May 24, 2024 - 1:15pm
That didn’t take long. Less than 24 hours into this general election campaign, having chosen Kent as the location for his launch, Sir Keir Starmer snubbed the only elected Labour MP in the county. Gillingham is less than 30 miles from Rosie Duffield’s Canterbury constituency, but the Leader of the Opposition didn’t invite her. She wasn’t even informed about the event, finding out about it from social media.
Can he really be so inept? Or does he think his frequently discussed “woman problem” doesn’t matter in a general election where the polls put Labour so far ahead? Either way, Starmer’s willingness to blank a prominent female MP — a candidate, it should be stressed — has confirmed the fears of many left-of-centre women.
It’s also puzzling in pragmatic terms, because it’s one of the few issues where the Tories, despite their own imperfect record, are more in tune with public opinion than Labour. Yet Starmer is leading the party into an election with policy commitments that could have been dictated by Stonewall.
The party’s Chair, Anneliese Dodds, claimed this week that Labour merely wants to “modernise” the process of getting a gender recognition certificate, but what she’s proposing looks more like a move towards self-ID. “Stripping out the futile and dehumanising parts of the process” is gobbledegook for allowing a single “expert”, possibly a GP with no specialist knowledge, to sign off someone’s request to change their legal gender.
Labour is also committed to removing the “spousal exit clause” that prevents a man obtaining a full GRC before his wife has had a chance to get a divorce, as though there’s anything “progressive” about forcing a woman into a same-sex marriage. And the party is still tied to a ban on “conversion therapy” that will criminalise parents, teachers and counsellors who follow the advice of the Cass Review.
That’s why so many women, myself included, felt a sense of foreboding as a rain-soaked Prime Minister stood in Downing Street on Wednesday evening. In WhatsApp groups and on social media, we agonised over whether we could bring ourselves to vote for a Labour Party that’s almost as in hock to identify politics as the SNP — and look where that ended up. It’s a sobering thought that longstanding Labour supporters may have as big a fight on our hands if Starmer wins the election.
Party strategists suggest sex and gender are not doorstep issues, but we need to prove them wrong. When a Labour canvasser knocks on the door, the very first questions should be “What is a woman?” and “Do you support single-sex spaces?” One of the reasons this orthodoxy has spread is the way true believers have shut down discussion in party meetings and forums, but they can’t avoid it so easily during an election.
Astonishingly, violence against women has not traditionally been a doorstep issue either, even as the statistics on rape and domestic violence approach record levels. Yet the two things, transgender ideology and the safety of women, are inextricably linked. Identity politics demands the dismantling of the few safeguards left to women, from single-sex spaces to the right to accurately name someone’s sex.
Some Labour MPs, such as Duffield, understand this. Too many have pronouns in their social media bios and parade their credentials as “trans allies”. Starmer’s discourtesy yesterday towards a widely-admired Labour figure told us where he stands. This needs to be the election where an army of awkward women refuses to be silenced.
Joan Smith is a novelist and columnist. She was previously Chair of the Mayor of London’s Violence Against Women and Girls Board, and is on the advisory group for Sex Matters. Her book Unfortunately, She Was A Nymphomaniac: A New History of Rome’s Imperial Women was published in November 2024.
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SubscribeBut I thought the party line was that the Russian army is being destroyed in the Ukraine
They’re certainly taking major losses – particularly in officers (the backbone of the Russian army, since they don’t have an effective non-com layer, the way most Western militaries do). They seem to have already lost more people in Ukraine than they did in their whole time in Afghanistan.
I do think there might be something to the charge that the West is giving the Ukrainians enough support to ‘bleed’ Russia, without provoking a spread of the conflict. The Ukrainians are paying a terrible price, though.
They’re certainly taking major losses – particularly in officers (the backbone of the Russian army, since they don’t have an effective non-com layer, the way most Western militaries do). They seem to have already lost more people in Ukraine than they did in their whole time in Afghanistan.
I do think there might be something to the charge that the West is giving the Ukrainians enough support to ‘bleed’ Russia, without provoking a spread of the conflict. The Ukrainians are paying a terrible price, though.
But I thought the party line was that the Russian army is being destroyed in the Ukraine
A logical next step, if Putin wins.
Right now the Baltic is completely dominated by NATO or NATO friendly nations. For someone like Putin, who tries to go walking around in Peter the Great’s boots (far too big, BTW), the next target has to be the Baltic nations.
And just because he’s stopped in Ukraine doesn’t mean he won’t try somewhere else. He attacked Syria because he’d failed in Ukraine. That in turn made his real goal, the Eurasian Economic Union impossible.
He’ll keep trying to recreate some part of the Soviet Union/Russian Empire until he dies.
That’s his “destiny.”
Come on Martin, take an aspirin and have a lie down you’re driving yourself crazy. The Eurasian Economic Union is not impossible as all those involved have worked out who their friends are and have decided that the belligerent West do not count among them.
