Tag: Mark Jenkinson MP

Mark Jenkinson MP – Bigoted and ignorant abuser of minority groups

My MP, Mark Jenkinson MP is a bit of a smart-arse when it comes to trans rights. I’ve blogged about his anti-trans bigotry before.

Is Mark Jenkinson MP the most bigoted man in Parliament?

As usual, “Jenky” as he’s not so affectionately known here in Workington is going around pretending to know stuff that he really doesn’t have the first clue about. This is quite normal behaviour for him. He uses his spectacular lack of understanding to whip up dog-whistles to inspire his ever-dwindling band of ‘true-believers’ to support him as he attacks minority after minority from travellers to refugees, Asylum-seekers to hungry children.

Recently he had a go at trans people, claiming that science determines that there are only two sexes and absolutely missing the point that gender and sex are different.

He told his local paper…

“Responding, Mark Jenkinson said he has never said anything transphobic, and rejects the term, choosing to call himself ‘gender critical’.

He said he does not recognise the identities of trans men and trans women, pushing favour of biological sex over gender identity to be the salient factor.”

But hey ho – he isn’t very well educated so we might forgive him for not understanding that gender is a fluid, social construct that changes dramatically from place to place and era to era. What isn’t so forgivable is the way he misprepresents scientific understanding. This video should put him right though.

Fortunately for Jenky there are people like Forrest Valkai in the world. He’s an evolutionary biologist and science educator who really can tell Jenky a thing or two – not that this bigoted and wilfully ignorant MP would listen. He’s far too interested in being right or, as we say in West Cumbria…

“He’s too clever to learn”!

Eat your heart out, Jenky!

Ignorant tory dog-whistles with anti-trans rhetoric

I said earlier on my channel that being wrong feels exactly like being right. It’s only when we take the trouble to learn, to see past our assumptions that we begin to feel the awkward psychological sensation associated with awareness of our own ignorance. And that’s good. Awareness of our own inaccuracy is the first step – often the only step needed to become accurate again.

That’s why it’s so toxic for any of us to bury our heads in the sand. Especially when the ostrich in question is a sitting MP with a penchant for attention-seeking and far-right dog-whistling. A populist MP who still believes that, having fooled his constituents once, he can continue to get away with voting so often against their interests simply by targeting a minority to whip up a bit of hatred against.

Someone like Mark Jenkinson MP, for example…

Mr Jenkinson stated recently: “Trans men aren’t men, and trans women aren’t women, sex is something we cannot change, that is the scientific view, and there is no need to educate myself on any view. It’s not just the view of me and my constituents. All I’ve ever said or done is point out the difference between gender and sex.”

https://www.newsandstar.co.uk/news/19850653.protestors-gather-workington-reject-opinions-mark-jenkinson-mp/

Well… let’s take a brief look at the scientific view, shall we?

The magazine, ‘Nature’ is one of the most respected journals in the scientific literature. Its peer-reviewed articles are a world away from the populist dog-whistles cobbled together by biased hacks in the Daily Mail. ‘Nature’ is a scientific journal with content written by specialist science journalists and peer-reviewed for quality by practicing scientists knowledgeable in their respective fields.

T’Sjoen is an endocrinologist at the very top of his profession. He spoke with ‘Nature’ in April 2019 and made some very interesting points. Points that Mark Jenkinson MP might do well to heed before he goes shouting his mouth off about other peoples’ right to be themselves.

“Saying you’re not informed about this topic is not really valid any more,” he says. “It’s just that you’re lazy.”

The European Network for the Investigation of Gender Incongruence (ENIGI) is the largest study of transgender people in the world. In April 2019 it had a research base of 2,600 transgender individuals who provide regular ‘snapshots’ of both their psychological and their biological states. The study takes account of subjective experiences as well as more objective measurements such as hormonal balance, biological wellness, general health, task-orientated brain activity and general physical and physiological well-being. Many of these metrics have very real correlations with more normative gender-based characteristics and the results are fascinating. I won’t quote the extensive article here but I’d strongly encourage anyone who thinks they understand this topic to follow the links.

