As 2023 draws to a close, here’s a look back at some of the stories that made the news month by month.
In possibly the year’s most surprising story, two Labour councillors were thrown out of the party and one reported to the police over allegations of giving false information on electoral papers.
Brighton and Hove topped their Europa league group.
There was frustration with drivers using a grass verge by Dyke Road Park as a free car park. This followed dozens of drivers using a new public square by St Peter’s Church in the same way the previous month.
Blocks of student housing were put up for sale for £67 million.
Hove restaurant etch was named the best in the city in a diners’ poll.
A new chief executive was chosen for Brighton and Hove City Council.
And the selection for the Labour candidate for Brighton Pavilion became more than usually newsworthy thanks to comedian Eddie Izzard putting her hat in the ring. She said she would campaign via Zoom after it emerged she was due to perform in New York for several weeks next year – and after losing said the contest had become a referendum on trans people.
Once again, Brighton and Hove News trivialise the concerns raised by Eddie Izzard over transphobia – hardly surprising from a blog that has a TERF as a ‘columnist’
Good grief where did they ‘trivialise’ Eddie? He certainly trivialised his own candidacy by being applaing at the hustings and promising to campaign by Zoom. I think you will find the colomnists here some of the fairest around who let everyone have a voice, just because they don’t agree with your perspective doesn’t make them a TERF.
What a year, these have been really interesting to read. All the best to you and the team, Jo! I look forward to 2024 being an exciting year!
It’s strange how reporting what Izzard said somehow trivialises what was said! A bizarre allegation. This newspaper could have just ignored it completely. Besides, I’m not sure I’d class any columnist I’ve read here as a TERF. They all seem genuinely thoughtful to me, even those I disagree with, which is most of them, much of the time, the normal stuff of life really. Most of all, though, I find the word TERF to be an abusive, inaccurate and aggressive term, usually lumped in with violent words to make phrases such as ‘Kill All TERFs’. It says so much more about you than you seem to realise. I have a few transgender friends in Brighton and most want to live quietly and be accepted rather than perpetually pick fights. Every single one of them finds the antics of so-called trans rights activists to be at best embarrassing and at worst repellent.
The bloke gives me the creeps.
Absolutely. Makes my skin crawl.
Frustrated Reader – that’s a very silly comment! Mr Izzard failed in his bid not because of “transphobia” but because card carrying Labour members saw him for the narcissist ignorant all-about-me clown that he is. And calling himself Suzy and using she/her fooled nobody.
When people lose any sort of election they’ll try as come up with a reason why they lost that’s a negative against other candidates or even the electorate “got it wrong”
I’ve been involved in a couple of parliamentary selections and several local councillor selections (not in Brighton) and the losers also way say it was an anti them vote because they were a woman (when a man wins) or a man (when a woman wins) or it’s because they were white when someone from an ethnic minority wins and all the variations in between,
In my experience they lose not because of any of those reasons but because they were rubbish as the hustings and made a mess of things themselves.
The vast majority of members of political parties chose their candidates carefully and make a considered decision on who they think will best represent their party and who has the best chance of being elected.
Sure – it is hard to tell how much the trans status impacted on the selection choice BUT pretty much every commenter here has deliberately misgendered and shown v hostile anti trans views and the Labour Party has not stood up either to defend its selection process against accusations of transphobia or to show solidarity with a trans member.
What does that make them?
This isn’t just about Eddie – as the commenter (almost) comments, she can look after herself. It’s more about the message sent by the Labour Party and by this paper that Trans hostility is OK, and about the impact this has on others who are just trying to live their lives free from bigoted harassment.
Badly done by both institutions.
If Trans issues is the only thing you care about you’re not a politician, you’re a Trans activist. How do you not mis-gender Eddie anyway? His pronouns change like the time on a clock. One minute he’s Eddie, another minute Suzy. How anyone takes a person like that seriously just shows their own gullibility.
Eddie in her pitch to become elected spoke to many issues – stating she just focussed on trans issues is something you have made up to suit your bigotry.
Your “confusion” around her preferred pronoun is also confected to hide your prejudice – although not wholly a shining star in this, each article in this paper about her candidacy has referred to she/her.
The people most relentlessly interested in her gender identity rather than her political platform are people like you. Why might that be?
Why do you people get so wound up about someone else’s preferred pronouns anyway? Strange…very strange.
I’ve mentioned this before but anything Eddie says is drowned out by this topic, this thread just provides another example of this; that makes them a poor candidate choice politically.
Not to mention the only reason they would be interested in Brighton is if they were elected here. That hardly speaks well of their commitment to the City compared to someone who actively spends their time making Brighton better, does it?
Eddie wasn’t a good choice, in my opinion. Everything else, is none of my business.