UK Government Thread

Why do you appear to be obsessed with my opinions Jonv?

I care very little about Rosie Duffield, including what she is and what she isn’t. Why do you believe that I should have an opinion about her and why do you care so much what it is?

How about moving the discussion back onto the subject of the UK government?

Of course Duffield is transphobic so why was someone openly transphobic and anti LBGT+ in general allowed to be in Labour party for so long? What other MPs have they got that shouldn’t be Labour MPs?

Can’t really use the “only 3 months” card on this one.

Interestingly the muck is starting to surface from the last lot over Raaaaawwwaandaaa that flagship policy.

Home Office staff carried out a three day blitz in March offering lucrative packages worth £150,000 to 200 would-be volunteers.
But in the end only four accepted the offer as Tories desperately tried to get people on planes.

Under former Home Secretary Mr Cleverly, a massive 1,000 civil servants were assigned to the Rwanda project. This is 20 times the number working on tackling violence against women and girls, the Sunday Mirror has learned.

Why do you appear to be obsessed with my opinions Jonv?

If you can’t figure out why jonv is so focused on the trans issue and keen to challenge comments on the subject he feels are incorrect, you might want to take a step back and have a think.

Though hopefully both of you have woken up this morning wanting to drop the subject and move on.

Of course Duffield is transphobic so why was someone openly transphobic and anti LBGT+ in general allowed to be in Labour party for so long?

Exactly. Her views were well known when she was selected as a candidate. I assume her constituency and the leadership were ok with it.

I’m old enough to remember when the very people who are now sensitive to RW media attacks on Starmer thought cosying up to the Sun newspaper was part of the enjoyable romp to power.

Lmfao at ‘former’ MP Jonathan Ashworth – an irritating twerp who has stayed in the media just long enough to be useful again – according the G that is.

Eventually the bar sinks so low you need these people to do your crummy work.

To be factually correct – she’s not anti LGBT+ in general; indeed has a record of speaking out and attending events for specific groups with a pro LGB but anti-T mission.

https://www.thepinknews.com/2022/04/11/jk-rowling-lunch-get-the-l-out-anti-trans-rosie-duffield/

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/eddie-izzard-pronouns-rosie-duffield-labour-b2209204.html

If you can’t figure out why jonv is so focused on the trans issue and keen to challenge comments on the subject he feels are incorrect, you might want to take a step back and have a think.

I haven’t made any comments about the subject, what do you want me to step back and have a think about?

Jonv just seems obsessed with the need to have arguments with me. A week ago it was repeated attempts to have an argument with me about water quality in the Thames, now it is repeated attempts to have an argument with me about Rosie Duffield.

If you want a true answer, it doesn’t particularly have anything to do with water quality in the Thames or your views on Duffield.

It’s the debating style / what you add to the debate. You seem to have a pattern of trying to spice it up a bit, resorting where necessary to stretching the truth, or throwing in a bit of a trap, and then when you get challenged doing the divert, deny, deride that when politicians do it on Newsnight or QT has us launching things at the TV.

You have worked out how to push certain buttons, and I suspect I’m not the only one – maybe just others are better at ignoring, although as MCTD notes yesterday’s button is particularly personal and for reasons i won’t go into, prominent right now.

I have no doubt it’s deliberate and you enjoy winding people up. I know I shouldn’t bite and I’ll try not to. I also note others seem to enjoy it, going by the likes you get.

If I’m wrong, someone tell me – is it really only me that thinks this?

If you don’t realise what you’re doing, then maybe you need to reflect.

If you are but DGAS and particularly think pressing buttons over transphobia is fair game, then ‘opinions will be formed’

This thread only shifted into trans territory as it’s a convenient subject to attack Rosie Duffield and get her opinion cancelled.

It’s the debating style / what you add to the debate.

