Kemi Badenoch appointed new Minister for Women and Equalities

[Manteiga]

And International Trade Secretary. I'd have preferred to see her as Secretary of State for Education in addition to Minister for Women and Equalities, but this is good news.

twitter.com/Conservatives/status/1584957913059454976

Nice way to side step all the points brought up in this thread about what she believes in, quite apart from fracking and abortion buffer zones…actively voting to not giving poor and vulnerable children free school meals, benefit cuts, getting rid of TA’s in classrooms. That is disgusting especially in this climate and yes, people find that monstrous so stop clutching pearls.

The point being discussed is, although she knows what a woman is, she is a Tory on the side of the privileged as they all are. That is what’s being discussed on a hotly debated issue such as women’s rights, what do you expect?

A timely reminder about what Andrea Dworkin said about feminism:

Feminism is a political practice of fighting male supremacy in behalf of women as a class, including all the women you don't like, including all the women you don't want to be around, including all the women who used to be your best friends whom you don't want anything to do with anymore.

Nice way to side step all the points brought up in this thread about what she believes in, quite apart from fracking and abortion buffer zones…actively voting to not giving poor and vulnerable children free school meals, benefit cuts, getting rid of TA’s in classrooms. That is disgusting especially in this climate and yes, people find that monstrous so stop clutching pearls.

Nice way to insert a misogynistic lazy phrase on a feminist board.

All of the points on the thread you just repeated have been discussed quite a bit. People can still think it’s a positive to have her specifically as Women’s & Equalities minister because of her position on women’s most basic rights, and because it’s a positive for representation. The fact she is a Conservative doesn’t change the fact she is a young black woman.

What are you wanting anyway? Anyone as long as it isn’t a Tory? Regardless of their position on women’s rights in the equality act? You are never ever going to have a minister of anything that you will agree with on everything. Regardless of which party they are in. Women are entitled to prioritise themselves and the most pressing issue they think faces them.

Fracking ban is back in place. Why would even concern our busy selves with her position on it?

I haven't sidestepped anything. No one has brought any coherent argument other than "she's disgusting because she's a tory" (which is also what you just said). Her voting record has been discussed at length on this thread. Scroll back and you'll see it all.

This thread has been doing the opposite of side stepping, in that we’ve been looking at Badenoch’s past record and the context in which votes occurred.

We can go over the fracking thing if you want but it doesn’t seem very relevant to the Equalities role?

Every time someone comes on here and talks bollocks about Kemi, it just reinforces to me that they're shitting it about what she's about to do.

Comforting really!

It is possible to be right on one issue and very very wrong on others.

One of the major problems with current politics is the 'you are either with us or against us' mentality, which doesn't serve the public interest in any way.

This concept means that we are supposed to accept certain detrimental things for this idea of the 'greater good' which hasn't been adequately examined or debated. We are just supposed to accept that someone else has decided on a major programme of policy but the details are irrelevant to us.

We know that various interests need to be balanced but therein lies the issue; no party discusses how we set that balance or where that balance is. The power isn't in the hands of the public and public debate is stiffled.

In reality we SHOULD sometimes be agreeing with Tories and sometimes with Labour members. Because thats HEALTHY and how things happen in the real world.

Some important context:
One of the things that the Tories are trying to push through in terms of 'human rights reform' within the Bill of British Rights is this concept of those who are worthy of human rights and those who are not. So the suggestion is that criminals lose their rights - of course this is framed as paedos and murderers - but the implications go much further than that and affect us all. If you start to create a situation where not everyone is worthy of human rights, you are saying its okay to abuse and act inhumanly to groups you dislike.

Ironically in saying that Gender Criticals are unworthy of rights and in bed with the far right, what are certain Labour Supporters doing? Supporting the Tories...

So we have this weird thing of saying Gender Criticals are in bed with the 'fascist tories', whilst effectively supporting an idea which fits in with a Tory policy of removing rights from one group.

The point for Human Rights is they must be balanced where there are competing interests. This effectively comes down to protections from harm coming first and then feelings / privacy etc coming second. And you protect vulnerable and often unpopular groups first because they don't have advocacy / control over their lives. This means children and people under state care first over all others. Cos thats what safeguarding is all about. Its about Rights and Protections. You can't then start blathering on about safeguarding being a weasel word or a transphobic dog whistle. Cos it doesn't make sense in the wider context of rights.

Kemi Badenoch in saying that we should protect women and children from ideology is actually doing this, when the Tories are moving away from this in other ways. She is saying that women prisoners are worthy of protection from a wider ideology in society. Ironically.

This shows there is something of a breathe of view within Conservative thinking that is increasingly being discouraged within Labour Circles. I think you have to ask questions about this.

Don't get me wrong, I am not a Tory. I don't support them. I think Labour have some policies and ideas which are vitally important to our country. My point is that if you are being instantly dismissive of Badenoch (who I think its a wing nut in other respects) you are missing the point and aren't interesting in the best thing for our country and the public as a whole.

This concept of being gender critical meaning you are in bed with fascists is utterly ridiculous for this reason.

What it comes down to is a Labour issue with being unable to understand the principles that underpin rights and that also means that our wider rights are at risk, because unless you understand how rights work: That Dorkin quote above highlights it well.

Labour are utterly failing to protect ALL rights if they indulge this nonsense and they use this force teaming mentality that you are 'either with us or against us'.

