Jamie Wallis is the latest Tory MP to come out in favour of Penny Mordaunt. This is hardly the endorsement the trans-issue embattled Tory necessarily wants…
Hat-tip: @nishanchilkuri
Yesterday’s historic news that the UK has its first transgender MP – Jamie Wallis – was somewhat overshadowed by the PM’s gag at the previous night’s Tory dinner, when he opened with “Good evening ladies and gentleman. Or, as Keir Starmer would put it, people who are assigned female or male at birth”. Contrary to the anti-Boris point-scoring being peddled by much of the media, last night Wallis told Guido of the PM’s very generous private support of him. In keeping with his comments at PMQs last week that people wanting to transition should be “treated with the maximum possible generosity and respect”.
According to Wallis, Boris called him out of the blue a couple of hours after Guido first brought the announcement to public attention. Asking if Jamie could chat – something the Welsh MP said no one could say no to – the PM offered his full support: asking questions about what his announcement meant, how he wanted to be treated, questions about a new name or pronouns, and whether there’s anything the party could do to help. Wallis resisted joking about additional Levelling Up funds…
Beyond the PM, Jamie Wallis told Guido he’d never had more contact from ministers since the announcement. His constituents haven’t been unwelcoming either – one emailed in to congratulate the MP on his announcement. His constituent immediately got on to the issue that mattered most, slamming the MP for not fixing the pothole at the end of his road…
A Tory MP put out a statement announcing he’s trans at 3 o’clock this morning, and it seems no one’s noticed. Jamie Wallis, the Tory MP for Bridgend elected in 2019, says he was diagnosed with gender dysphoria and has felt this way since he was a young child, and was expecting to “leave politics well before I ever said this out loud”. This means the left will have to contend with the Tories’ progressive equality record now including the UK’s first openly trans MP…
Wallis says the news almost emerged in April 2020 when someone tried blackmailing him for £50,000, outing him to his father and sending photographs to other family members. The perpetrator was sentenced to 2 years and 9 months in prison.
In September Wallis says he “hooked up” with someone from online, who raped Jamie after refused to wear a condom, saying this awful incident caused them to stop being himself and was the cause of the widely-reported car crash on 28th November from which he fled the scene due to PTSD. He apologises for this.
Following the dinner for Tory MPs last night he concludes the remarkable statement:
Tonight, I was reminded of the incredible support those you work with can provide. Also, I was reminded how important it is to be yourself. I have never lived my truth and I’m not sure how. Perhaps it starts with telling everyone..
Congratulations…
UPDATE: Wallis has released another statement thanking everyone for their support, and confirming he will continue using he/him pronouns “for the time being”:
“I wanted to thank everyone for the huge outpouring of support I have received following my previous statement. This is all very new to me. It’s taken a long time for me to come to terms with my gender dysphoria. It is a deeply personal matter and I had hoped to continue to keep this private until after I had finished my term as the Member of Parliament for Bridgend. I am overwhelmed by the kindness and support I have received in the last few hours. I am proud to be completely open and honest about the struggles I have had, and continue to have, with my identity. However, I remain the same person I was yesterday. For the time being, I will continue to present as I always have and will use he/him/his pronouns.”
There was incredulity at the Welsh Select Committee yesterday afternoon when loony left Labour MP Beth Winter went out of her way to condemn the armed forces for recruiting in her part of the country. Hitting out at the consensus of the committee who had been thanking the military for their role in deploying the Covid vaccine. This is the second bizarre thing Beth has decided to hector on since becoming elected in 2019, after she shouted at tea…
Wales Minister David TC Davies, along with a number of other MPs on the committee endorsed a unified thanks from the committee to the army for their work, however Beth Winter was viscerally opposed to being included in the debt of gratitude:
“Before I begin I do have to beg to differ with the comments regarding the armed forces… yes the armed forces make a vital contribution, but any recruits of young people must be managed carefully and it must be an informed choice for young people… a lot of young people enter the armed forces not through choice but through lack of opportunities in the community so I do beg to differ on that point”
Jamie Wallis MP is, not unsurprisingly, demanding Winters apologises for her “suggestion that our armed forces… would prey on vulnerable children to hit recruitment targets”. The same week as fellow loony left MP Zarah Sultana called on the government to prioritise covid jabs for incarcerated prisoners, is it any wonder why the public refused to back them in 2019…
