Starmer furious that Sunak should mention his definition of ‘woman’

[HagoftheNorth]

PMQ’s today, Sunak highlighted Starmer’s famous comments that some women have a penis. Starmer was furious that Sunak should make that comment while Mrs Ghey was in the chamber. Surely Starmer should realise that it is possible to be respectful and compassionate about trans people without parroting the insane lie that transwomen are women (because ‘woman’ is sex not gender)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-68229785

Perfectly put.

Starmer is just beeee kiiiinding with added outrage. I find it contemptible.

Journalists are massive stirrers with this stuff

They are also to blame in this whole GRA inspired shit show

And I include not safeguarding dc in that

But I'm not berating anyone. I'm saying it's not a joke. And Brianna's family's feeling should matter. And that our leaders should be creating an environment that has safeguarding absolutely at its heart.

I put it in because you said it was just transphobia and they were already going to kill her. Which is categorically untrue, and was explicitly explained not to be the case in the judgement.

If you know nothing about the case, and that was based on lack of knowledge and it was unintentional, then fair enough. But, like someone else said, you shouldn’t make assertions knowing nothing about it.

Transgender identity adds extra vulnerability, due to some people’s hostility to transgender people. It is enough of an issue that the sentencing guidelines have a specific uplift for it.

It is a catastrophic misjudgement at best to not realise that's highly offensive when he knows the mother of a trans murder victim is present. Why you are continuing to compound it with political point scoring and nonsense I have no idea.

What a state of affairs we are in when some topics are 'off limit' for fear of offending in house of commons.

Brianna's mother was not even in the room.

The person who made this a political issue by referring to a murdered teen was Starmer.

I agree it might have been sensible to avoid it on the part of Sunak as he should have anticipated that Starmer would have made political capital out of it.

"Feelings" don't matter when it comes to legislation, though.

The idea that our " feelings" are the most important consideration in everything is why we are in such a mess with escalating mental health and anxiety issues. Everyone is focused entirely on how everything makes them feel - as if feelings are an indicator of eternal truths; and that our feelings must be protected at all costs.

Feelings are fluid; they shift and change throughout a single day, and are often triggered by memories or situations which resemble past events in some way. They are not relaibale indicators of anything much else - and are certainly not factors when it comes to drafting legal documents or legislation which has an aim of objectively adjudicating or differentiating between one type of thing and an other.

This won't be a popular opinion but I agree with you. I'm not a fan of Rishi but I admire the way he sticks to his principles on this issue.
Brianna's death was tragic and horrific but I don't want it to be used to silence people's concerns about trans ideology.

Journalists and social media influencers both.

It is amazing how quickly things get distorted and how it spreads through ever more aghast people stitching or linking to other commentary - all of it actually turning things into an absurd circus based on illusion.

That BBC article is pretty irresponsible frankly. The editors and journalists know that people will scan it or just misread it and absolutely come away with the impression that ghey’s mother was sitting there watching this exchange.

The media and politicians are so keen to exploit a bereaved family. Imagining running to ghey’s father to ask him for comment on this ‘drama’.

Starmer is such a weasel. He was put in an uncomfortable position - being faced with one of his big, glaring weak points - his area of vulnerability - and he manipulated the situation to escape the heat.

No doubt Sunak, though, was guilty of stupendously bad judgement and timing - and that is because he too is in the hot seat. -with half his party plotting behind his back to bring him down and replace him with someone else.

Yes. Absolutely.

Starmer felt on the back foot and his escape strategy was to use a bereaved family as a distraction tactic.

And it worked.

Sunak definitely misjudged things - not least in providing that opportunity. But it does not reflect well on Starmer that, rather than defending his policy position and choices, he decided to use the family of a murdered child as an ‘oh look; a rabbit’.

I’d like the political leaders of this country to have more integrity than this.

Brianna's mother was not even in the room.

I've lost count of the number of times this has been repeated in this thread. Yet shortly afterwards, there'll be another comment saying "Sunak shouldn't have said what he did in front of Brianna's mother."

What's wrong with people? Are they stupid? Incapable of reading? How many times do you have to say the words "Brianna's mother was not in the room" before it sinks in? Or is it the case now that social media truth is more important than actual truth?

She wasn’t in the room because she was late. Weasel Sunak already had his little speech prepared.

That's right,she wasn't in the room.

Knowing that women do not have penises is not a distortion.

This is really almost as crass as Sunak's statement. People around here are so bloody obsessed that they can't work out that the fact that something may be true doesn't mean you have to churn it out at every opportunity, no matter how irrelevant or unnecessary it is, and no matter how much it may hurt someone else.

Yes the emotional manipulation is so bad and messed up.

We can talk about facts and safeguarding dc

Or there will be legislation to stop it

Those who cheerlead the latter are foolish in the extreme

It'll harm more dc in the end. All of the adults pushing this gender ideology agenda or spinning as the media do, BBC editors included, are to blame and I direct all anger at them.

Suank’s comment was part of a dig about Starmer/Labour u-turning on everything. Which has just been vindicated following the announcement that Labour are dropping their £28bn green investment pledge.

This thread is depressing. Starmer wasn’t scoring political points, he was acting with courtesy in pointing out that it was inappropriate at that point for Sunak to fuck about with that issue. He was entirely right. I’d hope that anyone would have stood up for the family at that point. There’s a time and place and that wasn’t it.

It's a pity schools aren't churning it out at every opportunity.

…because she was late. Weasel Sunak had already prepared his speech, regardless, thinking she’d be there. It’s such a mess.

Starmer has got what he wanted, namely to make discussion that he thinks that TWAW off limits. In future he will hide behind Brianna Ghey every time he is pressed on the issue. No debate. It is TRA 101 and remarkably he has succeeded.

Surely Esther Grey will only be in the building for that week, he can’t bring her back every time

But yes he might try

Women's rights gone because he is a coward who manipulates stories to hide behind