Would you vote Tory if Kemi Badenoch was Tory the party leader and the election was tomorrow?

[lechiffre55]

Just curious to see what the answers here might be.
Would you vote Tory if Kemi Badenoch was the Tory party leader and the election was tomorrow?
Feel free to answer any way you like, and I don't care about derailing. The question is quite tongue in cheek, don't take it too seriously, and have fun with it if you want, rant if you want. I'm trying to get a picture of the MN mood.

Look, everything intersects with everything, if that's how you want to look at it.

The issue of "toast" intersects with everything. Toast is a food product, and food is part of the cost-of-living crisis! Toast is made from bread which is made from wheat, so it intersects with the domain of agriculture, which in turn intersects with the domain of the environment/climate change... oh, and trade as well. Wheat (toast's main ingredient) prices are influenced by the conflict in Ukraine, and could be influenced further by conflict with China, so toast is a geopolitical issue. Etc etc.

That settles it. I'm off to send some messages to various politicians to ask them what their policies on toast are (buttered or not? Wholewheat or white?). Whichever party has politicians whose toast policies are closest to mine gets my vote.

Yes, I'm being silly, but the point I'm making is that the fact that it is possible to "work out ways in which XYZ issue has possible connection points with various other issues" does not mean that XYZ issue is the main issue that politics is "about," or that it should decide our votes.

I am gender critical, but Labour's slightly wishy washy policies on this issue are not going to decide my vote. It's clear that the tide is turning on this one anyway (something which happened without changing governments), suggesting that the administration in charge is not going to be the main issue here. And I'm sure I'm not the only person on this thread to point out that the forays into TRA lunacy in the last 15 years have happened under the Tories' watch.

Absolutely not. I am as gender critical as they come but it shocks me how so many people will vote for someone like Badenoch just because they agree on that single issue.

She has also voted:

1. Against improved standards of housing
2. Against increased local council budgets
3. For restricting trade unions
4. For the returning of refugees to countries where they face a threat to life
5. For increasing the state pension age
6. Against restrictions preventing undercover police from committing physical and sexual assault
7. For mass surveillance of citizen communication and activity
8. Against instituting buffer zones around abortion clinics
9. Against measures to improve access to medical abortion

She is no friend to the poor, women or really any vulnerable group. I don’t think I have anything in common with someone like that.

I wouldn't vote for the Tory whomever the leader was.

Though to quote Chris Patten - " when there was a Tory party" (last governor of Hong Kong)

This lot is a populist extreme right wing **

Honestly, there are almost daily posts on Mumsnet now which smell suspiciously like they are planted by Tory election strategists, who are trying to either push an agenda i.e. whipping up anger on single-issues that might benefit their election chances, or using the forum to road-test ideas with people to help them figure out what they can do to maximise their chances of winning.

So let me be clear. The Tories have been in power for fourteen years and almost everything has got much worse under their watch. They have lots of explanations for this that rely on external factors, including Covid and the war in Ukraine, but in my view the iteration of the Conservative Party we have had in power for the last decade have been mainly interested in getting their snouts into the trough and enriching themselves, and any pretence of having civic duty or social responsibility has evaporated.

The Conservative Party of old which valued established tradition and maintaining things that were good no longer exists, having been replaced by people who previously were considered to be on the lunatic fringe.

Kemi Badenoch is one of these. I wouldn't vote for her under any circumstances. The other parties have their own issues and none are perfect and never will be, but I'll be holding my nose and voting for the one that looks to be best. There's zero chance it will be for a Conservative.

Totally agree with your suspicions (it feels like the influx of pro Brexit posters on here all over again ) and your overall analysis of the current Conservatives is sadly completely correct whenwhenwhen
I’ll add in the rocketing of child poverty and the necessitating of food banks and the disgusting attack on support for people with disabilities and carers, but the list goes on. Starving local governments of funds so local problems can’t be funded, starving the NHS of enough money to meet its basic targets for services and staffing. Schools absolutely literally falling apart and no money to repair them. Roads full of holes. It’s pervasive and awful and Cameron’s move to five year elections has really allowed them to dig in and ransack public goods like our public services.

I guess so

Great post

Also great

Kemi Badenoch voted against improved standards of housing.

Poor conditions in temporary accommodation has been a factor in the deaths of 55 children over a four-year period - many of them babies; the previous housing legislation did not allow for room for a cot in temp accommodation.

The fact that the Labour Party and the rest are prepared to hold women's rights to ransom to get the Tories out is just as despicable, and I hold them equally responsible. They should have walked the last two elections.
Understand what you support and own it.

No. Never in a million years.

👏 👏 👏

You’re absolutely right that Labour are wholly inadequate too. All political parties are failing women and other vulnerable groups. But recognising that isn’t the same as unquestioning support of a politician who has actively targeted the most vulnerable in society simply because we agree with her about transgender ideology.

Its crazy, isn't it. I lived through the Thatcher years and I keep comparing what's happening now to back then.

Absolutely agree. I think it’s also really interesting that Lee Anderson had the following to say when he was the deputy chairman of the Conservative Party:

The big things in terms of 2019, there were three things they won us the election.

It was nothing to do with me, it was Brexit, it was Boris, it was Corbyn and it was as simple as that. Those three things together were a great campaign - great ingredients.

At the next election we haven’t got those three things so we’ll have to think of something else. It’ll probably be a mix of culture wars and trans debate.

This is not about a true concern regarding the rights of women and girls. It is a cynical attempt to exploit those concerns to win an election for a party that has gone out of its way to target women.

I am not buying into that, and my criticism of transgender ideology has nothing in common with those who are motivated by homophobia, misogyny, racism, ableism and hatred of the poor. The fact that there are some commonalities in the approach to transgender issues between these vastly different groups does not justify our support of them.

I want to see women and girls protected from male predators, and vulnerable children protected from exploitation, sterilisation and genital mutilation. That is completely different to those who want to attack gender questioning people as part of a wider attack on the vulnerable of because it’s politically expedient.

Absolutely. And I am angered by the misrepresentation of feminist views to be the same as attacking all trans-identified people including the young victims of abuse and mutilation.

Our motivations are completely different, and the tories are using these very vulnerable children and young adults as a political football. I and many other gender critical feminists are absolutely against that.

I want to see mental health support for these children, and the gross failings of society that have allowed them to be so readily groomed addressed. It is not about attacking and denigrating a single victim of transgender ideology. We have been trying to explain that for years, and people throwing in their lot with people who are doing exactly that is a stain on the whole movement.

Obviously I am not talking about the predatory men masquerading as women in the above. I’m talking about the invariably gay, autistic, disabled, abused or socially isolated children those people have targeted.

Agreed

Not even if you gold plated her and put her up for raffle. Never.

Wait till you see what you get from Starmer and Labour.

Can't wait!

P.s. Your mysterious warning tone would work better if Rishi et al weren't currently herding refugees up to send to Rwanda, basically planning to cleanse the country of disabled people by starving them to death, having us pay their cronies so we can drink dangerous bacteria/swim in shit, etc.

Bring on Sir Keir!