Labour canvasser today

[SirSamVimesCityWatch]

I'm in one the constituencies with a by-election coming up.

Just had a labour canvasser (woman, mid/late fifties) knock to ask if I was voting. I said yes I would be.

She asked if I knew who I was voting for. I asked if she knew what a woman was. I told her I was a single issue voter and that was the only issue that was going to decide how I voted.

Her response: "I believe a woman is anyone who believes themself to be a woman".

I told her in that case I have nothing else to say to her, and closed the door.

I would have loved to have actually put some of the issues to her (rapists in prisons, assaults in mixed sex spaces, including schools, destruction of women's sports etc) but my heart was already racing and I knew it would be like talking to a brick wall anyway.

But anyway - at least that's a clear pile in the eye for the whole 'it doesn't come up on the doorstep' nonsense.

So, I'm either voting Tory or SDP.

I've never heard of him before. I wouldn't vote for a 'TWAW' Tory unless the other candidates were even worse (=also pro) on gender woo.

Also even a TWAW Tory should be respecting the right to free speech of other party members and constituents who disagree. We lose 'free speech' at our peril. Certainly don't trust my old party (Labour) with it.

The main good thing this shambles of a Tory Government has done, was to generously fund people during covid to keep the social fabric together. They even got the rough sleepers off the streets. We are paying the price now as huge amounts have been borrowed.
Also the covid vaccine being quite quickly available in the UK was a relief at the time and Johnson/Truss started rolling back gender woo and cancel culture but far too slowly.

So you'd vote Tory if all the candidates were genderwoo?

Women don't need human rights. The clue is in the name Tory human rights.

The Tories have made many mistakes and may well be pretty incompetent.
But IMO anyone who would want Keir - 1 in a 1000 women have a penis - Starmer as PM is a very poor judge of what the country needs.

Personally think you should loook at your actual candidates for MP; interrogate them thoroughly on issues you consider most important. If they align, you like them, they are hard working and you think they have integrity then vote for them - regardless of party.

That's going to be my approach going forward. Your MP is there to represent you. Don't vote for a party out of a sense of tribal attachment and habit.

My Labour MP is not someone who I have any affinity with; she refuses to meet with her constituents if they don't align with her ideology. How could I possibly vote for her in good faith?

If there is no candidate I can respect and trust then I'll spoil my ballot.

I did this last time. I asked my representative if he could tell me what a woman was. He could not. Asked him if he thought men of any gender should be in womens sports. He fudged. He then asked me to join the party as I am obviously passionate about this issue.
I told him why would I pay good money to be patronised.
He (I kid you not) thought I alone could change this from the top down.

He is a moron, I wont be voting for him.

Some people on this thread seem to think this is a brand new issue.
It's not, its been rolling on for more than 20 years. Plenty of us have already quizzed our MPs , written to our MPs etc.

When I speak to Liz Truss, I'll have to split my Q's between her disastrous time as PM and her views on women's issues.

As surreal as it gets.

A lot of people are incredibly attached to tribal loyalties, and cling to old certainties and beliefs about the world - that goes for people of all political persuasions.I live in a city in which there have been no Tory councillors or MPs for over 50 years - and there is a dyed in the wool, 'baked in' hatred of 'Tories'. So, I get why so many are attached to voting Labour. It forms an essential part of many people's social identity.

I similarly, genuinely, hated Margaret Thatcher in the early 1980's and all Tories resembeld, to me, a bunch of Spiitting Image puppets. Norman Tebbit "On yer bike" and so on. Being on the Left and holding passionate views about social equality and deprivation is a consuming passion, and it easily becomes very volatile, over- emotional and over-heated

Because socialism is rooted in idealism it can never be fulfilled, and so there remains this permanent state of anger and injustice ( look at Owen Jones who exists in a permanent state of rage) - and which fuels the sort of student politics of Jeremy Corbyn too - who has not changed his tune his whole life.

