Not sure what Sunak was thinking, but I equally find Starmers faux-outrage to be a bit distasteful considering Labours own issues with TERFS.
At the same time…just apologise mate. Doubling down isn’t the play here.
I don’t think he was thinking - I think he had his scripted joke and was going to deliver it no matter what. I’ve noticed he has the tendency in interviews to just repeat his answers when and interviewer tries to dig into a topic, he’s just not good at thinking on his feet.
Similar to when he brings out the Jeremy Corbyn digs at PMQs. That was ages ago mate, get over it.
That was like 2 PM’s ago. Back when we had a PM the country had voted for, back before we had a PM his own party had voted for.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Rishi Sunak has refused to apologise to Brianna Ghey’s father and said it was “sad and wrong” to link his jibe about transgender people to the murdered teenager’s case.
Sunak has been urged to apologise after accusing the Labour leader, Keir Starmer, of having difficulty “defining a woman” at prime minister’s questions on Wednesday.
“But to use that tragedy to detract from the very separate and clear point I was making about Keir Starmer’s proven track record of multiple U-turns on major policies, because he doesn’t have a plan, I think is both sad and wrong, and it demonstrates the worst of politics.”
The former minister Jackie Doyle-Price told Times Radio that while she was an advocate of balancing transgender rights with the protection of single-sex spaces, Sunak’s comment “trivialises something that’s very important” and was “frankly very ill-judged”.
Dehenna Davison, another former minister, said on X that it was “disappointing to hear jokes being made at the trans community’s expense”, adding: “Our words in the house resonate right across our society and we all need to remember that.”
Brianna’s mother had been in Westminster during PMQs with her local MP, Charlotte Nichols, as she campaigned for mindfulness lessons to be taught in schools after her daughter’s murder.
The original article contains 507 words, the summary contains 208 words. Saved 59%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Talk about confected outrage.
Sunak was merely making a point about Starmer’s flip-flopping on policy and various issues (which is ironic given the government does that all the time too), it wasn’t an anti-trans joke and you can only see it that way if you’re desperate to see it that way.
He was taking the piss out of Keir saying 99% of women don’t have penises, Rishi believes no women have penises because he doesn’t believe trans women are women, it’s got some layers to it but the comment was transphobic.
Then it would be an easy apology.
“I certainly did not mean to inflict further grief on you at this troubling time. My remarks were instead intended to point out (x). Again, my thoughts are with you in this time of loss.”
But that was obvious when he said it.
No matter what it was a massive fuck up to say that. It goes to show how politically stupid Sunak is. He could have kept to his rehearsed talking point of claiming that Stamer flip flops (as though Sunak isn’t as changeable what his advisors think will be advantageous) and just left off the part about the definition of women.
But instead he just stuck to the transphobic script.
I somewhat agree with you, but read the fucking room when the parents of a murdered trans teenager where in the room (or were very shortly due to be, anyway) it might be a time to just not bring it up.
Especially when he was making a valid point about Starmer’s flip flops on policy, of which are plenty of examples to choose from.
