WHEN people say that the Tories are out of touch with the general public, this usually means that they are entitled, privileged toffs. But in one area, namely feminism, this insult is true. In 2016 only 7 per cent of people identified as feminists.
A 2018 YouGov poll found that 34 per cent of women in the UK said Yes when asked whether they were a feminist.
Yet Tory leadership candidates have been falling over themselves to declare themselves feminists, after Dominic Raab continued to hold the line and say he is not. He does of course believe in equality between the sexes, although whether that is equality of outcome or equality of opportunity has not been explained.
Sajid Javid, Andrea Leadsom, Matt Hancock and Kit Malthouse all declared their feminist credentials. Spokesmen for Jeremy Hunt, Michael Gove, Rory Stewart and even Boris Johnson confirmed that their candidates identified as feminists.
How the spokesman for Johnson could keep a straight face on that one is beyond me. It just goes to show that identifying as a feminist does not necessarily mean you treat women, and your wife in particular, with respect. It does however give you licence to get women who are not your wife pregnant and then send them off to the abortion clinic.
So it looks as if within Westminster and the media bubble Raab is an outlier, but of course outside the bubble he is much closer to ordinary voters. Why any conservative would identify with an ideology that is a subset of socialism, and requires massive State interference in business and family life, remains confusing. But we shouldn’t expect anything else from these privileged cowards.
Feminism desires equality of outcome between men and women, which by definition is not conservative. Further, in light of the #MeToo movement, feminism has revealed itself to be in conflict with fundamental principles of the common law and natural justice, setting its face against the presumption of innocence and due process. All this seems completely lost on our woke Tory leadership candidates.
While we are talking of being completely out of touch with the ordinary voter, I hear that Esther McVey said something absolutely shocking yesterday, namely that parents should have the last say on what their children should be taught in sex education lessons. McVey told Sky News: ‘I believe parents know best for their children. While they’re still children – and we’re talking primary school [age] – then really the parents need to have the final say on what they want their children to know.’
The predictable Twitter meltdown followed from the all the usual suspects. Again, however, I suspect McVey is much closer to the majority of British parents than the outrage machine is. I mean, how very dare she suggest such a thing, that parents who are legally responsible for their children should have the final say when it comes to teaching them the latest radical nonsense cooked up by Stonewall and distributed to schools up and down the country?
So far this Tory battle for the leadership has been uninspiring. But the person who I hope will come out on top is the one who can cut through all the Leftist garbage that seems to emanate like a bad odour from most Tory MPs at least once a week.
I don’t know why they do this – they will never win the vote of these radical Leftists in the first place, but they end up alienating other voters who just want the madness to stop. Voters who don’t think people should be convicted of rape without trial, people who don’t think companies should be forced to hire less qualified female candidates to boost their diversity rating, people who don’t think four-year-olds should be confused with gender theory.
There are a lot of those people out there. Surely there must be a Tory leadership candidate who understands this.
