Rishi Sunak said…

Giraffe, I agree with you - I don’t like schools being turned into academies and having no sports field. I’d still rather send my kids to an academy with no sports field than risk them being transitioned without my knowledge and encouraged to get puberty blockers before they have any idea what being an adult of either sex really means. Both choices are bad, but one is properly dangerous

Why not?

Regardless of your intention, your question comes across as both arrogant and dismissive.

You say "Surely you cannot vote Tory", as if it's so obviously the wrong thing to do and then continue with, "because of this one point", as if we are not entitled to decide our own priorities because you don't think our concerns are legitimate.

Do you think this is persuasive?

You accuse the Tories of destroying the NHS but show no knowledge of history. I have worked in the NHS under both Conservative and Labour governments and would agree that it was much better under Labour but I am also aware of the debt their PFI strategy created. I had a friend who worked in businesses who provided PFI funding and they told me in 2008/09 it would cripple the NHS in the long term. Labour knew what they were doing.

I will almost certainly vote Conservative, for the first time, at the next election because of this single issue. If self ID was not a concern then I would spoil my ballot, none of the parties represent me. I have been thinking for a while that perhaps women would have made more progress on issues which specifically affect women if we had leveraged the value of our vote rather than giving blind allegiance to parties who talk the talk but don't seem able to walk the walk.

Meaningless as they've been saying it for a few years now and yet, e.g. schools are still a mess.

The Prime Minister made a pledge just before local elections. I'll judge it when it happens and the law is changed. If it is.

And yet both of these have been happening under the Tories.

Me too!

Labour won 69.7% of the vote in the last parliamentary election in my constituency, but the turn out was a miserable 30%!

People have given up hope (tbf it was raining)

Top be honest I think that a lot of that "Tory is evil" thing is a mind-set. I live in a very left leaning city and have been surrounded by leftists all of my life ( I was also a Labour party member). It is a tribal thing - which stems in large part from the 1980s and Thatcher's reign - when the whole new neo-liberal world order was first instigated.

Tony Blair democratised a lot of that materialistic view point and made no pretence of launching a socialist revolution. It was more about citizens as stake-holders for him.

Kier Starmer is hated by nmost on the left because he has reneged on his promises and principles in order to get elected. They expect nothing radical from him. The Momentum crowd still idolise Jeremy Corbyn.

Indeed, he is not going to be able to radically alter or improve any of the problems or issues he would inherit. It will just be symbolic tweaks here and there. He won't be giving the doctors a 35% pay rise and he won't be able to do much about fuel costs. He has accepted Brexit, and now he's talking about locking up more criminals.......

Yes I am not picking the PM or party I fancy or adore, I am picking the least worst overall for me.

I prioritise children being taught proper science and not having perverts teaching them nonsense in schools. I don't want a perverted generation running the show in my old age thanks.

I prioritise not being excluded from the NHS I fund at the same rate as perverts and enablers. I prioritise not being arrested and abused for understanding biology and trying to safeguard myself.

I prioritise a police force that puts perverts and abusive enablers behind bars. I don't care if they cry about their mortgage and their boss made them do it, i don't care what their job title is, if their profession has others leaving in droves, I want abusers behind bars.

This could be expodited by the Tories and sorted by the time Charles has a crown on his head, get it done Tories, then rub it in the nose of the left, they fucking deserve the whole country laughing and angry at them.

As far as I can see, the Tories have been in power for 13 years, have been wittering on about knowing what a woman is for several years now, and yet the vast majority of what you would consider to be 'successes' have been brought about by privately funded legal cases, or vocal protests and petitions, and not the Tories at all.

Giraffe - yes, but Sunak gets it so I hope he will make it better. Starmer doesn’t see it as a problem and will undoubtedly make it worse. I don’t think there is a good option, but of the options I have, Labour (or LibDems, or Greens) are too bad to vote for. It’s Tory by default atm, not because I want to. I really hope that labour can give me an alternative before the next GE

Boris knew what a woman was. It's taken Rishi a long time to state he knows it too. He has a DD too. Kier still apparently has no idea.

A lot of working class people like Conservative values of hard work, personal responsibility and being tough on crime. Often people who live in poorer communities have no time for malingerers, no time for people trying to play the benefits system, letting their kids run wild, and generally taking the piss.
Attitudes can be harsh and no-nonsense.

They did put a stop to Self ID, though - and commissioned the Cass Review.

'Sisters Uncut' commandeered the vigil for Sarah Everard to their own agenda - which is an anti police and anti-carceral one.

For voters the issue is not whether the Tories are good, but whether Labour will be better.

A lower bar, but still one Keir needs to navigate.

Starmer doesn’t see it as a problem and will undoubtedly make it worse.

He absolutely does see this as a problem...this twitter thread says that Labour's new policy will not be to reform the Gender Recognition Act but to build a consensus on modernising it while upholding the Equality Act and single sex exemptions.

https://twitter.com/tomhfh/status/1646399870234705922?s=61&t=U9XrcF693-JpMxeIueYG7g

Self ID was their policy! You're congratulating them for putting a stop to their own policy.

Cass review out - what has happened in schools since?

To all posters asking why anyone would vote Tory. I voted Tory because DH and I work hard so our family has a decent standard of life. We pay a lot of tax between us. If Labour gets in the first thing they always do is put tax up for workers and put benefits up too. Also in their first 100 days they are changing LL rights far more in favour of tenant. So LL must give 4 months notice to the tenant, but the tenant only has to give 1 month notice to the LL. I think it needs to be balanced so 2 month's either way. Other similar unbalances too.

Labour returning schools to local authority control? No, academies are here to stay.

This from Schools Week, end of September 2022, quoting the shadow schools minister Stephen Morgan:

"..with the schools bill now on ice amid a review of government policy by new prime minister Liz Truss, Morgan accepted Labour in power would need to bring in its own legislation to achieve its goals.

“I think we would want to bring forward a really ambitious education bill early on in an incoming Labour government,” he said.

Morgan and his colleagues have said they will focus on “improving outcomes, not meddling with structures” if they win power, but have not set out concrete plans for the school system.

Labour has confirmed it will not support forced academisation, but has also pledged to leave well-performing academy trusts alone, suggesting a hybrid model of academies and local authority maintained schools will be here to stay under Sir Keir Starmer’s leadership."

I'm not congratulating them; I'm pointing out a fact.

Every government around the world has been asleep at the wheel as gender ideology has been pushed through. Let's just be thankful that at last it is now a public issue and that parties are being forced to take a position on it.

That suggests he is still committed to Self ID but that he wants to take longer to get there because he knows it is a vote loser at present.

Giraffe when Starmer and others in the shadow cabinet have the guts to say they know what a woman is and they will protect women’s rights and child safeguarding - then they will have a position I can vote for. Secret meetings aren’t enough, but hopefully they will lead to public announcements & policy we can vote for

Go in Rishi

On..

😆

Exactly the same here (I suspect we may live relatively close to each other, maybe not same ward / constituency but within the same region).