Zoe Williams on Wes Streeting

[southbiscay]

Zoe is suggesting that Wes Streeting apologising for not supporting the GC position is an election wheeze to win votes. Whilst Wes has form for bending with the wind, it's nevertheless fascinating that she thinks the GC position is the vote-winning position.

Perhaps someone could tell Keir.

x.com/zoesqwilliams/status/1794842950272463176

She's often illogical, glib and luxury-beliefy, but there's such venom in her tweet that I'm assuming she's got some personal skin in the game, a la Joanne Harris, David Tennant and the other zealots.

Yes, it's quite startling to see. A pure knee-jerk rage reaction. No response to any of the substance of his argument, just violent rage. Tribalism. Emotive reasoning.

It could be that she has a transitioning child or other relative. It could just be the rage about losing an argument when you don’t know why you think what you do and don’t have any evidence for it.

TooTired, how about you try to stick with the topic of the thread, or start another one

I think Wes Streeting may be genuine, but Starmer is definitely finding him useful because he’s saying lots of things we find appealing (and that’s a low bar given the history!) while those things are not Labour policy, and are not in line with statements by other senior Labour politicians.

I’ve not seen anything yet from Starmer which is unequivocal. I’ve seen lots of ‘safe spaces’ ‘services for women’ (but remember TWAW), and stuff he thinks sounds like what GC women want, but isn’t. He’s trying very hard to ride both horses, and WS is propping him up on the one he’s not really committed to

but KS also doesn't believe TWAW, so we should push on this point, 'so, KS, WS has agreed our objections are reasonable, how are you going to address our very reasonable objections in a way we can trust?'

If WS never believed TWAW then what was the Facebook group about?

Pretty sure KS does believe it though. It's more likely this is WS lining himself up for leader/a higher position than health if they win. He's going away from the party line which is as per Dodds. It's her policy area, not his.

What I don’t get is how Starmer doesn’t commit to reality, evidence and law himself. He’s a top lawyer fgs. He can see the legal cases that are being pursued and won. He can understand the equality act, and he must be aware of all the polling that shows him most women are pissed off with this and want safe single sex spaces where needed and don’t want this unevidenced shit being taught in schools, so what’s stopping him?

i absolutely don’t believe KS really thinks TWAW. He’s got his faults but he’s not that stupid. You can tell he’s uncertain and havering about what to do, but he doesn’t come across like a fully signed-up zealot. He comes across like he took advice from tras at the beginning and has been trying to find a sensible way back / through but lacks the courage to be clear.

Starmer

August 2023

https://x.com/keirstarmer/status/1692929657975554489?s=46&t=WHoOZZ_3Kv5G6-FyQuvE0LQ

Jan 2024

www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/01/07/sir-keir-starmer-election-toll-children/

https://x.com/famedtrust/status/1744330831236051059?s=46&t=WHoOZ_3Kv5G6-FyQuvE0LQ

https://x.com/famedtrust/status/1744333973663228383?s=46&t=WHoOZ_3Kv5G6-FyQuvE0LQ

Oh no I’d forgotten about that detail (it had seemed vey unclear/speculative at the time) and hadn’t seen his football comment before.

Zoe can eff the eff off. And I say that as a previous loyal Guardian reader.

We often expect people to think clearly, but the truth is that we mostly take an instinctive position and then argue to justify it. And we are very good at finding supportive arguments, and ignoring inconvenient evidence. I don't for a moment believe that Streeting or Starmer really think that a man can become fully a woman, but their culture tells them that they can't be unkind to transgender people so they have to go along with the ideology as far as they can. So Starmer said it's not right to say only women have a cervix because, I think, he felt it was morally wrong to say it, not because he was stupid enough to believe it.

ResisterRex · Today 10:49

If WS never believed TWAW then what was the Facebook group about?

Perhaps I'm a cynic, but it seems that he wanted to burnish his right on credentials and show that he was 100% on message. He has other principles, if you don't like the ones he has.

It could just be the rage about losing an argument when you don’t know why you think what you do and don’t have any evidence for it.

Strongly agree. A pure tantrum, basically.

The Labour Party has historically been the party that stood up for the working class and other vulnerable minorities. They weren’t the government who implemented section 28 and slated single mothers and benefit claimants. So I guess it was natural to get behind another minority that like it not was ridiculed and discriminated against. Obviously the tide turned and TRAs are as vocal and misogynistic now as old style homophobes back in the day. I kind of understand Starmer’s reluctance to go full GC because of the whole labour supporting the underdog schtick but now it’s become far too one sided. The tories on the other hand are just doing it for political point scoring and that horrible bloody nasty streak they have. Again I’m well aware that Labour has its nasty zealots but not to the same degree and they are less cunning at concealing it.

he was added to a Facebook group. Is there any evidence he took part in it? I imagine being added to a group called ‘labour against transphobia’ and being busy etc he might just have let it slide and not ever looked at it. Remember the heyday of Facebook groups? I was in LOADS

Poor.

I can understand the unwillingness of some posters to trust anything that the Labour party say on this issue, but I am a bit puzzled by the idea that "after the election they can do what they want and then they'll show their true colours!" because I don't believe they have pro TRA true colours, or any true colours at all on this issue. I don't think that most politicians (of all parties) have true deeply held convictions on this which they would allow to override political expediency. I think the actual question is not "but what do they really want to do, and what would they do if they had power?" but more "what will political expediency persuade them to do in the short, medium and long term; and by extension what can women do to make it really uncomfortable for them to throw us under the bus with no blow back"

on that last point- MASSIVE props to the women who have done stuff already that have made it FAR more uncomfortable than it used to be, to blatantly not give a shit about us

If that's the case then why do they keep banging on about making self ID 'less dehumanising'?

I don't know, because they think it's some sort of compromise that allows them to keep everyone happy?
I am not saying they are pro-woman. I am saying they don't have deeply held convictions

Do you think they do?
I think most politicians don't care much about women instinctively and didn't see any penalties to pissing them off (or even notice that they were getting pissed off).
It's like ordering paying your bills: you pay the rent / mortgage first when you are going to run out of money because you don't want to be evicted.
Paying the bill of goodwill with women was far down the list because they didn't notice that women controlled something that they could cut off.
Now they're noticing. The penalties are coming into focus.
That's all. They are hoping to sort of distribute the goodwill around and not get cut off by anyone.
who knows how this will eventually pan out if / when they get power.

I can't forget that Streeting was in this group:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/3144285-Labour-Against-Transphobia-Facebook-group

Actually this article may be more informative:

https://grahamlinehan.substack.com/p/sorry-wes-streeting-this-isnt-good

'Madigan then embarked on a witch hunt to eject the women trying to protect their sex-based rights from the Labour Party. He created a covert Facebook group called ‘Labour Against Transphobia’. Members of this group were asked to name women in the party they deemed to be 'transphobic' and supply evidence of their supposed crimes. The information was then fed to Labour Party officials with the aim of having the accused members expelled.'

'The resulting hit-list of over 30 women included several prominent feminist names, Linda Bellos and Stephanie Davies Arai among them. Two of the women featured, Jennifer James (who was crowd-funding a legal challenge to Labour’s policy allowing trans-identified males on to women-only shortlists) and Venice Allan, were suspended from the party.'

So, he's actively helped to get women expelled from Labour over their 'gc' views.

He STILL hasn't bloody apologised.