This. Which is why at the GE next year I will hold my nose and vote Conservative. For me it comes down to integrity. I can't be an active terf every day of my life, watching my lesbian community being gradually taken over by TWs and their eager-to-please idiot supporters, struggling with the emotional burden of seeing women's hard-won rights being given away by virtue-signalling politicians, and then vote for a party whose leaders say TWAW and that a woman can have a penis.

It's a matter of integrity for me. If Labour do bring in self-ID I could never forgive myself for voting for them. I'd be part of the problem.

I tend to think that part of what’s happening is people punishing sitting governments for the (foreseeable and inevitable) consequences of how Covid was handled. In the EU that means centre left gets a kicking. Here it’s the conservatives. The one thing people will not do is acknowledge that the current problems were unavoidable due to lockdown and furlough policies they wanted.
we all loved rishi when he was giving us free money. Now he tells us the party is over we whine. We need to grow the fuck up. Keir has no answers, only more dishonesty about the reasons for why we are where we are.

Agree with what you say @AgathaSpencerGregson

A lot of people in denial that printing money to close down the economy and pay us to stay at home during covid has caused inflation. U.K. inflation is slower to come down because of our reliance on gas for energy (look how Germany reopened coal mines, France is 70% nuclear etc). Labour have no answers and will remove women's rights (unless you are a woman with a penis). So depressing!

Yes I agree with you. Especially here due to ridiculous media storms which whipped people up even more. And it was annoying then to see people not able to look forward at all.

But I also think the swing to the right in Europe is migration related. The societal fracturing that people talk about will happen and has already started.

Some posters on here confidently stated the HoL would not pass the recent bill. They were wrong. What’ll be interesting is after Starmer says it’s evil etc is whether he change much at next election.

Maybe he’ll be like Aus Labor and just keep policy as easier

Anyway one thing that unites Covid, gender and migration is people do not look forward enough and they do not consider context enough

I tend to think that part of what’s happening is people punishing sitting governments for the (foreseeable and inevitable) consequences of how Covid was handled.

This. Yes, difficult to see how any government would have acquitted itself well in these circumstances. Remember when everyone wondered why the UK wasn't more like New Zealand, with its isolationist stance? Jacinda Ardern was seen as a heroine. Now the tables have turned: the policy is now seen as a disaster, Jacinda was forced out, the economy is in trouble, Covid is endemic, house prices are falling and interest rates are rising.

I agree with much of what you say AgathaSpencerGregson although my sympathies are tempered by memories of how the Conservative led coalition successfully heaped the blame for the global banking crisis on Labour government spending. What goes around comes around.

It's totally instructional that Starmer is happy to keep the new Tories anti democratic laws against demonstrating.

When you add in the Irish/NZ/Canadian style anti online "hate" speech laws crackdown he'll undoubtedly pursue once in power, I'll be damned if I'm going to wave the white flag by voting for him.

This is the way I see it.

If this was the US, with the binary choice being Trump Stolen Vote/QAnon/Ban all abortions/handguns for teens/pull all support for Ukraine candidate versus Biden opposite of all this but extending trans rights, I would absolutely be mentally tortured.

Vote to ban all abortions incl rape/incest/mother at risk versus vote to normalise teen medicalisation...what a toxic Hobson's Choice.

We don't have this dilemma.

If this was a rerun of 1997, you knew Starmer was going to transform UK public services as Blair did versus a clapped out faux
"Family Values" John Major-led Tory party who presided over millions of repossessions, absolutely make every family significantly better off, but was going to also "streamline" trans policy, again it would kill me to vote against Starmer.

But 2024 in UK is not 2016/2020/2024 US, nor is it going to be similar to 1997 UK.
Starmer is promising to be just a bit more competent than the Tories, just a bit less corrupt, just a bit better at managing, just a little less chaotic.

There's no boldness in policies to re-nationalise water or give total protection to whistleblowers in the NHS. Or create a really progessive National Care Service. Or properly skew the tax system to reward families. Or get to grips with significant housebuilding.

