Presumably most readers are now aware of the ongoing saga in the media right now concerning a brilliant speech given by Philip Davies MP at the International Conference of Men’s Issues. Essentially, feminists (particularly the Guardian) have gone into full cry-bully mode, simply because Davies dared to challenge the more extreme elements of their ideology. This criticism was compounded by the fact he spent 45 minutes obliterating the feminist narrative about women being treated harshly by the justice system, and he very clearly used official government statistics to prove the reverse to be the case.

The most extreme reaction to the speech came from the Shadow Minister for women and Equalities, Angela Rayner, who called for Davies to be suspended from his party by the Prime Minister. Incredibly , her comments were then supported by Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn. Given her unhinged reaction to such an eloquent and well researched speech speech by Davies, we decided to find out a little more about Rayner. Needless to say, we weren’t disappointed!

Gender segregated rally

In November 2015 Labour held one in a series of gender segregated rallies, this time in Oldham with mainly Muslims attending. Leading political Blogger Guido Fawkes rightly describes such events as “gender apartheid” and photos clearly show the males seated at the centre of the room with women marginalised towards the far side. This is of course a very real example of what real sexism looks like, yet it’s reported that Rayner was in attendance to give her support and there’s no indication she condemned this blatant sexism, either during the event or any time afterwards.

All women-shortlist

An examination of exactly how Rayner got into power also makes for interesting reading. Most MPs, including Davies, were selected from a shortlist of the very best candidates for the roles. However, Rayner was once again no stranger to blatant sexism herself, this time with all men banned from standing for labour in her constituency therefore making her a very clearly beneficiary of discrimination against men.

All women shortlists were in fact illegal when they were first used in 1997 and even the new legislation supposedly legalising them has never been tested in court. In Rayner’s case, it appears many in the local party opposed such sexism and weren’t at all happy having such a list and an awful candidate imposed upon them.

It’s remarkable just how many of the very worst and most misandrist MPs make their way into politics vis this sexist method. The most obvious such name recently is a certain Jess Phillips, though other “highlights” of obviously incompetent and sexist MPs guilty of not having to prove themselves as the best person for the job include Margaret Moran, Stella Creasy, Jacqui Smith, Helen Brinton, and Emily Thornberry.

Assassination of Margaret Thatcher

We’re immensely grateful for the sterling work Guido Fawkes has done in exposing Rayner’s behaviour. One of his most recent finds concerns a speech given by John McDonnell where he discusses his desire to go back in time and assassinate Margaret Thatcher. A video of the speech shows Rayner, seated next to McDonnell, clearly finding his murderous fantasy concerning a female politician to be absolutely hilarious.

Other highlights from her short time in Parliament show that Rayner believes her constituency court house to be some 4,000 miles away in Kentucky. She’s also so in touch with her working-class constituents that she spends £175 on tacky Star Wars shoes and uses House of Common notepaper to bully shop staff when they fail to provide her with these essential items.

At HEqual we decided to raise the issue of Rayner benefiting from sexism to get into Parliament and we send a tweet highlighting this fact to her and Davies. Sometimes MPs pretend these shortlists are a good thing and that they’re supposedly proud of not being the best person for the job. However, in Rayner’s case, she didn’t appear to be best pleased to have such facts highlighted and this was the result of sending just two tweets:

Anyway, we look forward to Rayner condemning all the very real sexism highlighted above and for all those responsible to be suspended from the Labour party by Jermey Corbyn. It is in fact her duty to do this now thanks to her recent appointment to the “women and equalities” role. As for Davies, those who’ve actually watched his “controversial” speech actually approve of it a spectacular 99.3% of the time: