she refuses to read anything in the Daily Mail or Times because of their status (in the left's view) as far-right rags. If you refuse to read anything outside your bubble, then it will come as a shock to find that many ordinary, decent people have views very different from your own.

One thing, however. A lot of the TRAs at that protest chose to cover their faces with black masks so they couldn't be identified. Just a wild guess, but I think it's quite likely that those wearing the masks were male, while those without appeared to be largely female. So in true misogynistic fashion, the men are able to get away with their bad behaviour while it's the women who are publicly shamed.

I wonder if Carly-May has a glimmer of intelligence somewhere in that closed mind of hers that might just enable her to grasp that she's been sacrificed in the service of a men's rights cause.

But this is the group that asserts words are literal violence, disagreement leads to genocide and other such hyperbole. They are wedded to reality. I can absolutely see how they can look at the women at that event and say "yep, they are fascists akin to the BNP and must be stopped", it is completely consistent with their worldview

Carly-May also has a journalism qualification, a degree in politics and international relations and is ‘editor-in-chief’ for media company they is listed as partner in.

On paper, they should be someone who has the ability to analyse all the information they can find (and I assume they know how to conduct extensive research!).

So, I am assuming they absolutely know what the outcome was always going to be for yelling in the face of a baby and that baby’s father they way they did.

I don't know. I can't help thinking that, deep down, they know their views don't hold water, that's why they have to shout abuse and try to silence us rather than debate. That's why they refuse to read or hear what we actually have to say.

People who are actually secure in their views and opinions are comfortable debating them. People who are willing to accept their views may need to be modified are willing to debate them.

Judging from their actions, these people are deeply insecure in their own beliefs. And terrified of looking at them and finding they don't hold those views after all. And who can blame them when changing their mind will bring down the vindictive, destroying behaviour of their own side on them.

I've been unlucky enough to have interacted with CMK on Twitter. She is a truly nasty piece of work. I don't believe her behaviour at the weekend was out of character.

If suspended from the party she’ll have to be suspended from work too (I know quite a few who work in the same role for MPs up North - they all know that one of the conditions of their jobs is to have current LP membership in good standing). I expect LRM is a more sympathetic boss than many, seeing as they agree on this, but it’s a higher level employment policy than just his office and he probably isn’t enjoying even more scrutiny aimed at his office, especially since he doesn’t even get personal limelight this time.

I (almost) feel sorry for her too - but she’s not a spotty teen at her first rally and people with such little political nouse that they are caught on camera calling a baby a fascist, really shouldn’t be working in that kind of political position.

I expect her adrenaline was up and she was swept along by the mob (‘The Madness of Crowds’ as Douglas Murray calls it) but I agree with above - very unlikely she’d have been right up in an actual fascist’s face like that, she picked the safest man in the crowd - even if he’d wanted to push her away he would’ve been in danger of dropping his baby in a crowd, and as he’s a nice bloke he wasn’t ever going to risk that.

I don’t support cancel culture so I do hope she manages to dust herself down and use this as a learning experience. Maybe she’ll read something in amongst the posts about her that will open her eyes, maybe her own side will turn on her (surviving the purity spiral is near impossible).

If she reads this thread, I suggest she gives JK Rowling’s essay a go:

www.jkrowling.com/opinions/j-k-rowling-writes-about-her-reasons-for-speaking-out-on-sex-and-gender-issues/

Labour suspensions can take ages to process, it’s another ‘the process is the punishment’ scenario.

Ultimately the phrase that really comes to my mind right now is,

‘Play Stupid Games, Win Stupid Prizes’

The woman that she was with, who seems to have got off scot-free was the one who started harassing the man with baby and Carly-May joined in like a sheep and took things further. I have little sympathy for her, she must be at least in her late 20s, not an impressionable teenager. It's just common sense to know it is not acceptable to scream in a random babies face, whatever the reason - it was completely deranged behaviour. And her ridiculous non-apology shows she has zero remorse.

I can't say I feel a joy of sympathy for her. Sorry.

Someone in her position should know the importance of educating themselves on all sides of the debate. It's not hard to do, it's all out there.

I expect she wholly enjoyed bullying the other side. If that came back to bite her, it's totally deserved.

Jot of sympathy 😂

A video of an idiotic TRA yelling at a baby and calling it a fascist is exactly the outcome PP would have hoped for and Carly May Kavanagh has played right into her hands.

You think Posie wants babies to be screamed at @SapphosRock? You're wrong. She is all about protecting women and children. It's an appalling allegation to make.

