Come back Catherine Bennett, all is forgiven.

Earlier this month I gave Observer/Guardian journalist Catherine Bennett the  "Nitwit of the week award  for incompetent and inaccurate left-wing journalism" for a piece on the corrupt former MP John Stonehouse which wrongly suggested that he was a Conservative MP, and which had to be swiftly amended when it was correctly pointed out that he had actually been Labour.

Credit where it is due, she has written a piece this weekend which correctly calls out woman-hating misogynists in all parties and specifically including the Labour party.

You can read it by clicking on this link:

Forget Andrew Tate – what about the host of misogynists in Labour’s ranks? | Catherine Bennett | The Guardian

And before anyone accuses Catherine Bennett of being transphobic, or makes the same charge against me for linking to her article, I could not find a word in the article which says anything critical of trans people for being trans people or expresses an opinion for or against proposed Gender Reassignment legislation. Catherine Bennett is calling out people who indulge in hate speech against people with different opinions - waving banners with slogans calling for the decapitation of those they disagree with, for instance, which is almost certainly illegal and a public order offence. And she is calling out certain men, not for the views they hold or disagree with, but for the way they treated women who dared to have different views.

And I have to agree with her criticism of the failure to respond to some of this blatant sexism by the leader of the opposition. As she wrote,

"It was still alarming to see the Labour leadership effectively endorsing such an extreme example. By not condemning his own MPs’ substitution of intimidation for debate, Keir Starmer, though he blithered about “respect and tolerance”, has only invited more of the opposite."

Yesterday Sir Keir said 

“Never again will Labour allow hate to spread unchallenged. We have changed our party and we’ve ready to change Britain.”

If Starmer means that, why has he taken no disciplinary action against Labour MP Lloyd Russel-Moyle for the way he treated Labour and Conservative women MPs in the House of Commons chamber in a debate earlier this month? (That is what Catherine Bennett is referring to in the quote above.)

There is, sadly. misogyny in all parties. And all parties have a duty to call it out and do something about it within their own ranks, not just their opponents'.

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