If Labour are all about rights they need to acutally get their head out their arse and demonstrate they understand the principles on which they are founded on, better rather than going along with this nonsense which will ultimately go hand in hand with their demise. At the moment all they do is prove that actually they don't have a bloody clue what they are talking about and are going to be complicit in undoing what they say they stand for.

Great post RedToothBrush (yet again). It's so disappointing that Starmer doesn't understand that if he's in thrall to a group so determinedly enshrining lies into the fabric of society, along with dismantling the safeguarding of children and women, what other group will rock up that he'll get captured by?

It displays a massive lack of critical thinking and therefore integrity. That's disappointing as I've always thought he was one of the good ones, prepared to lift the stones, see what's underneath and take appropriate action.

I don’t think politicians on the left can change direction as adeptly as those on the right.

It’s the political equivalent to painting yourself into a corner. Look at the SNP currently.

Where I find it most alarming is that Starmer is a human right specialist. Apparently. It was his area of law!

So for him to to fail to understand the underlying principles of right is an active betrayal of what he is supposed to stand for and it makes you really wonder what the hell he is playing at.

Its somehow worse than many others within the party for this reason alone and it is something that need to be stressed and highlighted.

To be fair "she's disgusting because she's a tory" is a pretty fair assessment. By definition all Tories are fighting for the rights of the very rich at the expense of the ordianry middle and working classes.

But, obviously, she is much better than most labour MPs would be in the same job.

And obviously the fact that the tories are digusting (and authoritarian and nasty and cruel and economically illiterate and anti-democratic) doesn't mean that they won't get my vote at the next election.

I am just leaving this link to this young woman’s tiktok here.

twitter.com/hatpinwoman/status/1586018643887804418?s=46&t=cAmEHNkH9au3MlnrBlBOQw

I think all those posters from the past who decreed that ‘the younger generation’ are so much more accepting of calling males ‘women’ need to start looking outside their safe bubble.

Like the tweeter, I too am seeing more young women voicing their disagreement on line now. It must surely infuriate those males who desperately want access to female single sex spaces.

Because that trope we kept telling them was a myth is now more quickly being disproved. It is NOT just one age group raising their voices. This is across all age groups now.

I guess this is where women turn around and use that fucked up ‘stay mad!’ phrase back to those who spawned it.

I can only assume that he trusts stonewall and has never felt the need to engage his brain or that he fears labour have no chance if they lose the support of young labour and TRA voters.

Yup. As I said upthread, I hope and I reckon she's been given the brief of mopping up Mordaunt's mess.

And Kemi knows exactly who spilled what, and why, and where. Including the civil servants, the MPs, the peers like Nick Herbert, the freelancers and the tweeters.

If she gets Women & Equalities (and the GEO) cleaned up, a lot of good things should automatically follow in prisons, hospitals, refugee camps, schools, refuges, crisis centres and other settings.

Kemi especially needs Raab to get a grip in Justice, and Coffey in Health. It's disgusting what Mordaunt and her team promoted.

He is a human rights lawyer.

This is not an excuse that stands up.

I agree. It’s almost impossible for the left to shift to the right on cultural issues because they have have a tendency to position themselves very firmly (and loudly) on the moral high ground. It then becomes very difficult to shift your position towards one that you’ve recently denounced as evil. Weird thing is I bet most Labour voters don’t give a shit about Labour’s version of social progressivism.

And anyone who brings up the vote on fracking as a way to discredit Kemi, also needs a long lecture and explanation of British politics and party and constitutional practice. In effect the fracking vote had nothing to do with fracking and was everything to do with Liz Truss as demonstrated by Sunak immediately saying that the party policy was now the opposite of the vote.

Tbf, I kinda understand why people are fed up with politics when you have one party voting on a subject when it's really about something completely different and when you have a leader of the opposition who is a human rights lawyer who doesn't understand the principles of human rights.

All surveys indicate that the uk is still largely socially conservative, hence one of the reasons the Conservatives put this ahead of economic policy under May's leadership.

However as part of that we are still liberal compared to others on some subjects. Most notably homosexuality.

This makes the conflict between trans / homosexual rights even more confusing and contradictory.

I forgot ... it's Barclay in Health now isn't it? Can't keep up with these 43 day tenures.

Yes.

He replaced Coffey.

There are still far too many people who are buying the notion that trans rights are the same as homosexual rights. Because that's the way it's been marketed. It's a sales job.

And because trans rights activists try and avoid public questioning, people are slow in seeing the contradiction.

It will only take that one question, though.

i'm surprised the mail or the Telegraph haven't done a massive article about it, to be honest.

Eg a headline saying 'why some people think homosexuality no longer exists'.

To be fair "she's disgusting because she's a tory" is a pretty fair assessment.

Comments like this make me despair. How is this any different from what TRAs say about t*rfs? It's an ad hominem pretending to be an argument. Disappointing.

I agree completely. Furthermore even if all he knows about the subject is what I have told him in emails sent to his HoC email address he should be pretty damn well informed!

Quite.

It means in essence 'I decree this person subhuman scum because they're not Like Me'.

Whether it's because of their skin colour, whether or not they're disabled, or gay or trans or female or vote differently to you really doesn't matter: it's picking one characteristic to justify your dehumanising and your innate superiority to them.

It's the voice of human prejudice, bullying and the root of atrocities since time immemorial. But if you really want to go through life having learned nothing and with Hyacinth Bucket as your role model you do do.