Monthly Archives: May 2010

Islam, women and FGM

by suzannahrobinson

Ayaan Hirsi Ali has been making the news recently, as a Muslim woman who ran away from home in Somalia in order to escape an arrange marriage. She has since become an atheist and an outspoken critic of Islam.

“Here are a number of principles within your religion [Islam] which are not compatible with liberalism and democracy”

“To extremist Muslims it is not acceptable that Jews now have their own homeland”

She is impatient of moral relativism, and decrys the tolerance of Female Genital Mutilation by the Western world as “just one of those cultural things”. She says that these are the real issues of feminism, and that feminism in Europe and North America is just a luxury.

The levels of oppression women suffer in Britain do seem laughably small in comparison with the situations in countries like Burkina Faso. If cliteral reconstructive surgery was given to all those who have undergone FGM in Burkina Faso alone the total cost would be 23 billion euros.

http://clitoraid.org/

Suzy

BCF AGM

by maxattacks

For those of you who don’t know, Birmingham Conservative Future (BCF) held their Annual General Meeting (AGM) today. I don’t have all the results but here we are:

President: Sophie Shrubsole

Vice-President: Adam Jenner (Internal) & Tim Hasker (External)

Blog Editor: Max Genoni

Publicity Officer: Owen V. Williams

We congratulate everyone who stood and welcome the new committee and hope BCF will rejoin the Guild and become BUCF once more!

Max

Lest we forget

by maxattacks

David Miliband said the ‘New’ Labour era is over. This may well be true and I know a few BULS members are glad of it, but we shall never forget ‘New’ Labour’s achievements and should never fail to build upon them, so I’ll leave you with a section from Gordon Brown’s final conference speech.

Max

Where have all the women gone?

by suzannahrobinson

The new ConDem cabinet is 26% female. I didn’t really expect any better, especially since Gordon Brown’s cabinet after the expenses cull was reduced to the same poor proportions.

But why are no women running for the Labour leadership?

Yvette Cooper recently stated her intention not to stand due to the demands of juggling such a responsible job with the demands of a young family of three children.

Q. Where is the father of these children?

A. Running for leadership

I think the women in the party could learn a thing or two from BULS, and especially from Louise, Dora, Pippa and Brigid. Maybe things will change when we get to Westminster in a couple of years time!

In the meantime, I’ll not be supporting Ed Balls.

Suzy

Goodbye Brown

by suzannahrobinson

Bowing to the judgement of the electorate, and in a dignified and timely manner, Gordon Brown has resigned as PM. As he refused to back a candidate for the Party leadership, so he refused to mention Clegg or Cameron, instead telling the waiting cameras how much he has enjoyed the opportunity to do good that his job has offered, and how much he’s looking forward to focussing on being a husband and father.

BULS pays tribute to his many years of devoted service, his economic prowess and his honest and heartfelt efforts to improve the lot of the British people and the world’s poorest.

As for the new coalition government, my feelings are summed up in this pithy poem:

Roses are red,

Labour are too

We were right when we warned them

Vote yellow get blue

But here’s to making the most of opposition. Here’s to laughing in the face of compromise and putting our Labour values first. Here’s to spending more time and effort in constituencies and local government. Here’s to doing everything we can to make this time count. And here’s to getting back in as soon as the electorate deems us worthy.

Suzy

Something else to be proud of…

by suzannahrobinson

Labour had 191 women PPCs prior to this election, which has translated into 81 women MPs – 31% of Labour MPs.

For comparison:

Labour had 101 women MPs in 1997, 24% of the total.

And the tories in 2010?

48 women MPs. 15% of the total.

Labour have also provided parliament with its first 3 muslim women MPs – Rushanara Ali of Bethnal Green and Bow, Yasmin Qureshi of Bolton South East and Shabana Mahmood of our very own Birmingham Ladywood!