One thing Mark and I do have in common is that neither of us really ‘get it’. I don’t pretend for a moment to understand what it means to be uncomfortable with your birth-assigned gender. I’m a man, I’ve always been male, I identify as a male and I feel absolutely comfortable in that regard. I have very real difficulty in understanding how others can find that problematic. I have little doubt that Mark Jenkinson MP can say the same. But here’s where we differ…

Jenkinson, perhaps deliberately, confuses gender with biological sex whilst, ironically enough pretending to rely upon that very difference to inform his spurious, bigoted arguments. I understand that gender is a socially defined construct which is different from biology.  And that social definition has always been open to change.

It used to be that women weren’t allowed to vote, they were barred from certain jobs. My own mother really wanted to be a barrister but gender-based prejudices in the mid twentieth century sent her down a different path, first as a housewife and mother and then on to a very successful career as a primary school teacher (traditionally a career acceptable for women). Today nobody would sneer at her ambition to approach the bar because the socially constructed gender rules have changed as society moves on.

Whatever your individual views on gender might be here’s the bottom line for me…

People have a right to be who they are… to live their lives free from bigotry and hostility… to know that they are part of their society and that they have a place. They don’t need everyone to understand their experience. I was very clear with the people I spoke to at Saturday’s little demo that I don’t ‘get it’ but that I support each person’s right to be themselves. Not a single trans person I met objected to that stance of mine.

If, like my bigoted, dog-whistling MP, you have a problem with trans people then I suggest you ask yourself just what it is about you that makes you take such an unhealthy interest in other peoples’ gender preferences. And remember…

Allowing yourself to feel uncomfortable about your prejudices is the first and most crucial step toward adopting a healthier, happier and far more reasonable and compassionate perspective for the future.

Don’t allow Mark Jenkinson MP to hijack your humanity just so he can con you into hating ‘them’ and voting for ‘him’. The politics of ‘us and them’ should have no place in a civilised democracy. Nor should bigoted, hate-mongering MPs like Mark Jenkinson! He has a right to his opinion but when he uses his position as MP to foster hatred and prejudice he really oughtn’t to represent the decent people of Workington for a moment longer than the law allows.

Brexit, the ERG and the terror of success

It’s very strange that the larger Brexit looms in our lives the more Brexiteers want to distance themselves from it. It’s almost as though they know it’s going to be a disaster and they don’t want to be blamed for the damage Brexit continues to do to our economy, our access to goods and our standing in the world at large.

Four years ago it was all hunky dory.

That was when the Brexiteers were still calling our warnings ‘Fake news’ or ‘project fear’, despite knowing all about Dominic Cummings dirty tricks and Boris’ lies on the side of the bus.

Even last year they still kept up the pretence…

Remember how we held all the cards and the EU would give us a better deal even than its own members were getting?

And now they’re even lying about anyone saying there’s an oven ready deal in the first place.

It’s fascinating how these giants of intellectualism, these Eton and Dulwich college educated men of the people, these wealthy gents with their even more wealthy backers who want nothing more than to help out the working man have forgotten almost everything they once said about Canada deals, Norway deals, Sweden deals and even Australian deals (that last one is really just no deal, by the way).

Even my own MP, former UKIP candidate and now tory MP, Mark Jenkinson seems desperate to move away from his hardline, no deal past.

Despite joining the ERG, the tory backbench extreme Brexit pressure group just 5 days after being elected he now claims that he has never been a member. The chairman of the ERG, Steve Baker actually lists Jenky in the roll of new members in the press. Jenky’s own twitter feed displayed a picture of his at the ERG meeting on 17th December 2019. A picture that appeared in the press shortly after.

Well… seeing is believing, Jenky.

So why Are you trying to distance yourself from the hardline, no deal Brexit you always wished for? Is it because you’re finally beginning to understand the dire consequences that we Remainers have been warning you about for years? Is it because you finally realise the damage you’ve already done to our economy and to the electorate in one of the country’s hardest hit areas by voting for this awful nonsense?

