Kemi elected leader of the Tory party

[cariadlet]

Let's hope she really holds Labour to account about women's rights and the dangers of gender ideology.

Sorry, yes I did mean Cleverly.

Why do you think that? The torys have after all 3 previous lady PM's and an PM of Indian descent.

KB's victory is a feminist victory if you believe, as I do, that feminism is for all women. Whether I align with her politically or not, she is a woman who has been elected leader of a major party. She is also the first black woman to elected party leader in the UK or even the whole of Europe, afaik.
As a feminist, I celebrate that.

Women, feminists, black feminists can espouse any political views they like. They don't have to be left wing to count. The left does not own feminism, women, or black people in general.

Kemi Badenoch (along with the pro-women posters on this board) does not "oppose trans people". We oppose gender identity ideology.

Trump is not a woman, therefore not a feminist and has not ever supported women's causes. Simply not being a genderist does not make him a feminist ally. Sex realism is just the norm.

My point was that they are not the same old faces.

In typical leftist fashion you are simply portraying her as a representative of all you tribally stand against. Without nuance or understanding .I don't think you have ever actually listened to her or really been prepared to hear what she is saying...and so your presentation of what she stands for is lumpen and mis-shapen and totally reliant on social/media tropes and negative portrayals

I agree with you and @Snowypeaks you both put it well

On Cleverly just musing on his decisions and I wonder if his male ego plays a part. He thinks he should be where Kemi is and didn't win. The BBC are doing what they always do but it really is more about ego

Coutinho and Trott I think have held office before.

If I remember correctly Margaret Thatcher only won the Tory party leadership because of voting tactics that didn't go to plan. Funny old world.

I've not followed the election closely - not my party - but I think a democracy needs a strong opposition to hold the government to account, especially when the government in question has a huge majority. And if the Conservatives aren't up to the task then all it'll do is create a void for someone else. So I wish Badenoch well and I believe it's in all our interests, however we vote, that she makes a go of it.

There is nothing wrong with encouraging people to take out "maternity protection" to supplement SMP. But suggesting a shift away from giving women the right to a basic guaranteed level of income during maternity leave is a profoundly anti-feminist move.

Kemi is like so many Tories. Unable to comprehend that not everyone has the same advantages that she has had, and that not everyone can do the things that she can do. All the talk of "personal responsibility" assumes that we are all starting from a level playing field.

That’s because the same old faces, ie MPs with actual experience, have been ejected from the party, rejected by the electorate or have no desire to be associated with their new leader. With only 120 MPs there isn’t a great deal of choice.

At the moment the political parties all face the same problem. We have a rapidly ageing population, which means we have more and more people who soak up the state's resources in terms of pensions, social care and health costs, and a shrinking working age population to pay the taxes and NI needed to fund those resources.

I don't think this is easily soluble. I'm not even sure it is soluble. People (and, as we have seen with the Labour budget, businesses) resent being asked to pay more in tax, they resent having their benefits taken away (see eg removal of winter fuel allowance) and they also resent being asked to work for longer.

Both raising taxes and cutting benefits have adverse effects that will leave people worse off. I don't think Kemi's small-state solution will work, but neither do I think the Labour interventionist one will work (though my own political inclinations are interventionist).

Really the main reason I am pleased at Kemi winning the Tory leadership is that she is one of the very few high-profile politicians to grasp the problems with gender ideology and to express the desire to do something about it. That puts her head and shoulders above practically everyone else both in the governing party and her own party.

I note that the new and refreshing Juia Lopez (the Shadow Culture Secretary) says that leaving the EHCR is on the table.

There isn't any such thing as "gender identity ideology" that's just a linguistic obfuscation to make the existence of trans people sound sinister. It also allows people who recognise that "I oppose trans people" sounds bad to pretend they're doing something else (even pretending to themselves in some cases). It's like talk of the "gay agenda" of yesterday, allowing homophobes to pretend they don't actually oppose gay people, just some sinister poorly defined faceless conspiritorial "agenda" that's out to corrupt our children and destroy the very fabric of society somehow.

Feminism is for all woman but it does not therefore follow that it's automatically a victory for a woman to be in power if she is likely to make things materially worse for women in this country. If anything it acts as a crutch for anti-woman views, you'll get people arguing they can't possibly be sexist because they support Kemi - as they strip away your rights to maternity pay because don't you know women should just keep their legs together if they're not independently wealthy enough to take years off work without pay.

So, what do you think she should do. Who should she elect to her cabinet if she's serious about making a difference, or about transforming the prospects of her party going forward?

@Snowypeaks Women, feminists, black feminists can espouse any political views they like. They don't have to be left wing to count. The left does not own feminism, women, or black people in general.

Hear, hear. Some people will never understand this.

I get it you automatically dislike the Conservative party - but I'd suggest that Julia Lopez is a new, younger face that has no obvious public profile or asssociation with the past, and could be seen as a symbol of renewal going forward.

Kemi herself has said she doesn't think leaving the EHCR is the solution that many think it is.

Agree. There was a good piece about how we should get to the point where women have as much political range as men are allowed.

That means having people like Duffield, Reeves and Badenoch plus many more all creating a range, a plethora of opinion and voices. Then we get closer to where we need to be wrt women's politics

An ideology is a framwework or a system of beliefs about the world which guide your thinking and practice.

Gender ideology arose out of post modernism and the politics of Identity that have been in circulation since the 1980's - especially in the U.S.A- and which have shaped and informed a generation or two of academics and those they have taught.

The concept of transgender is a concept. Gender is a concept. Sex is a biological reality. The idea that one can change sex, or that sex doesn't exist, or that one can be trapped in the'wrong body', or that inner feelings about self supersede biology is an ideology.

Furthermore gender ideology is inherently homophobic - for it denies the basis of same sex attraction and it seeks to 'transition' those who are nascently gay or lesbian just because they don't conform to gender expectations. It goes against everything that the women's movement and the gay rights movements fought for.

If Badenoch said that why was Lopez talking about it as a possible prescribed policy this morning?

Maybe because when you are still at formulation stage then all things have to be considered. Maybe she's trying to be 'inclusive' to Jenrick supporters. I don't know.

The situation wrt asylum will evolve in the next 5ish years

Labour's smash the gangs will create extra strain and it may well be an electorate more willing to do something different by then

It is slow here, compared to some other countries but as voters push for harder policies I can't see that we are that immune from the discussion or change

Again, much the same thing has historically been said about gay people. Same old tune, same old excuses.

Again, much the same thing has historically been said about gay people. Same old tune, same old excuses.

Same old "it's just like the gays", same old inability to engage critically with the real issues.

gay people were simply trying to have the same rights as everyone else, rights they had unreasonably been denied.

trans ppl don’t want the same rights as everyone else because there are no human rights trans ppl are denied in the UK. What they want are extra rights on top of them eg the right to deny biological reality, the right to compel ppl to lie about someone’s sex

I mean really this has all been pointed out a gazillion times before. A straight middle aged man who likes to wear women’s clothes is not an oppressed minority except in his own head