In those examples I wasn’t debating anything, I know bugger all about water quality in the Thames and bugger all about Rosie Duffield. I thought the Guardian article on water quality of the Thames was interesting so I posted a link. The article was self explanatory and if you disagreed with it you were free to say so. It wasn’t only me that you tried to pick an argument with over the issue, you also persistently tried to argue with ransos

The only thing I have said about Rosie Duffield is that I am baffled by her resignation as it is so soon after the general election and any lurch to the right from Starmer isn’t new plus she isn’t a noted left-winger. On the question of her being “rabidly transphobic” I have said that if this was the case she would not imo have been allowed to stand as a Labour candidate. Correct if I am wrong** but as far as I know there has been no investigation by the Labour Party into anything that she has said.

I have also questioned the validity of using an article by a trans woman convicted of raping a woman when challenging safety concerns that many women have.

Why can’t some people discuss politics without launching deeply personal attacks on individuals and completely derailing the thread in the process? It is neither pleasant nor constructive, obviously.

Edit : ** To correct myself a search reveals that Rosie Duffield has indeed been investigated a couple of times by the Labour Party. Whatever the results of those investigations it was obviously decided that she was a suitable person to stand for the Labour Party in July’s general election.

If I’m wrong, someone tell me – is it really only me that thinks this?

I’m not going to tell you you’re wrong but there’s a lot of pot-kettle-black in your post, theotherjonv. It takes two to tango.

Ernie can be provocative but in this case I don’t think he is. I’ve had some heated debates with Ernie over the years and his style has evolved; less personal, more fact based, which I appreciate and make and effort to do the same (though he does sometimes bring up the historic personal stuff I said whilst forgetting the personal stuff he said – wink.)

Anyhow – Thames Water. I worked for Welsh Water in those glorious days when it served the people as best it could. We were doing our best to meet the EU normes in terms of water quality and pollution with a programme of investments funded by the users and with no share holders to pay. I got out while the going was good but could see the writing on the wall as the politics went from compliance to not getting caught. A bit like not doping as apposed to doping but not getting caught.

In the case of Rosie Duffield I like to be fairly open minded on gender issues whilst utimately putting women’s right above transgender rights if forced to make a choice. You can view her demise as cancel culture or at odds with Labour policy. She hasn’t gone beyond the range of views I expect to find in society and politics. I’d rather Starmer were forced out for being an excessively right-wing-authoritarian-austerity-non-environmentaly-friendly-anti-EU-pandering to the rich nob.

Her views were well known when she was selected as a candidate. I assume her constituency and the leadership were ok with it.

My understanding from an interview I saw this morning was that her constituency tried to deselect her – unclear if that was trans-related or not – and the central party pushed her through.

I’m prepared to put my hand up and say I’m not a fan of ernies style in some of his posts, but we’ve all got to sometimes take a step back and decide if reacting to it is worth getting sucked into a potentially pointless spat.

Thanks for the comments, Ed/MCTD, which I’ll reflect on rather than try to answer for fear of taking this further off topic.

In the case of Rosie Duffield I like to be fairly open minded on gender issues whilst utimately putting women’s right above transgender rights if forced to make a choice.

You’re not like Duffield. You can want, and campaign on, excluding trans women from some services and spaces for the good of others, without being hateful and refusing to even call someone by their chosen name and address them accordingly. She spreads hate, I’ve never once seen you post anything to suggest you’d ever do the same, quite the opposite.

and the central party pushed her through.

Interesting. The NEC/Starmer could have easily imposed their own candidate,  they did it on countless of other occasions.

“The Labour leader has been even more ruthless in imposing his favoured candidates on local parties than Tony Blair or Gordon Brown”

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/keir-starmer-left-wing-purge-labour-b2553725.html

If the leadership pushed her through against the will of the local party I think we can safely assume that she was Starmer’s preferred candidate.

Were any sitting Labour MPs?

When a party pushes candidates from its national bodies, it’s seen as undemocratic. When it mistakenly allows local candidates to stand that it shouldn’t (eg. O’Mara in Sheffield Hallam) it also takes the rap. It’s a difficult line to walk.