Should Kavanagh face consequences for her behaviour it will be a watershed moment: Labour acknowledging women have rights all their own, including the rights to assemble & to speak on issues of concern to them, such as their need for single sex provisions.

It will have nothing to do with it. It will be about her screaming in a baby's face. Nothing to do with women's rights.

I expect she wholly enjoyed bullying the other side

I expect this is it too. She is a bully. She picks on those who can't fight back. She enjoys bullying. She felt she had a socially sanctioned reasons to exercise her bullying tendencies.

Same as for those ridiculous masked men. And glitter throwing woman. They enjoy being unpleasant to other people and they have found a way to do it without risking being hit, and still getting to tell themselves they are the good guys.

As pp have said, she is editor in chief of some journalistic site and holds education and experience that ought to ensure critical thought. One of the articles she edits, discusses the (danger of the) very low uptake of cervical smear tests in the Brighton area compared to the average, particularly with younger ‘people’. A long article on cervical smear tests without ever mentioning the words female or women is completely meaningless.
Carly-May, if you are reading this, even you should realise medical stuff needs to be discussed in terms of biology.

The outcomes that Kellie-Jay would have wanted for Brighton do not include abuse though.

Should she have cancelled when the extremist TRAs started discussing attending? No. She contacted the Police and worked with them.

To put the blame of the actions of extremist TRAs on Kellie Jay, even by hinting she would want the outcome like Carly’s is inappropriate. No. KJK does not want people to be abused or assaulted in any way.

But she does want to give women a platform to speak and to meet others. That is her desired outcome.

They enjoy being unpleasant to other people and they have found a way to do it without risking being hit, and still getting to tell themselves they are the good guys.

I genuinely think this is the motivation of people like this woman

getting into spats makes them feel good

but you can’t get into spats with actual fascists can you? You might get hurt

much better to pick some people who definitely won’t hurt you, pretend they’re fascists and have a spat with them

this is definitely a them problem not an us problem

People will always be stupid and unreasonable. the issue is with serious people in positions of power giving them the time of day

She has made herself unemployable?

Who wants a policy advisor who cannot seem to understand all aspects of the policy they recommend?

Who wants a committee chairperson who cannot allow others to have different opinions and to contribute to the committee? (Weren’t they a chair for a local government committee within the Labour Party)

Who wants a journalist who seems to be unable to express themselves appropriately to a baby and the baby’s father? … ok, there will be ample media organisations who will overlook this, sadly.

There will be suitably entrenched organisations that I am sure will employ this person. I suspect they will continue to be employed. They also are self employed so maybe that made them feel safe in their actions.

Those people who feel sorry for a woman who screamed abuse in the face of a baby might want to have a good long look at themselves......

I feel sympathy for all the people who have landed themselves in hot water through their own immoderate intemperate behaviour. It's a shame for them.

However actions have consequences.

I struggle to believe that meeting up with a group of black clad, masked booted people to scream and shout about something you disagree with wouldn't make you question what you were doing.

She wasn't disguised. She was very close to the people she was screaming at. She clearly felt safe, not threatened.

She could see clearly that the people she was raging at were not threatening people- if they had been, her behaviour would have been different.

She's a bully. Her Twitter account shows a bully.
She's educated, savvy and has every opportunity to contextualise her own behaviour. She's chosen to do it anyway.

The only thing she misjudged was that she thought she could get away with it because her victims are effectively considered 'untouchables'. You can do and say anything you like to 'terfs', and no one will care because they are just terfs.

She's discovering her misjudgement.

Honestly, I wouldn't participate in what she was doing even if the opposition were BNP, MAP campaigners etc.

And as for her being a sacrificial lamb, well the onus is on getting the offenders whose behaviour was worse, not on exculpating her.

As far as I can see, both these shouting people were behaving in a way likely to cause alarm harassment and distress, which is a criminal offence. It’s not right to say the baby would be unaffected , they are affected by negative emotions and shouting, that’s why loving parents avoid that sort of behaviour. But the baby’s father will also have been affected. A baby is a very precious responsibility, and to be verbally attacked while holding a baby is much worse than the same experience without. I do not feel sorry for her, even though I’m soft as shit usually. It really is beyond the pale to behave like that, and the non apology made it worse.

Should Kavanagh face consequences for her behaviour it will be a watershed moment: Labour acknowledging women have rights all their own, including the rights to assemble & to speak on issues of concern to them, such as their need for single sex provisions

No it wouldn't. It would merely be an acknowledgement that its bad publicity and they need to be seen to be doing something about the optics. It wouldn't change a damn thing

It’s religious fervour.

I was disgusted by her non apology.