Streeting apologies to Rosie Duffield

[Theeyeballsinthesky]

Well well

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/jul/28/wes-streeting-apologises-to-labour-mp-rosie-duffield-who-felt-ostracised-due-to-gender-views

Could they maybe possibly at last be listening?

'Trans equality' means men in womens spaces.

And in this case, worthless.

Too little, too late, and utterly self-serving.

I think it is important to acknowledge the changes the Labour Party is making in this area and to try to be constructive about them (while still, of course, scrutinising them - deeds as well as words).
If we keep on being as angry and hostile as we were before Dodds' words on Monday and the subsequent reinforcement of those words by other Labour Party politicians, what incentive do they have for continuing (or maintaining) this evolution of their stance on women's rights?
They will be getting vitriolic anger from the trans lobby for what they have said. If they just get vitriolic anger from feminists, too, then they may just think 'why did we bother?'
Of course they aren't being wholly principled about this, of course it is a votes game, but they have created an opportunity for the public debate to shift. That requires constructive engagement.
Until Monday I would never on god's earth have considered it possible that I would vote for a Labour Party politician. Now it seems possible, subject to the not-so-tiny small print.

Is this sort of announcement intended to muddy the waters on women’s rights to dignity fairness and safety?

I think that for an issue that apparently never comes up on the doorstep - I think at the 3 by elections, it did come up, far more than they expected.

100% ...I think this is a significant shift in the right direction for me as a voter.

God forbid women are angry about being threatened, derided, smeared, cancelled, ridiculed and ejected from political parties.

We've been accommodating, polite, reasonable and open all along.

A mimminy pimminy non apology is not enough.

Reinstate women kicked out of Labour. Apologise. Set out cast iron promises in single sex exemptions.

I agree it represents some kind of shift, although I don't think it's clear yet how significant a shift it is. I disagree about letting go of my anger. So I will listen to what they have to say but, even if they do manage to convince me, I will never, ever forget how close they came to throwing away my rights.

The basic answer to this is so what? If politicians were so catastrophically wring on any other issue they would be expected to resign. It's as though because it's women and girls affected it's fine, well take their non-apology and move on, forget about things like the women physically attacked and abused by actual party staff. No one owes Labour anything - they owe us - and the desperation to vote for them because they're the 'good' ones some people seem to feel is based on hope more than reality given the intended harsh clampdown on things like disability benefits and keeping the worst ideological Tory policies that Cameron and Osborne inflicted on us. Labour has told us what they are now, listen to them rather than your own fuzzy feelings. Loyalty to any political party is ridiculous and a complete inversion of what they're for.

Catching up on another point. Politicians should not get golden bridges. They have one job, they failed, move on. No one would argue that Boris Johnson or Gavin Williamson to name just 2 should be given the opportunity to say sorry and everything is hunky dory, why all the handwringing about this?

There's been the Iain interview, the starmer interview, now this.

Labour wants recognition of this, as steps in the right direction. Yay! Fill yer boots.

You want women to turn a blind eye to how half arsed this is? We've got our morsels so shut it already? No chance.

🙄 it's like those husbands who need congratulating for every house chore they eventually do after lots of "nagging"...

Streeting spoke about the reaction of many women in the Labour party, including MPs, to his comments in a BBC Radio 4 interview in which he had urged trans rights campaigners not to try to “shut down” the author JK Rowling.

“I was inundated with women in the Labour party, including parliamentary colleagues, who I do not consider to be shrinking violets, who were basically saying: ‘I’m really glad you said this about having a better conversation, because I felt afraid about voicing my concerns’. And I thought, if some of the strongest women I know are feeling silenced, we’ve got a problem.”

Whether or not he's scurryfunging as the wind blows, JKR's stance on this has been enormously impactful.

She threw herself to the wolves but in doing so she has enabled the discussion to go further than it would have otherwise managed to.