Being a sitting MP wouldn’t have been a problem, especially if it had the support of the local party. Starmer was perfectly happy to allow huge speculation that Diane Abbott wouldn’t be allowed to stand despite massive local support, all over one minor comment she made. It was only a concerted campaign across the party, including the deputy leader, which guaranteed that Diane Abbott was allowed to stand.

And he could have of course withdrawn the Labour whip from Rosie Duffield, that would have guaranteed that she wouldn’t be allowed to stand, a tactic which he is clearly prepared to use.

https://labourlist.org/2024/05/suspended-expelled-quit-who-are-the-mps-sitting-without-the-labour-whip/

Suspended, expelled, quit: Who are the MPs sitting without the Labour whip?

 I think we can safely assume that she was Starmer’s preferred candidate.

In every news story that I’ve read on the issue, reporters have mentioned [some variation of] that she and ‘senior figures’ had an uneasy/strained working relationship. I don’t think you can assume she was anyone’s preferred candidate,

BBC report for example

he could have of course withdrawn the Labour whip from Rosie Duffield

He wasn’t prepared to allow trans rights to be a battle the Labour Party had in the open on the run up to the election though, was he? Coward or wise… pick one based on what you already think of Starmer.

He wasn’t prepared to allow trans rights to be a battle the Labour Party had in the open on the run up to the election though, was he?

Wow, that’s some excuse. So Rosie Duffield’s views and the couple of investigations into comments made by her only happened in “the run up to the election”?

Edit : Let’s not talk about trans issues because they are too divisive? Do you only accept that from Starmer or is it okay for anyone to make that claim?

My own thoughts are that she resigned before she was pushed. I get the impression that her strident views were making every one from her local party to the central office uncomfortable and reading the runes she jumped. For her, its a easy political win, she can dictate the story surrounding her resignation, controls the narrative and pre-empts any negative feedback from either the local party or central office.

She’s got a strong constituency majority that she’s increased year on year,  which ever party she chooses to join, I’d bet money with a local name recognition, she’d win again next time around.

He wasn’t prepared to allow trans rights to be a battle the Labour Party had in open on the run up to the election though, was he? Coward or wise…

Wise probably. If I was labour leader the last thing I’d want to be talking about when interviewed is whether a woman can have penis or not. I’d rather be talking about economic, health and education policy.

So Rosie Duffield’s views and the couple of investigations into comments made by her only happened in “the run up to the election”?

Did I say that? Or were we discussing why she was allowed to stand for Labour again at the election, rather than being suspended and deselected, and a new candidate picked to replace her.

Edit : Let’s not talk about trans issues because they are too divisive? Do you only accept that from Starmer or is it okay for anyone to make that claim?

Edit : I’m not leader of the opposition, working in a climate where the media love to divide progressive parties with this issue. But I do have trans folk in my family, so the luxury of “avoiding” trans issues isn’t something that I personally have.

Edit : Let’s not talk about trans issues because they are too divisive?

Under the current rules, getting rid of a sitting Labour MP is a reasonably tough ask. From my own experience; in an election year, 2 things matter more than anything else for a candidate 1. local name recognition, [this above everything else] and 2. the idea that you’ve either done loads of stuff for the local community or the idea that if elected you’ve got a plan. Nothing screams “We haven’t a scoobies what we’re doing” more that replacing a sitting MP who’s increased their majority the two times they’ve stood just before an election, regardless how useless or repulsive to you they may be.

In her case; I’d imagine from both local and central perspective it was a case of ‘better the devil you know’

Did I say that? Or were we discussing why she was allowed to stand for Labour again at the election

We were discussing why she hadn’t had the Labour whip withdrawn, you actually quoted me:

he could have of course withdrawn the Labour whip from Rosie Duffield

Rosie Duffield’s views were not first known in the run up to the general election

excluding trans women from some services and spaces for the good of others,

That I agree with in some cases: a women only sauna or swim session for example. It’s sometimes a case of respect for both a religious community and the transgender community being mutually exclusive.

without being hateful and refusing to even call someone by their chosen name and address them accordingly

I agree with that. And (this is a tease) I recently noted theotherjonv refering to Redcar (Christina and the Queens) as “they/their” when Redcar currently identifies as a man which the French press respect refering to him as “il” because that’s what he wants.

