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/

Great post, Resister.

Rayner surely knows that lots of people struggle to afford clothes. Or if you don't struggle exactly, you might still budget for it. I need a new pair of shoes, but I'll probably put that off until next month when I can spend a bit more on a good pair that will last.

Angela Rayner has been in a well paid job for quite a few years. She's even better paid now that she's a cabinet minister. Nobody elected her to be a fashion model.

Dear lord, it took Cherie Blair quite a few years to earn a reputation for liking freebies.

What I hate, apart from the actual freebie part, is the message it sends.

Its the same as the arguement that if you want the best people you have to pay really high wages.

Many, many people to a really good days work in important jobs without being over paid and getting bonuses and so on. The insult to all these people, many of whom do work that is essential to our daily lives, that they aren't good enough to be paid a high salary.

And the one about clothes. Without going down the route of how many shops sell clothes made in sweat shops, again many many people manage to get to work appropriate dressed within their income.

And more importantly dont wear clothes to that so obviously signal this is expensive, because that intrudes on the work environment.

Its funny because as I have said on other threads, more and more I was finding Starmer coming over as a shop front manniquin and about as vacuous.

I cant believe that they not only thought it was okay to do, but that somehow it was the right thing to do. That to be taken as serious person, doing a serious job, you have to have designer clothes and glasses.

Is this what aspiration is now. To visually signal that you are wealthy?

(I do recognise that if Mrs Starmer had turned up in a high street suit or whatever, the press would have had a field day because they feel entitled to be critical of what women wear. Whereas you would think they could turn it into a plus - ie PM's wife highlights the opportunity to dress well and econimically. Alternatively, ask the question why she needs to be dragged around as some voiceless appendage to events and photo calls that are actually about Starmer.)

One of the things we used to take the piss out of Tony Blair's government for was the obsession with styling - you know, Barbara Follett telling Robin Cook that he should wear earth tones.

That doesn't seem so bad now. If you're promoting Angela Rayner as the representative of working class women, "stylish but affordable" could be a really good brand for her. Putting her in designer labels seems to miss the point.

I wouldn't let Rayner style herself, because left to her own devices she makes some very weird clothing choices, but surely it isn't beyond Labour to call in Gok Wan for a consultation.

Because, you know I hate to be cynical, but one might start to think that the trappings of power are more important to them than doing right by the voters.

Because, you know I hate to be cynical, but one might start to think that the trappings of power are more important to them than doing right by the voters.

One might, and all the worse for it being such a crass aspiration.

The idea that those taking the most important decisions about the future of the UK apparently have the aspirations of naive teenagers.

Maybe what women need to do to get a fair hearing from Labour is to club together and buy Keir some nice suits.

If that's what it takes we could crowdfund it. Maybe that and an informal dinner at No. 10 so a sensible person could talk to him.

See I don't expect them to pretend they can only afford to shop at M&S and holiday at Butlins. I know they earn considerably more than I ever did and I don't begrudge them buying nice clothes, I just expect them to fund the cost of their clothes and city breaks from their own salaries, especially when they keep warning us about more pain ahead. And I think it beggars belief that not one of them had the wit and imagination to ask their wealthy donors to divert their contributions to a food bank.

I don't really think that Mrs Starmer would get any serious blowback or criticism if she wore things from high street shops most of the time, even members of the royal family do and no one that matters has a problem with it. Especially British brands.

They do, unlike most of us, go to some functions that require special clothes, but I also do not think that wearing the same thing more than once would get any real criticism. And it's very common for people to rent for these kinds of occasions anyway, again, even at very high levels in politics.

I do think you could make the argument that an off the rack suit isn't going to look great on the PM, but by the same token even a very well dressed man needs a very limited number of good suits. And if they are really good quality bespoken stuff they will last a long time and not need to be replaced often, and will represent pretty good value for money.

Literally no one expects them to be constantly wearing designer stuff (glasses!) and they wouldn't be criticized for not doing so, it's just a bs excuse.

wearing the same thing more than once would get any real criticism

Why? Its normal to have a limited number of outfits / suits and obviously wear that more than once.

She's only in the public eye because she is "the wife". She's not a fashion guru or in the public eye for being a walking ad for some dress designer.

Its madness.

Deserves another thread, but quite honeslty a lot of the madness we now experience is because of fear of what the media might say.

So our politics (and just about everything else) is dumbed down to the level of not upsetting some unprincipled news paper editor who just cant wait to contrive a shouty headline.

