Labour is betraying women

[IwantToRetire]

. . . If Starmer’s government has achieved so much depressing stuff in 71 days, roughly 4 per cent of the way into a possible 5-year term, what they might achieve by the end of it fills me with dread. I believe that Labour showed us, and in some instances told us, what they would do, or not do, to ensure the continued erosion of women’s rights, and they are doing exactly what they said. Why some feminist women, seemingly in a blind bond to Labour, didn’t believe them escapes me. It also infuriates me that they think Labour deserve a bit more rope to hang us with.

Some prominent left-wing women, before the election, pleaded with us to trust Labour and allow them space to make the right decisions. They suggested that it was wrong to focus on the single issue of gender ideology, because women would benefit in so many other ways under a Labour government.

I wonder, did they envisage this Labour government? The one maintaining unequal benefits, placing violent men amongst their female victims and keeping the blurred line between gender and sex embedded in law? I can understand if those women were now as dismayed as the rest of us at what they are seeing, but instead they appear to be spinning for Labour, suggesting the violent men aren’t really being released or excusing it by blaming the Tories. They suggest we should wait and see what happens, keep the faith, trust the process. After many years of being told that women are influencing Labour “behind the scenes” my faith in that has gone.

If you are a feminist woman openly critical of Labour you may now be accused of “right wing drift”. This is nonsense. Instead, should scrutiny not be focused on how far Labour have drifted from the left? This is where condemnation should be aimed. . . .

NB - these are only some paragraphs from the article - you can read the whole article here - https://thecritic.co.uk/labour-is-betraying-women/

I suspect that outside of old age there would be fairly equal numbers - you don't get single women living alone unless there are close to similar number of single men, unless the men are grouping up somehow. The elderly would be a different story but also complicated by assisted living type situations.

That being said, while it's good to keep an eye of who is affected by policy and what that might mean, the idea that because a policy is problematic because it might affect one group more than others - that implies that if the policy affected these groups evenly it would be fine, which is just not the case in most instances, and I think it ends up going a long way to wearing how people think about policy overall and even creates cynicism in the public.

When you look at couples who have separated, yes, you have probably near equal numbers of each sex living separately who would be hammered by the loss of the 25% council tax relief.

The issue is which sexed group will form the massive majority of providing the full time home and bills for children from the relationship? And which sexed group will have lost more time out of the work place through pregnancy and childcare, and quite possibly other carer responsibilities too, and have more difficulty with working hours due to being that full time home/carer for children? With the concurrent issues of earning power? That isn't going to be equal at all.

Those who spent the run up to the election wittering about didn't we care about child poverty and Labour would be so much better for women- where are you now?

Dont forget that as women as a group live longer that men, it is almost inevitable that more women will end up living alone, assuming they haven't had to / been made to move into some sort of care facility.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/lifeexpectancies/bulletins/nationallifetablesunitedkingdom/2020to2022

As for who are they representing:

If you stop thinking of the LP as representing the "people" or the poor, or the disadvantaged, or working class people, and start thinking of them as the party that represents the elite professional classes, it all makes a lot more sense.

In fact I think then almost everything they do makes sense, especially if you think about who the elite professional classes are, who their parents and grandparents were, and how they get to the position they are in now.

The whole party of the people thing is just a no longer relevant part of the past that is useful, mainly for making the professional MC members feel better rather than trying to sell their brand to actual members of the working classes.

This probably sums it up.

Probably some truth in this in cities and gentrified areas. I used to live in a constituency with a large working class, poor population and there were plenty of working class people in the party, people who'd grown up with parents in the Labour Party and the unions and for whom Labour was a way of life.

I would argue that although some of those people exist, they very much represent what the party was, not what it is now.

The policies the party has no longer represent those people, their needs, interests, or values. Which is why people like that are no longer reliable voters for the LP. Assuming each party stayed where it was now (which of course won't be the case but notionally) what would be the chances those families would continue to see the LP as representing them or even an important part of who they are.

It's pretty clear every time they talk they despise people like that, except when they need to wheel them out to establish some kind of credibility.

Sadly I think you're absolutely right.

I suspect this is why the sense of betrayal. Those voters are voting for a party of decades ago, on tribal memory. That's why we expect better of Labour.

Labour are now out-Torying the Tories.

Couldn't agree more with both @TempestTost and @Pluvia . I live in a Red Wall constituency myself, and most of the LP members I know are older, working-class people. But they don't direct the party any more.

Centre left parties around the world have mostly become parties representing the sectional interests of the PMC classes.

There's a theory beloved by highly educated middle class socialists, that working class people have a deep hatred of the rich and/or posh. Look how readily Labour people bang on about Tory toffs.

They're not entirely wrong about that - think of how tone deaf a George Osborne or Rishi Sunak can be when telling us to make sacrifices. But they're definitely not entirely right about it either.

They worked for a long time on an assumption that working class people would automatically hate Boris Johnson. But for a working class voter, Boris is so far removed from my experience that he may as well be a space alien. He became unpopular with working class voters because he fucked up in government, not because of what school he went to. The people who really hated him for his background were Guardian columnists who were slightly less posh than him.

If working class voters hate any class of people, it's middle class managers, public sector administrators etc who boss them about and tell them what to do. Now look at the jobs Labour MPs did before entering Parliament. It would be even more interesting to look at the jobs their parents did.