She spreads hate

And other people use the crap (I hesitate to say hate, she’d have gone long ago if it had been that obvious) she comes out with to spread hate – both ways. No winners in this particular spat. I would say she gives the more extreme trans campaigners rope to hang themselves when they’d be better out there organising more gay pride type events which show the community in a positive light. Sadly I think her demise has done nothing for the transgender cause, on the contrary, it’s just more fuel for Reform.

Polarising isn’t good and too often in the modern world people take sides because they feel forced to. Ask people if they have views on LGBT and IME they’re very tolerant. It’s just not an issue, at work, in clubs, socially it doesn’t matter to people because they’re not affected/interested/bothered. Until you enter into the detail of extreme cases. A man decides to self identify as a woman and wants to race against women or expects to be welcome at a women only swim session, then the general tolerance breaks down and you have two extreme camps and editorials that divide STW. And another policy for Reform

If I was labour leader the last thing I’d want to be talking about when interviewed is whether a woman can have penis or not.

IMHO he missed an opportunity there. Because it is a clear and unambiguous Yes – both morally and legally. Our country permits self-identification for trans people and therefore it is perfectly clear that someone born male can identify as a woman without undergoing surgery. Same as the ‘only women have cervixes’ crew – or taking the inverse can a boy have a cervix?

The issue is in not wanting to go up against a minority – vocal and often nasty – who disagree with the law and are determined to deny a marginalised community their right to live their lives as they identify – but there’s no point debating with them. Just simply state the fact and don’t accept there’s any grey area.

Whether that should extend to expelling all with different views. I think it’s OK for others to have alternative views, while still being absolutely clear those views are wrong. Would I want to spend time with someone like Duffield, on the basis of their views – I’d find it very hard to do but I can’t deny them their right to hold them. So for a leader of a party it’s a tough one; damned if you do, damned if you don’t – and hence why when someone like Duffield decides to resign the whip there’s probably a sigh of relief across much of the leadership and party in general.

I’d rather be talking about economic, health and education policy

Hmmm – the only thing going for him right now seems to be Arsenal’s performances, and he can’t go and watch them either without being criticised 😉

Why can’t some people discuss politics without launching deeply personal attacks on individuals and completely derailing the thread in the process?

What you reap is what you sow.

If I’m wrong, someone tell me – is it really only me that thinks this?

Absolutely not.

What you reap is what you sow.

Except that as far as I am aware  I don’t launch personal attacks onto individuals. I aim to play the ball not the man, unlike quite a few stwers on the political threads.

If I get it wrong please point it out to me, it is certainly not me intention. I tend not to judge people based on their politics, which why despite having diametrically opposing political views to mefty I get on fine with him, and I lament the fact that he now rarely posts on stw.

Edit : Btw “I’m only abusive to you because you are abusive to me” is very childish, even if it was actually true.

Except that as far as I am aware  I don’t launch personal attacks onto individuals. 

Yeah, I don’t think anyone’s accused you of that. It’s more the style in which you debate – it can come across as very confrontational and can be tooth-grindingly condescending.

Confrontational? I have for about a week or so now repeatedly pushed back at jonv’s repeated attempts to have a argument with me. I’ve tried to ignore him and that just seems to wind him up too…..”you still haven’t answered the question” is what I get.

Short of just agreeing with everything he says I am not sure what else I can do.

There you go – a bit like that. 🙂

Oh okay. It’s clear that whatever I post will be unacceptable for some people. I guess that’s how political threads all eventually turn into echo chambers.

What the **** has all this got to do with the UK government btw? If you don’t mind me asking, although presumably you do.