I don't understand what you mean. I said I did not think she would be criticized for wearing the same dress to a very fancy event more than once.

I mean, maybe some of the guests who are former mean girls might notice, but who cares what they think? I hope not Mrs Starmer.

In any case, renting or borrowing is totally appropriate and common at events like that if she wants to wear something totally new.

I don't understand what you mean. I said I did not think she would be criticized for wearing the same dress to a very fancy event more than once.
I mean, maybe some of the guests who are former mean girls might notice, but who cares what they think? I hope not Mrs Starmer.
In any case, renting or borrowing is totally appropriate and common at events like that if she wants to wear something totally new.

I think I misread your comment as somehow I missed the I don't at the start of the sentence.

And I totally agree that for "grand" occassions renting seems right. And very green!

Of course Carrie Johnson famously rented her dresses!

There are some interesting points on this thread which I'm just catching up on. I heard part of Rachel Reeves' conference speech when I was on my lunch break. I don't often bother listening to political speeches but even I was surprised how cringeworthy and uninspiring it was.

There was a section about how proud she was to be a female Chancellor and the strong women who had gone before her whilst conveniently ignoring the fact that Labour struggle to define what a woman is and the Tories managed to elect their first female leader almost fifty years ago - something Labour still haven't achieved.

There was then a load of crowing at how badly the Tories had done in the election which made her seem ridiculously petty rather than a grown-up with an important job. At what point are Labour going to stop going on about the Tories and own their decisions?

There was some light relief provided by a heckler so clearly not everyone in the conference hall was on board with the nonsense.

Yes I've pretty much lost faith in Labour completely until they demonstrate good faith towards women.

It doesn't help that we have such a superficial news media.

Now that the first negative response to the fuel allowance cuts have been and gone, the news "reporters" are letting Labour make out not to worry, if you survive the winter you will get a pension increase.

Not only does that mean the media are no longer questioning them about those just over the pension credit limit who will end up worse off than those on pension credit, but by passes why there is a triple lock.

The triple lock was introduced because it became obvious that compared to other european countries UK pensioners were getting poverty pensions. So it isn't some sort of aren't the pensioners lucky, it about trying to restore pensions to a decent level.

And in fact it politicians and the dozy media talked about the reality it would then mean that at some point (and I dont know today's comparisons) a Government could put forward that the triple lock was no longer needed. But given how brain dead both politicians and news reporting are suspect that in no time at all pensions would revert to poverty levels.

In my really bitter moments everytime I here some whiney youngster going on about how the boomers had it so good (like starting work at 15, not being able to go to university because less than 20% got free education, and so on) I almost hope they do cut pensions so that when this whiney generation gets to retire they will find they are living on a pittance.

One thing for sure, thanks to Blair's pretentious claim that everybody should have university education so that we have a more skilled workforce has in fact proved the opposite. University seems to produce people less able to do actual work.

When did we become so stupid as a country. Some of us might sneer at Trump supporters, but many in this country are just as deluded in thinking politicians are talking sense and practical realities. Just because they are a very tiny, tiny bit left doesn't mean they shouldn't be equally derided.

To be fair, this idea that everyone should go to university seems to have been taken up across at least the English speaking western countries. Where it seems to be a universal disaster.

Just a ton of debt for kids, people not trained in the right kinds of skills, wasting their time for four years or so out of the job market, and also the destruction in many ways of university education, and increasingly the reputation of universities too.

But to take this back to an earlier point - it is in some way a good example of the thinking of the PMC - the solution to poor wages or other problems in the working classes is apparently to get everyone to go to university and work in an office.

There is a deep, but well hidden, lack of respect and appreciation for work that is practical or hands on within that thinking.

Except that now the universities are increasingly full of Chinese students. They are a money-making business, but it doesn't do much for the UK economy.

Well many years ago, when even then there were cynical socialists, they put forward the idea the first of all taking on a mortguage and then student debt wasn't about benefiting those who fell for the fairy tell, but to create wage slaves.

If, and it certainly wouldn't match the life style expectations of today, we have a society where people mainly rented, and there was sufficient housing, it was far easier for people to be able to move to take up job offers etc., or heaven forbid decide to opt out of the rat race.

So the idea that some how the 70s was a time of plenty in terms of current standards of living (even a quick bit of research would show you how it wasn't), it did have a far less rigid structure. And, although now not recognised, far more people from working class backgrounds being able to break through into traditional MC work such as the media. And of course, the fact that most free university courses went to young people from working class backgrounds.

