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

It's called Prime Minister "s Questions, not Leader of the Opposition's Questions.

Starmer is an idiot, he and Labour will use that tragedy & that family to their own ends. Did he or Sunak bother to meet up with the parents of the other two children who were murdered that weekend?

I very clearly don't think Starmer has manipulated anyone and assume that's a typo.

After reading that article, I think what's happened is the Malcolm Tucker-type comms lead in CCHQ went "fuckity fuckity fuckity fuck" at PMQs yesterday, there was a desperate scrabble around to find some kind of narrative to cover it up by blaming Starmer, this is what they came up with.

If I was running a comms campaign like that (and had no morals) I'd start with social media, brief my friendly journalists so they could start writing articles for the next days press, and then get the faithful calling phone ins the next day.

I have no other explanation for why there's this weird narrative running counter to what we all saw happening with our own eyes.

I have no idea why you specifically are so adamant Sunak did nothing wrong. It's a very black and white position, especially for someone who wants to vote Labout but feels politically homeless. Hey ho. Each to their own.

Exactly this.

Yes well said

I have no other explanation for why there's this weird narrative running counter to what we all saw happening with our own eyes.

As I said to another poster, you must be in a parallel universe to me.

The person who raised Brianna's murder in a distasteful way was Starmer not Sunak. Many, many others agree with me and none of us have been manipulated by anyone to think that, it's just what we saw.

Well, you call it a weird narrative Adam, that Sunak did nothing wrong (normal politics) and it was Starmer that dragged the Ghey’s into it. Yet I think that’s entirely obvious from the transcript, and I didn’t believe Starmer’s ‘outrage’ was genuine. So interesting that people have such very different, but genuine, interpretations

Yes, it's desperate reaching to say that Sunak is the insensitive one, Esther Ghey may not even have noticed, had not Starmer made such a histrionic pantomime.

According to the World at 1 yesterday, both Sunak and Starmer thought she was there.

Sunak baited Starmer. Starmer took the bait.

Neither one cares about any of the issues or people, as far as I can tell.

In a clip I heard, the Speaker of the House said it was "organised barracking" or something like that. Totally unconstructive by both of them.

PMQs is for MPs to ask questions of the PM, it is not for the PM to ask questions. There were no questions raised about this issue, so it was wrong for the PM to even raise it and he should focus on the actual question asked.

Histrionic pantomime is about right

This is becoming like the blue/black - white/gold dress thing of a few years ago.

To me it seems blatantly obvious that Starmer jumping to Brianna Ghey from Sunak calling him out for saying that 1% of women have a penis is the offensive thing. I can't fathom how anyone could genuinely see it as the other way round. (And that dress was white/gold.)

Starmer was and is continuing to use Brianna Ghey to make political capital with Sunak. I am not a fan of Sunak but I found the way he spoke about Brianna sincere and empathetic and I respect that he did that while sticking to his principles.

Just remember, 2 years ago we were being banned from Twitter for saying that men could not be women!

Today, the 'Women's Rights v. Trans demands' issue is being discussed all over the land.

No debate is over. We won't be silenced. Not by Starmer nor by anyone else.

but an inhuman, hateful, unprincipled man willing to delve into the basest depths of the culture wars, mocking trans people as a grieving mother sits metres from him, is too horrific to contemplate.

As well as overblown, mawkish hyperbole.

Unbelievable.

@oldwomanwhoruns yep

Yes, it was a shouting at the radio listen. I knew it would be but forced myself to listen. I agree with him on pretty well all his other stuff so it made for an uncomfortable listen.

This is what really gets my goat. It's the idea, not that it's wrong to mention a certain thing, but that it's wrong to mention it in front of certain people.

That way madness lies, in my view. If Esther Ghey hadn't been in parliament that day, would it have been OK for Sunak to mock Starmer's views on what a woman is? Yes, it would. In which case, why does it stop being OK when Esther Ghey is there?

I suggest you watch the exchange again, the PM made no mention of the gender issue, I read reports Esther Ghey was in the chamber and not in the chamber when the exchange took place, but that is irrelevant anyway. The
dig was at Starmer and him alone, he used Esther Ghey to deflect and score points. Shameful.

Yes, he was in "sincere mode" I will give you that.

Shame he didn't show the same sincerity in the House when asked to apologise for his awful gaffe. Guess it wasn't in the script.

It is not that some topics should be off limits in the HoC. It is that, very unfortunately indeed, because of this debacle, this topic will now de facto be off limits for a long, long time. It will cause a long and chilling shadow where the really worrying culprits will hide

Who are the "really worrying culprits?"

..because it was insensitive. That's what people are objecting to. Some people don't think it was insensitive, that's the debate. And the incessant variations on 'Sunak didn't mention the gender issue/trans' are wearisome. Of course reference to Starmer's inconsistency on what a woman is relates to 'the gender issue'. What else do you think Sunak was referring to?

The fact remains you cannot change sex. Gender and sex have two separate meanings in today's world, no matter what the law states. As it is badly worded it may well end up being challenged. As for Sunak, I don't know his full views on the subject or what he intends, but I believe his time as PM will be curtailed at the next election. With Starmer as PM, I do believe self-id will become a reality, no matter what he currently says.

Histrionic pantomime is about right

It's quite telling how Rachel Reeves and Angela Rayner are laughing behind him until he starts speaking and then immediately arrange their faces into totally fake sombre mode.

https://x.com/gillian_philip/status/1755631579496436082?s=46&t=SPorwN-mokktL467rcZ57g

Can anyone please help me out with how exaclty this is nasty? It is just that lurking beneath the surface is the unexpressed idea that women are adult human females, which excludes males from the defintion?

You've got it in a nutshell. Starmer was helpfully reminding Brianna Ghey's mother that many people think that males can't be women. Sunak didn't make it about Brianna in any way at all.

It amazes me with this story the amount of people expressing their faux outrage and when asked a simple question such as "can a woman have a penis" the lengths that they will go to to avoid answering the question.