It’s not about your opinions, for me, but how you voice them. It feels like you take any response to your posts as a direct challenge, even when that response is broadly aligned with your own. And political threads turn into echo chambers when differing opinions and other voices are stifled.

It feels like you take any response to your posts as a direct challenge

Even when I ignore them and I am told “you still haven’t answered the question” ? Which is what kicked off all this nonsense. Or had you actually forgotten why you are having this pointless argument with me.

Anyway thanks for the advice but you seem to believe that fitting into the stw political consensus and political threads is important to me, it isn’t. As I have previously suggested I am staggered by the level of hypocrisy exhibited on the political threads since Starmer became prime minister.

Even centrist newspapers like the Guardian and the Independent haven’t stooped to that level of hypocrisy and are holding Labour accountable where it is appropriate to do so. None of this “yeah but the Tories were much worse” shite, or “but they have only been in government for three months, and it’s all the fault of the Tories anyway, blah, blah, blah”

Cool, ok – you crack on, then, I’ll leave you to it. 🙂

I follow a number of ‘alternative view’ channels on twitter, and a couple of them – in fairness probably all the same source in the end – are saying that there’s another big scandal to break, and that Starmer could be gone as soon as mid of next week. Another one with Lord Alli, apparently. Anyone else seen anything similar?

Any updates on this? I tipped someone off and they have just asked me if Keir is still resigning.

I said that I would check 😉

If you don’t mind me asking, although presumably you do.

You don’t need to make direct personal attacks at people. This is an example of your condescending and unnecessarily provocative style. It’s designed specifically to make people be defensive, and divert the conversation. It doesn’t progress the debate, it’s just an accusatory non-sequitur that means that the thread dissolves into a back and forth squabble becasue you’re needlessly pushing folks buttons. Especially in a written format that lacks the obvious intent that spoken language conveys.

By all means carry on, it doesn’t bother me, but it’s why political threads that you take part in derail with such dull regularity.

I haven’t spent the last week ‘trying to have an argument with you’ – I’ve spent a week trying to get an answer to a question that you refuse to give. Let me give you my version of it. And I’m sorry everyone for going back to TW again, but rather than abstract ‘this is the sort of thing you do’ this illustrates it. I’m no longer interested in the TW situation – it is just an example.

My question initially arose because you took comments from the Guardian article

Reed just last week approved the next stage in the development of a controversial scheme to allow Thames Water to pump 75m litres a day of treated sewage into the river at the same spot in Teddington.

Environmental campaigners have raised a number of concerns, such as damage to river systems from the increased water temperatures caused by pumping treated sewage into the river during low flow, a change in the salinity of the river, and the impact on fish and biodiversity. The Teddington scheme will have to go through development consent where environmental concerns will be considered before it is fully approved.

and then (mis)presented as

It turns out that hard-right Croydon Labour MP and now Environment Secretary, Steve Reed, has approved of a scheme which the Guardian claims was rejected by the Tories because of environmental concerns

First point – he didn’t approve the scheme, his decision was to move it on to the next stage of consideration; second point – The Guardian didn’t claim the Tories rejected it. You even put the quote in for that – the EA, a NDPB did, in their role operating independently from their sponsoring Departments

Seeing as you probably won’t answer – let me give you what i think your intent was

1/ to have a pop at ‘hard right’ Croydon MP Steve Reed when in reality he’s done exactly what he should do at this stage of a development plan

2/ create a ‘even the tories didn’t allow it, that’s how bad labour are’ perception

So back to quote from my earlier criticism –

a pattern of trying to spice it up a bit, resorting where necessary to stretching the truth, or throwing in a bit of a trap, and then when you get challenged doing the divert, deny, deride that when politicians do it on Newsnight or QT has us launching things at the TV.

I think the above as an example demonstrates. Any argument was around you refusing to answer why you do it, if not to CAUSE an argument? Or do you still not think that you do?

No need to answer – just leaving there as justification of my earlier “deeply personal attack”. And again, apologies to others but when Ernie accuses me of trying to start an argument with him I feel only fair to have a chance to offer my version.