David Blunkett on the case

[antipodeancanary]

Causing a little twitter storm saying male rapists should not be in women's prisons. David Blunkett just now on #PoliticsLive
‘This is just not acceptable’ re the two time male rapist being sent to a women’s jail:

Thank you David.

I don’t understand why the Home Secretary can’t intervene under a breach of the Equality Act - degrading punishment for women being locked up with a serial rapist.

Stating the Fucking Obvious but anyway…

He expressed everything so clearly and firmly. I dont understand why thats so difficult for other politicians at the moment.

Im sick of politicians pretending to not understand why single sex services, particularly prisons, are needed.

Exactly @ZuttZeVootEeeVo, it's not fucking difficult to state the bleeding obvious is it. It's just made me even angrier with the likes of Keir Starmer, who's a useless floppy cock on this issue. Unforgivable and indefensible.

“There’s none so blind as those who cannot see”.

Never had much time for DB when he was in government, but I’m like a nodding dog every time he opens his mouth these days.

The thing that bothers me is that Labour brought in the GRA with no consideration for women. Wasn’t DB part of the upper echelons of Labour at the time?
I can’t help but feel that for all his welcome talk today DB was presumably happy enough with the original GRA not to resign over it so does he really mean ‘women’s equality above all else’ or does he mean ‘women’s equality above else except for the small number of men we (politicians) feel are ok to be included in women’s spaces’? Are we really just back to males can be women but only the right sort of males.

And I don’t know about anyone else but for me that is not acceptable. It has to be no males in female spaces. No exceptions. No ‘but these males are harmless’ or ‘these males have radically changed their bodies and are distressed by being males’ or ‘these males have paperwork that says they’re really female’ so they’re ok.

No one who is male, in any shape, form or identity in female spaces at all. For those males unhappy with that they need to find an alternative that doesn’t involve co-opting female spaces.

Indeed. Yet he has colleagues like Lisa Nandy who have explicitly insisted that male rapists should be accommodated in the female estate if they say they're women.

As Helen Joyce pointed out on trigger, there are many vulnerable males in prisons who reply in extra protections.

I know from my own training that the rates of male prisoners with mild learning difficulties/ sp and Lang difficulties is high.

(Ergo make prisons should be able to accommodate these males)

I mean what on earth is going on with Nandy? She says some really sensible stuff but whenever she opines on gender identity ideology I want to scream. She always comes back to that 'trans child' in her constituency, so she's clearly been brainwashed somewhere along the line. It pains me because in other respects she's an intelligent woman with apparent critical thinking skills.

@Faffertea The GRA should be completely repealed. I suppose it was brought in in different times - we didn't have the explosion of 'trans' identities that we have now. What a disaster.

It has to be no males in female spaces. No exceptions. No ‘but these males are harmless’ or ‘these males have radically changed their bodies and are distressed by being males’ or ‘these males have paperwork that says they’re really female’ so they’re ok.
This, for fucks sake does anyone else feel like they’re screaming into the void? How can so many people be so fucking thick?

Totally agree on Nandy. Is there just this one trans child in her constituency? No girl children who are being disadvantaged with boys in their changing rooms, teams, toilets etc?
No women in her constituency who being disadvantaged?

This, for fucks sake does anyone else feel like they’re screaming into the void? How can so many people be so fucking thick?

I imagine this thought is what led George Orwell to pen his novels.

Nandy's 'trans child' thing is a well worn campaigning tactic. The training is that you should never say 'I advocate for policy X because it will have Y effect', you have to tell a story about how you came to hold the position. It worked very well during the gay marriage referendum in Ireland - all the canvassers were trained to say things like 'I used to be opposed to gay marriage but let me tell you about my son/daughter/friend/neighbour who just wanted to marry the person they loved'.

Now every campaigner on the planet is convinced that this is some sort of holy grail way to change hearts and minds. Extremely tedious when you know what they're doing (I've had the training), especially if (as with Nandy) they're explicitly doing it to avoid addressing legitimate criticisms.

The GRA was brought in by Blair’s Government (97 on) and not a single Labour MP voted against it. That would include Blunkett.

Either he was as short sighted (really not intended as a bad pun) as all of his colleagues (plus all the Lib Dem’s, Plaid Cymru and SNP MPs of the time) were about the long term consequences.

Blunkett didn’t threaten to resign over the GRA, nor rebel or abstain from the vote. It’s a hopeful sign that (perhaps) he’s realised it’s gone too far now, but I’m not going to give him a lot of credit for that. Why’s THIS acting as the straw for him when so many other egregious examples have come and gone?

For the sake of balance, it was as recently as 2017 that Tory ministers were airing the idea of ‘reforms’ which had self ID as their goal, supported by Teresa May. And Penny Mordaunt, still a strong leadership contender if Sunak fails, would go balls out (pun definitely intended) for self ID.

Now when you put it like that...

I don't think they were bothered enough to think through the consequences for the non men. It's like they didn't think women were important enough to be given consideration.

While the GRA was a bad law, there is a significant difference between what the government of the time envisaged – a legal fiction affecting perhaps three or four thousand people who would have a strict medical diagnosis – to the absolute free-for-all we are looking at now. I don’t think Blunkett or anyone else considered giving out GRCs to anyone who had five pounds to spare.

It still pisses me off that they didn’t consider the impact on others when a person falsifies their sex.

It still pisses me off that they didn’t consider the impact on others when a person falsifies their sex.
Except, oddly, they managed to be remarkably clear about the possible impact of an older sister of a male heir to a title transitioning.

Quite

I suppose he's got no skin in the game really, so he can say what he actually thinks as opposed to some of the serving MPs, who have seemingly wilfully removed their brains in a trade-off for the votes of the very very few.

Nandy is very much a career politician (I knew the family and her growing up. She was v well placed background wise to go into lefty politics) I have always wondered if that child was real as it was a line repeatedly trotted out and no variation or ability to debate.

I also remember OJ was/ is a big fan and really promoting her earlier on in her career.