There's nothing. Indeed I know someone who has a policy adviser daughter who has some deep knowledge on internal Labour Party dialog.

They are shit scared of winning the election, they know within moments the scale of the issues will overwhelm, and the left schisms will open up, whether public service unions looking to screw the govt, a la 1970s strikes and pay demands, or leviathan expectations of NHS, or Corbynista wing opening up old scabs and sores.

This is not 1997, when there was cash awash in the economy, and the best possible circumstances for Labour to transform public services, and Blair's iron grip on the Left (rolling over Clause Four totally castrated his internal critics).

If Starmer thinks that his push to drive out Corbyn and anti semitism in the party gives him Blair levels of omnipotence against the Momentum wing, he's in for a big suprise.

Just watch Starmer on Laura Kuensberg's show last Sunday. This is not a man showing any confidence or relish for the job ahead.

And I'm going to vote for him, knowing that despite all those issues, he will still find time and motivation to enact social change hobbling women and girls in perpetuity?

I don't think so.

They are shit scared of winning the election, they know within moments the scale of the issues will overwhelm, and the left schisms will open up, whether public service unions looking to screw the govt, a la 1970s strikes and pay demands, or leviathan expectations of NHS, or Corbynista wing opening up old scabs and sores.

I said something recently to my own MP about Starmer and Reeves starting to scale back their promises and what was going on there. He didn't say much — very discreet — but yes, lots of the more realistic people in Labour are worried that winning this election will be a poisoned chalice. Five failing chaotic years in power and then 20 in opposition.

That's why in some ways more importantly is who the Tories go with after 2024.

Will it be a return to One Nation Toryism with a centrist Rory Stewart type?

Ironically with his "gender friendly" views espoused on his podcast with Alastair Campbell, he would enact Two Nations Toryism, the 51% XXers and the rest.

A "modernising" Penny Mordaunt, who fancies herself as Heir To Thatcher in a better wardrobe? Of course, Maggie as a hard scientist wouldn't be swayed by trans magical thinking as dear Penny has.

Some other bland compromise candidate. Gillian Keegan, Jonny Mercer (for the swooning ladies) etc.

Or the New Conservative wing, Badenoch v Cates v Braverman.

Of course, gutless centrist Tory MPs would never let any of those latter three to the Final Two from which the leader is chosen.

If I didn’t think it was going to be so bad I’d welcome the final debunking that we’re going back to the bloody 90s again.

'This is not 1997, when there was cash awash in the economy, and the best possible circumstances for Labour to transform public services, and Blair's iron grip on the Left (rolling over Clause Four totally castrated his internal critics).'
Indeed yes but as we saw with Corbyn, the extremists were still there in the background just waiting to make their move again. Instead of it being 'Militant tendency' (who Kinnock kicked out pre-Blair), it was anti-semitic Momentum.
Been there, done that, not sitting through that again. Bye bye Labour you never learn from your own history.

'Of course, Maggie as a hard scientist wouldn't be swayed by trans magical thinking as dear Penny has.'
I hated Margaret Thatcher at the time but yes I agree she would never have fallen for the genderwoo.
As the years have rolled on, some of what she did has been proved right but where she really fell down was that she did not seem to care about people at all.
Her Tory party would likely not have furloughed everyone during covid. In many ways the Tories are way more centrist than in the 1980s and 1990s.

I don't expect Starmer will get past the first 48 hours in office before the clamour for trans conversion ban and anti hate speech laws becomes unavoidable. And this being the gateway drug to self ID laws sooner rather than later.

Owen Jones, Ash Sarkar and Aaron Bastani/Novarra plus the Byline Times crowd will not let this go.

I think there are some parallels in that in both the GFC and Covid there were arguments for saying that a crisis the government couldn’t avoid was worsened by previous bad policy choices that they could.
GFC more foreseeable (I remember people for seeing it!!) than a non flu pandemic tho so labour still lose in my view