The Europeans have only themselves just discovered that they are just cannon fodder as well and are stuck like the rabbit in the spotlight and can’t quite believe what is happening to them. It is a Wily E Coyote moment for them but gravity will rule the day. What they do about it remains to be seen.
yeah Putin attacked Syria
Saved it from ISIS more like
Very hard to say what would have happened in Syria if the Russians hadn’t stepped in to support Assad. Their support made him willing to come down on the opposition; and once that happened, people swung to the Islamic hard-core, who were ready to go kinetic.
Very hard to say what would have happened in Syria if the Russians hadn’t stepped in to support Assad. Their support made him willing to come down on the opposition; and once that happened, people swung to the Islamic hard-core, who were ready to go kinetic.
Come on Martin, take an aspirin and have a lie down you’re driving yourself crazy. The Eurasian Economic Union is not impossible as all those involved have worked out who their friends are and have decided that the belligerent West do not count among them.
The Europeans have only themselves just discovered that they are just cannon fodder as well and are stuck like the rabbit in the spotlight and can’t quite believe what is happening to them. It is a Wily E Coyote moment for them but gravity will rule the day. What they do about it remains to be seen.
yeah Putin attacked Syria
Saved it from ISIS more like
A logical next step, if Putin wins.
Right now the Baltic is completely dominated by NATO or NATO friendly nations. For someone like Putin, who tries to go walking around in Peter the Great’s boots (far too big, BTW), the next target has to be the Baltic nations.
And just because he’s stopped in Ukraine doesn’t mean he won’t try somewhere else. He attacked Syria because he’d failed in Ukraine. That in turn made his real goal, the Eurasian Economic Union impossible.
He’ll keep trying to recreate some part of the Soviet Union/Russian Empire until he dies.
That’s his “destiny.”
Putin has already overextended his military forces in one conflict I can’t believe he has the capacity to take on anyone else particularly a NATO member.
Putin has already overextended his military forces in one conflict I can’t believe he has the capacity to take on anyone else particularly a NATO member.
Hmm the RUSSIAN Orthodox church is spreading anti-western sentiments… Well good thing someone is ringing the alarm bell on that bombshell, otherwise who knows what they could do.
Also, that final quote is hilarious coming from a NATO member after Merkels admissions/justifications regarding the Minsk accords.
Hmm the RUSSIAN Orthodox church is spreading anti-western sentiments… Well good thing someone is ringing the alarm bell on that bombshell, otherwise who knows what they could do.
Also, that final quote is hilarious coming from a NATO member after Merkels admissions/justifications regarding the Minsk accords.
It’s a laugh really. Like the runt of the gang picking a fight thinking the big guys will pull them out of the shit. Perhaps a good idea would be not to get into the shit in the first place. Donate another ten F-16s that you don’t have like the other 10 you have recently announced. I’m sure that will help. Maybe even keep these “planes’ for your own use. Are these people for real?
America is not your friend and looks like it has bitten off way more than it can chew. It would be a good idea to stand back a bit.
You are nothing more than Sovietskaya scatina.
You are nothing more than Sovietskaya scatina.
It’s a laugh really. Like the runt of the gang picking a fight thinking the big guys will pull them out of the shit. Perhaps a good idea would be not to get into the shit in the first place. Donate another ten F-16s that you don’t have like the other 10 you have recently announced. I’m sure that will help. Maybe even keep these “planes’ for your own use. Are these people for real?
America is not your friend and looks like it has bitten off way more than it can chew. It would be a good idea to stand back a bit.
FUC**NG WAITING FOR APPROVAL
SHADOW-BANNING! JUST BAN ME, QUIT THE COWARDLY CENSORING OF A THIRD OF WHAT I SAY. THIS PLACE IS LIKE THE OLD TWITTER.
If so, it’s posting like ‘the old Twitter’ that makes it so.
If so, it’s posting like ‘the old Twitter’ that makes it so.
FUC**NG WAITING FOR APPROVAL
SHADOW-BANNING! JUST BAN ME, QUIT THE COWARDLY CENSORING OF A THIRD OF WHAT I SAY. THIS PLACE IS LIKE THE OLD TWITTER.
I don’t think that Putin is all that interested in sitting down to negotiate anything at all. He has been involved in many negotiations in the past where his opponents have lied and deceived him to the point that there is no way that he would trust anything that they would say. They treat him like an imbecile so why would he bother?
Putin’s pretty good at lying himself. Remember his insistence, a few days before the invasion of Ukraine, that he had no intention of doing such a thing?
Well, he only imitated Walter Ulbricht in 1961: nobody has the intent to build a wall.
Well, he only imitated Walter Ulbricht in 1961: nobody has the intent to build a wall.
Putin’s pretty good at lying himself. Remember his insistence, a few days before the invasion of Ukraine, that he had no intention of doing such a thing?
I don’t think that Putin is all that interested in sitting down to negotiate anything at all. He has been involved in many negotiations in the past where his opponents have lied and deceived him to the point that there is no way that he would trust anything that they would say. They treat him like an imbecile so why would he bother?