It's shocking that those women he describes in labour haven't felt able to speak out. And not surprisingly given Rosie's treatment. And there are clearly more than we thought.

The local ptfa chair (super mum who knows everyone locally) mentioned she was listening to the witch trials of JKR last week; these things matter.

She threw herself to the wolves but in doing so she has enabled the discussion to go further than it would have otherwise managed to.

And OBVIOUSLY Rosie too.

This whole it was someone else with Starmer and Streeting

Of course women are… oh I was a good guy not part of the bullying

Utterly pathetic. Crumbs. Some will accept very little.

The continuing issue that many women have lost trust in Labour, and trust is bloody hard to win back.

All of you on this thread saying that nothing is good enough for the GCs, think how Left-leaning women are feeling. It's if their partners have gone out on the town and shagged some randoms, and been blatant about it, and blamed them for being upset, and now one of them has put a bunch of flowers on the kitchen table.

Yeah.
No.

I should add, Labour and the LibDems unquestioningly believing all this bollocks for years has made me realise how many politicians are either completely craven or really, really stupid.

I had limited faith in them anyway. Now, next to none.

Exactly this. No, it's not enough.

But yes, I'm glad to see it. They need to change direction step by step, and this is a step.

I'm also (a) quite sure that this is about women's votes (b) furious that it took actual votes being lost for women's concerns to become important and (c) bloody delighted that there are clearly quite a few votes on the balance over this. We've moved mountains here.

So, to all those posters who accuse me of wanting an excuse to vote Tory and it never being enough from Labour: it's a bit more complicated than that. I want them to be the party I thought they were.

Not a proper apology so not a fulsome response even from Rosie. It's great that Labour are realising self ID is a vote loser and bullying women speaking about womens' safety a bigger one. Supporting (cheering on) a convicted criminal threatening violence was not a good look.

I would have a lot more respect for a politician saying openly I got this wrong. If they like they can say I realised when I heard people cheering a man threatening women with violence there are real concerns about women's safety. (We'll overlook that you really didnt stand up for JKR).

It is the mark of a responsible adult to admit when they got something wrong and try to set things right. Stories calling this flip flopping are acting like toddlers.

Labour have a long way to go before I'd vote for them again and I wont be helping with election expenses while my spare cash is going on legal cases that should not be necessary. They have lost not only votes but members and cash too.

I think I might design a small poster to put in my window by the front door, for election times (and possibly in between):

PLEASE REGARD WOMEN'S RIGHTS AND CHILDREN'S SAFEGUARDING AS HAVING COME UP ON THE DOOR STEP.

My MP and local councillors/ candidates (all main parties, L, C, LD, G) have definitely faced lots of questions from women on doorsteps already about this. I know, because I'm one of them, and I know quite a few of the others. We're much better organised now.

I’m really sorry about the way Rosie’s been treated.”

...topic of self-ID had “sometimes created a wedge between friends”.

“There are times when Rosie’s kind of tweeted or liked certain things and I’ve been really upset and there were times where, you know, I’ve taken a much more defensive position around trans equality and Rosie’s felt that [I] personally, and others, haven’t listened.

“That’s why I think we’ve got to try and find a better way through this to create a culture in which friendships aren’t divided, families aren’t divided, and countries aren’t divided.”

That's a non-apology if there ever was one.

🙄

This rollback from Nandy - is it on record anywhere? I missed it if so.

And I'm assuming these 'activists' who led her astray and the sad young trans person in her constituency were one and the same. Credulous idiot that she is.

I just googled and can't find anything.

I think the Nandy stuff has got a bit garbled tbh. The source seems to be the Janice Turner article in the Times, but that only says Nandy has 'rowed back' (that bit's in quotes so Turner has a source for that) and her excuse for previous statements is that she was influenced by some of her constituency activists. It doesn't say anywhere that any of those activists were trans.

Very true, Pacific.

Either way, she's still very firmly in the 'I outsourced my critical thinking to other people' camp. Twat.