Are you that desperate to make someone else take the blame that you’re walking away from your success so quickly now that you’re getting what you wanted?

And remember, Jenky… and all the rest of you sleazy tories who voted to impoverish your fellows just so you could make a quick profit. This really is what you’ve worked so hard for and we will not forget it.

An MP without original thought

What happens when your MP doesn’t know how to think?

How does a man who never had an original idea finds his way into parliament?

When MPs don’t understand politics or the issues of the day how can they maintain the illusion of competence?

That’s easy – they just toe the party line and pretend to be in control of the facts (not to mention their faculties). Vacuous back-benchers have followed this simple strategy for years, often quite successfully but only when their leaders aren’t just as clueless themselves.

That’s the unfortunate reality facing Mark Jenkinson MP. When Boris flip-flops and Jenky supports every pronouncement both before and after the U-turn he only highlights the incompetence of both himself and his boss.

Perhaps that’s why he’s more likely to insult and block interlocutors than engage with them. Perhaps he doesn’t know what to say. Perhaps he really is that stupid.

What do you think?

Fair’s fair

This government has refused to assist struggling families to feed their children. Using the most spurious of excuses from fantasy drug deals to callous, Victorian child-starving notions of the undeserving poor, the government would have us believe that the best response to an adult’s poverty is to punish the children who depend upon them.

This shameful philosophy literally leads to children starving, a slow and painful process that was all but eradicated in UK prior to the return of the tories in 2010. These people have systematically starved unemployed, disabled and low-waged citizens for over a decade now. The issue is bigger than just Christmas and it’s been around for a lot longer than Covid-19.

And yet we’re expected to subsidize MP’s meals even as our own working class children go hungry.

If you think that’s unfair, I urge you to sign the petition to remove public subsidy from all Houses of Parliament restaurants and bars. After all, if the government won’t feed the children of poor people then it has no business buying pies for the likes of Mark Jenkinson MP, with his fantastical tales of dealers trading heroin and crack cocaine for a few stale orios and a large tin of spaghetti hoops!

How dare you, Mark Jenkinson MP?

Mark Jenkinson MP, let’s ‘ave yer

Once again I find myself making an offer to my MP, Mark Jenkinson. I do this periodically when he makes outrageous and damaging statements about issues dear to me. Issues such as nursing, education, the economy, the Tory vote to abandon lone children in the camps at Calais for example.

Jenkinson’s the one with the symbolically accurate imagery of a nice plush office for him and a tatty, neglected union flag to stand for the rest of us. It’s easy to see where his priorities are.

This time I’m taking Jenky on about hungry children, if he has the bottle to face a constituent who wants him actually to justify his appalling cruelty. The offer is simple.

Let’s debate, (formally or otherwise) Jenkinson’s and the Tory party’s decision to deny free meals to qualifying children over the Christmas break, children whose parents have already suffered massive financial damage due to Covid and who clearly need help to feed their families.

Let’s discuss this over Skype, Mark.

Let’s both record the discussion to ensure there’s no dodgy editing.

Let’s both be free to post the discussion (with commentary and ‘right to reply’) wherever we like.

As ever, you know how to find me, Mark. contact me via this website, by Email or if you like, since your little helper, Adrian ferreted out my postal address you can even write to me.

Come on, Mark. Let’s ’ave yer!

Hypocritical Jenky

A few days ago Mark Jenkinson MP, my MP I’m not at all pleased to say, had a go at teachers for complaining about risks from Covid19. Today, on the same Facebook page where he attacked our local teachers, without a word of explanation he warns of the dangers of Covid to young people.

I would love for him to explain to me how these two posts relate to each other but I can’t imagine my question will be answered. Engaging reasonably with the electorate just isn’t Jenky’s style.

My MP doesn’t care for democracy

My Tory MP, Mark Jenkinson demonstrated once again how little regard he has for representative democracy or the constituents he purports to represent. He couldn’t have made his contempt for his constituents involvement in British politics any clearer if he’d tried.

How on Earth did this ignoramous make it into parliament?