And 12 other black or ethnic minority MPs – Diane Abbott kept Hackney North and Stoke Newington, Keith Vaz kept Leicester East, Marsha Singh of Bradford West, Sharma Virendra of Ealing Southall, Gavin Shuker of Luton South, Khalid Mahmood of our own Birmingham Perry Barr, the great David Lammy of Tottenham, Sadiq Khan of “yes we Khan” fame and Tooting, Mark Hendrick of Preston, Anas Sarwar of Glasgow Central, Chuka Umunna of Streatham and Dr Chinyelu Susan Onwurah of Newcastle Central.

That’s 5.8% of Labour MPs. We’re almost there on representation, at least as regards sex and ethnicity!

So proud to be Labour. Our party prioritises equality. You can’t say fairer than that.

Suzy

The result

by maxattacks

Last night saw many BULS members watching the results as they came in the new Joe’s Bar. Whatever you thought of the results, it was a great atmosphere. BUCF were nowhere to be found, but it was heard they were in a Suite in the Radisson Hotel, down with the students of course.

Anyways, the results were rather mixed as BULS members were met with as many disappointments as well as reliefs. Unfortunately, the likes of Jacqui Smith, Charles Clark and that Labour is no longer the single largest party were disappointments, but the fact that no seat in Birmingham turned blue and the likes of Ed Balls didn’t lose his seat is a huge conciliation. Yes, it’s not Labour best night but with so many local MPs staying red and given 9 months ago the Tories were heading for a landslide meant that this hung Parliament was a huge improvement.

BULS can also draw comfort from Wales where Labour only lost a handful of seats, in Scotland Labour’s share of the vote even rose by 3%, loosing not a single seat and containing the Tories to their sole seat and Labour has marge large gains in the local elections that were held on the same day.

In other words, disappointing but it could have been far worse.

Max

Vote Labour!

by maxattacks

This is it, the final crunch…and push. If you wish to secure the recovery, protect frontline services and clean up politics, vote Labour. If you want dangerous dogma to cause a double dip recession, a DIY public service system and a slashing of the schools budget and police numbers, then vote Tory. So please today, don’t be swayed by flashy posters and airbrushed leaders, vote for substance and experience with Labour and together we can fight for your future.

Max

Philippa Stroud Summarised

by suzannahrobinson

That post is pretty long >

So for those of you with more curiosity than time:

Philippa Stroud, a Tory PPC, has been accused of Christian extremism and homophobia following claims she tried to “pray away the gay” of vulnerable LGBT people.

Her views on women’s liberation have also been called into question due to her church’s advice for “joyful female submission” in marriage.

The tories and the media are all congratulating themselves on how well it’s all been hushed up. If you don’t believe me google “Gillian Duffy” and see how many hits come up, then google “Philippa Stroud”.

#RightWingMediaFail

Philippa Stroud

by suzannahrobinson

Firstly I’d like to thank BULS for electing me to the post of director of social media. Otherwise I would never have joined Twitter and therefore never have been made aware of who Philippa Stroud is and what she stands for. 36 hours after the story broke on the front page of the Observer all other major papers (apart from the Telegraph which played it down) and even the BBC have maintained a deafening silence on the issue. Ken Livingstone raised the issue on the Daily Politics show and was hushed up by the presenters.

But it’s been trending #1 on Uk twitter for 24 hours, the facebook event “Lets help Philippa Stroud get better” has 62 members and the facebook group “If Cameron cares an ounce about LGBT people, he’ll sack Philippa Stroud” has 1,544 members and counting.

This is big news, and it’s simply not being reported by the Murdoch press. The silence of the BBC, to whom, according to Stonewall UK the LGBT community contribute £190 million annually in license fees on this issue is shameful.

So what has Philippa Stroud done?

Having stood as a Conservative PPC in Ladywood Birmingham in 2005 she is now standing for Sutton and Cheam in South London. In 1989 she founded the King’s Arms Project – a Christian night shelter offering counselling to drug addicts, alcoholics, and LGBT people. She believed homosexuality was caused by demons, and could be cured by prayer and exorcism.

There has been no statement of apology or explanation from the Conservative party or David Cameron, Philippa Stroud herself having issued a statement which leaves lots of questions unanswered: ”I make no apology for being a committed Christian. However, it is categorically untrue that I believe homosexuality to be an illness and I am deeply offended that The Observer has suggested otherwise. I have spent 20 years working with disturbed people who society have turned their back on and are not often supported by state agencies; drug addicts, alcoholics, the mentally ill and the homeless that I and my charitable friends in the public sector have tried to help over the years. The idea that I am prejudiced against gay people is both false and insulting.“

She refused to comment on whether she believes LGBT people can be cured by the power of prayer, and whether she includes them under her definition of “disturbed people” or the “mentally ill”. She may not be prejudiced against the LGBT community in that she would treat them the same as anyone else suffering from demon possession, but is clearly not pro-liberation.

As a member of the New Frontiers Church of which her husband is a minister she has also pledged to: “be subservient to the wishes of my husband in all things” and submit to “male servant leadership and joyful female submission” – a remarkable attitude for a prospective female MP. I wonder what her views on abortion, same-sex civil partnerships and LGBT adoption are?  And when it became OK for the state and religion to cross over in this manner?

For a full briefing of the recent LGBT gaffes committed by the Tories see http://issacgreaves.eu/attackoftheclones/

The public have a right to demand proper coverage, proper investigation and a proper apology or some heads on plates. Instead we have 768 google hits for Gillian Duffy , and only 9 for Philippa Stroud.

My only comfort is that she probably won’t get elected because the constituency in which she’s standing has a strong and popular Lib Dem MP Paul Burstow who is standing for re-election.

Suzy

BUCF de-recognised

by maxattacks

While I know this is a bit late but hey. If you aren’t aware already, Birmingham University Conservative Future (BUCF) has been de-recognised by the Guild of Students, I personally have no idea when or exactly how this happened. But, it has been heard that one of the reasons was over the fiasco of BUCF’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) which was an understandable grievance though I doubt this could have been the sole reason.

Many in BULS still don’t know the full details so it would be great if someone from BUCF could clarify. While no one in BULS is making a judgement now, we do wonder the fact that everyone else manages to deal with the Guild’s regulation and rules.

Max

Round 3

by maxattacks

Nick Clegg, David Cameron, Gordon Brown

I would’ve blogged on this sooner, but been busy lately. Well the final debate went rather well. Being held in the Aston Webb building at the very University of Birmingham meant that many BULS members were interviewed by news companies on TV and radio, including BBC West Midlands, Sky News (shudder) and famously a group of us had one with Channel 4 (unfortunately, only 20 seconds and only Michael Brownlee and James Arnold spoke in it).

On the actual debate itself, while I personally think Brown didn’t do AS well as last week. On the upside though, there were two locations for watching the debate on campus, Joe’s Bar (where BUCF were giving out their goody bags, despite not actually being allowed to do) and a screen on the Rugby Pitch and there was a hugely ANTI-Cameron feeling with a HIGHLY pro-Brown and to a lesser extent pro-Clegg feeling. And my Brown did well; Clegg was still spouting his criticisms of Brown and Cameron as the “other two” and the “old parties” which while worked in the first debate is a huge bore and turn off in the debate and Cameron completely failed to justify why he would give a £200,000 give a way to the 3000 richest families while cutting child tax credits for those earning £20,000 a year.

Also, Brown was interviewed by Jeremy Paxman on Newsnight and he did extremely well I personally think. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/8655562.stm

Max

15 Minutes

by suzannahrobinson

BULS was on the news following the unveiling of the new posters in Birmingham, Ladywood constituency.

We met and shook hands with much of the cabinet. Tom Duffy even got a thumbs up from the dark lord Mandy himself.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b007mplc

Skip to 2 minutes 40 seconds in.

Gotta remember tho – it’s not all about grabbing the headlines and meeting the most powerful people in Britain. The hard graft starts now! And we’re back out on the doorstep. 6 days people!

Suzy