Interesting detail from the last election - in one of Lord Ashcroft's focus groups, he asked about Labour's proposed tax on school fees. None of the focus group participants had kids at private school, but they all hated the idea. They thought it was a tax on aspiration. Many people are also aware of how good Labour MPs are at getting their kids into those nice comprehensives that are grammars in all but name.

They are completely wrong. All our most loved PMS have been posh white boys, apart from Maggie who just sounded ridiculously posh.

I use the term most loved to mean, the ones who got voted in with a wave of support

They worked for a long time on an assumption that working class people would automatically hate Boris Johnson. But for a working class voter, Boris is so far removed from my experience that he may as well be a space alien. He became unpopular with working class voters because he fucked up in government, not because of what school he went to. The people who really hated him for his background were Guardian columnists who were slightly less posh than him.

In my experience, Johnson got the benefit of the doubt initially from many working-class voters, cos he 'that funny bloke off have I Got News For You'. But it didn't take long for them to wise up.

Clem Attlee was a proud Old Haileyburian and even owned a top hat.

Harold Wilson, I suppose, was the great example of succeeding by sounding more working class than you really are, but Sir Keir Starmer KCB KC ain't no Harold Wilson.

I think that many 'working class' people liked the humorous and unvarnished way in which Boris Johnson spoke. When it came down to it, he was direct and articulated key values well.

Yeah, I always thing the PMC are really missing some insight on this.

It's not completely true, but I think that is no far as the Tories represent a kind of traditionalist position (so not so much libertarian types, but people whose wealth was more attached to land and the countryside) they have a lot more in common with working class people than the PMC types.

Some of that is down to urban vs rural, but even for labouring classes in towns and factories, there are a lot of commonalities in terms of values between them and the landowner class. I think a lot of it is about the "somewhere/anywhere" or local vs globalist. Even when you find MC people who are ostensibly anti-globalist, often practically they are living a very international kind of lifestyle, they don't have deep roots anywhere, and in some cases they are attached to a kind of socialist rhetoric that is in it's own way equally globalist.

WC and the Boris Johnson types tend to be naturally conservative, value hard work, close community ties, self-reliance, and sense of place, and see traditional family and community arrangements as being mainly positive and supportive for people. They aren't necessarily so concerned with class mobility either, as in, solving social issues by having everyone go to university and become members of the PMC.

start thinking of them as the party that represents the elite professional classes

Certainly in the inner city area I live that is true. And I think is also why the LP has such control freakery, and this absolute top down approach to policy, organising, local branches being made to toe the line.

I suppose I just cant get over how either they are so locked in their own little bubble they cant see how arrogant they seem, or they dont care because they are so absolutely sure that the are "correct".

And depressingly, an awful lot of young people seem to readily accept the right of a small inner group to control the party (not forgetting how TRAs have been welcomed to be part of this elite.

I'm pretty sure that there were many posters who told us that we would enter the golden sunlit uplands just as soon as we elected a Labour government. Why are none of them telling us how we are misinterpreting what is actually happening?

I don't think I've seen a better take-down of where the Labour Party has gone wrong than this thread. Can they come to their senses? Although there's plenty of good people in there doing their best, I'm sadly not optimistic. They used to think, we have to get the vote of the PMC, cos the w-c will vote for us anyway. Isn't it case of, more the other way round now? The PMC aren't going to start voting Tory in any great numbers anytime soon. If the Labour Party had a better vision to offer working-class people, perhaps the whole country would benefit?

The only vision that the Labour Party are offering right now is that Nigel Farage might be the answer to everyone's prayers.

That's how bad it is.

I don't think Nigel Farage would want to be PM. He throws bottles from the back, like Corbyn.

Or indeed that anyone at this point with a plan and a bit of oomph might be a better answer than the lot of wibbling twits we have.

That's the danger.

Has there ever been a shorter honeymoon?

The whole premise of Labour's campaign was that the adults would be back in charge. Look at the manifesto, and once you get past all the pictures of Keir in heroic poses, it bangs on constantly about service and high standards in public life.

What we're seeing at this point is a government that's riddled with cronyism, whose leader is more addicted to freebies than Boris Johnson - which I suppose is an achievement - and disturbingly keen on euthanising granny.

The upper echelons of Labour have utterly debased themselves. I find myself in agreement with LOJ:

"Can we agree on something.

If a Tory leader

a) Backed policies which condemned vulnerable children and pensioners to poverty

b) While accepting £100,000 worth of freebies on a massive salary

Labour supporters would unite in outrage. Yes or no?

www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/sep/18/keir-starmer-100000-in-tickets-and-gifts-more-than-any-other-recent-party-leader"

x.com/owenjonesjourno/status/1836352992645169462?s=46&t=WHoOZ_3Kv5G6-FyQuvE0LQ

Their response seems to be "OK
OK we'll put a stop to the free clothes". Nothing said about the holidays, parties, pass to no10 for a donor or box at Arsenal. No real apology or contrition. Part of justifying letting another man dress you (and your wife) was that they needed to look good. Really? Rayner garbled something about being working class as part of justifying the free clothes. It's risible.

It would be more noble - and honest - to have dressed to your budget and then told any critics in no uncertain terms where to get off if they'd dared criticise any of them for doing so. That would have formed an opportunity to demonstrate they're in touch and normal.

But here we are instead.

Meanwhile they're happy to let pensioners freeze. No wonder ol Free Gear has plummeted in the polls.