But although nobody talked about a squeezed middle at that time, there were still many other more traditional ways of getting into a profession through apprentiships or being an article clerk. But that meant accepting you started at the bottom and worked you way up. Not parachute into a middle management job never having managed anything.

we have a society where people mainly rented, and there was sufficient housing,

If the boomers (and those from early generations) did have an advantage it was in fact the post WWII committment to house building.

Not to make a quick profit by to make up for the loss of housing stock during WWII.

I often think if a government was able to say, housing in the UK is an emergency and we will emulate the post war Labour Government https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zsd68mn/revision/5

Given the deplorable state of some private rentals, and lets face it social housing, a nice prefab on a small development in a vacant lot in a town or city would be a relief.

Although given the standard of current "skills" in the housing sector that Grenfell has so horribly shown, the UK probably doesn't have the competence to do this.

And, although now not recognised, far more people from working class backgrounds being able to break through into traditional MC work such as the media.

Nobody would believe you now if you said that, not too long ago, journalism was a working class profession. Bright kids got jobs at local papers, built a track record, then graduated to Fleet Street. Some even made it into the BBC, though that was always a more exclusive club.

Now the local papers are mostly gone, national newspapers are in remorseless decline, and journalism is more and more a public school and Oxbridge scene.

It's very like the gentrification of Labour politics. It used to be that you couldn't become an AEU sponsored MP unless you were a time served engineer. That kept Parliament more male and white than it should have been, but at least it meant there was working class representation. I'd be surprised if, out of the 400 odd current Labour MPs, there are more than a handful who have worked a manual job. And if you did a survey, you'd find that lots of them are nepo babies.

Yep Then there is this......
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13844765/Fury-Sadiq-Khan-suggests-prisoners-given-choice-housing-cut-reoffending.html

When the Grenfell report came out a few weeks ago Starmer gave a speech in the HOC about how working class people are ignored and should be listened to.

Well post Grenfell and post lockdowns (when it was key workers who gave it their all) we are still waiting.

There was then a load of crowing at how badly the Tories had done in the election

So badly that Prof Curtice was inspired to write this

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/09/23/the-writing-is-on-already-the-wall-for-labours-government/

The writing is on already the wall for Labour’s floundering government
Keir Starmer’s ‘loveless landslide’ was always volatile, and his weak political antennae has seen his party sink in the polls

...

"Although Labour won a landslide victory in terms of seats, its success was built on fragile electoral foundations. Faced with having to deal with a difficult if hardly unexpected fiscal crisis, that fragility has rapidly been exposed.
The electorate did not embrace Labour in July. Voters’ principal objective was to see the back of a Conservative government in which they had lost confidence thanks, above all, to “Partygate” and the Liz Truss “fiscal event”. Where Labour were best placed locally to defeat the Conservatives they enjoyed a significant advance. Elsewhere, other than in Scotland where Labour benefitted from the similar travails of the SNPP_, the party’s vote typically fell back.
It was Reform, not Labour, who gained most from Tory disenchantment. Nearly one in four 2019 Conservative voters switched to Reform compared with just one in eight who backed Labour.
As a result, Labour won just 35 per cent of the vote – in an election where only three in five voted. Never before has a party won an overall majority with so low a share of the vote. Consequently, the pool of voters willing to give it the benefit of the doubt is unusually small.
That said, Labour’s victory did occasion a boost in Sir Keir Starmer’s personal popularity. According to Ipsos, net satisfaction with the new Prime Minister increased from -21 before the election to +7 immediately afterwards. Similar improvements were registered by both YouGov and Opinium.
But this boost has rapidly disappeared. According to Ipsos, Sir Keir’s net satisfaction rating is down back to -21. Opinium reported at the weekend that his net approval score has plummeted from +18 in July to -26 now, lower than at any time while he was Leader of the Opposition.
...

Sir Keir is not helped either by his apparently weak political antennae. He took a long time to recognise that his decision before the election to admit the Tory MP, Natalie Elphicke, into Labour’s ranks was bound to lead to questions about the continued suspension of Diane Abbott. Now it has taken Labour too long to appreciate that the receipt of highly personal gifts and hospitality would look bad for a party that had mercilessly attacked the ethics of the last Conservative government.

In truth, Labour badly need Sir Keir to be quicker off the political mark."