Nevertheless, everything he writes is well worth reading, particularly this.

This is old news, but I missed it.  Laurie Pycroft of Pro-Test fame, did not.

Mark Stephen’s article in The Times last week that was commented upon by me here, has provoked responses from the claimant in the libel proceedings, Mike Keith-Smith and a Times reader Kristen Roy, which were published in The Times today.

I republish their correspondence here: -

"Sir,

 

As the successful claimant in Keith-Smith v Williams, I strongly object to Mark Stephens’s assertion that the decision by Judge Alistair MacDuff, QC, marks “a dark day for freedom of speech” (news comment, Mar 22).

 

Since when did the right to free speech imply the right of an anonymous malefactor to engage in a long-term campaign of vile and obscene abuse against an innocent individual? This disgusting conduct is not “the democratisation of knowledge”. A far better analogy would lie with the facility, common in Nazi Germany and other totalitarian dictatorships, for malicious individuals to bear false witness against their neighbours from behind a cloak of secrecy.

 

If I have made a stand that in any way assists in the plight of other victims of internet abuse – and I know that they are legion – then I am very proud to have done so."

 

Mark Keith-Smith

and,

"Sir,

 

The High Court ruling in the case of Keith-Smith v Williams demonstrates the application of common sense to legal treatment of speech over the internet.

 

The internet is a technologically unprecedented medium and certainly presents conceptual difficulties for the law where jurisdictional questions arise. However, there is little justification for creating a new set of libel laws for the World Wide Web or, rather, taking them away altogether. A libellous allegation remains exactly that, whether read from a paper in hand or on a screen before the eyes.

 

Are people really so adept at distinguishing “ranters” on the internet from those making viable claims? Should we be? And, if we are, then why are we deemed unable to make these distinctions when the claim appears in hard copy?

 

The characteristic of the internet which sets it apart from others is quite simply its potential for dissemination at mind-boggling speeds, in mind-boggling volumes. The internet is a legitimate mode of communication and to place it in a legal vacuum undermines the very real place it now occupies in today’s society."

 

Kristen Roy

Let me start by saying that I do not think the opinions they profess are either misguided or wrong.  I just do not agree.  I have a different perspective.

Mr Keith-Smith has a political persona to protect.  The palpably false insults made by his nemesis, an obviously malicious woman, could have been used by unscrupulous opponents who were willing to smear his good name behind the scenes, though I am unconvinced of the likely success of this tactic on the part of such miscreants.

As I have already said in my earlier post on the subject, the danger of litigating against small time "slanderers" is that the legal action publishes the libel to a larger audience that will contain even more people who will believe, irrationally, that the falsehoods are true, because for one reason or another they need to believe they are true.

In some cases (though clearly not in the instant case) a libel action is used as a gagging device to suppress a truth (Liberace, Jeffrey Archer.) This is not lost on the public. Thus very often, only the most popular litigants of uncontroversial occupations or pursuits truly escape unscathed.  So often, even successful libel actions do not have the desired result.

I fear this victory is likely to give succour to those who wish to silence critics on the net.  Bloggers have a limited audience and their shelf life is relatively short.  A blogger or owner of a website who is clearly bitter and twisted about something will lose an audience fast and nothing they say will carry any weight, anyway. We are not discussing mass audience newspapers or television media whose utterances have far more weight (and thereby cause more damage) because they try to verify their facts and have lawyers to ensure that so far as is possible, there is not any overstepping of the mark. Only a handful of blogs have a very large audience and the reason for their popularity is that they are amongst other things, interesting, authoritative in their chosen subject and in the main avoid gratuitous offence.

It is the possibility of gagging actions that most bloggers could not hope to afford to defend, which bothers me.  Pitfalls for the claimants, do not.  If they wish to risk doing a Gillian Taylforth, then so be it.

It had to happen of course, as night follows day.  Terrorist elements amongst the Animal Rights fraternity have shown already that harassing and threatening opponents is an effective means of controlling and forcing them to submit to its will.  The tactic is catching on amongst other single issue groups, the most recent example being  anti abortionists, as is reported today by Sandra Laville.  As yet, our home grown hard-line anti abortionists have yet to blow up an abortion clinic as happened in the United States but, no doubt, from now on we can expect little acts of harassment and intimidation here and there against anyone who is seen or suspected to support, legal abortion.

In the case reported today in The Guardian, the miscreant anti abortion group is UK Life League which is run by a James Dowson.  Like Animal Rights groups, it also appears to rely upon doctored photographic evidence as part of its case in drumming up support and finance.

"Life League, which is a registered company, raises money through donations, and stalls on streets across England and Scotland, a tactic successfully employed by animal rights groups."

Remember that name and next time you pass a Life League stall in the high street, please give it a wide berth.

“Labour isn’t wicked…” says Danny Kruger.  However, it is seeking to pass legislation similar to that passed by the National Socialists in Germany following Adolf Hitler’s electoral success in 1933.[1]

The problem is that just like the Nazis, Labour too has a vision.  It believes fervently in the justice of what it does and will not be diverted from its chosen course.  It does not believe that its opponents act in good faith when criticising the measures it proposes.  It is not open to reasonable compromise.  It neither listens nor wants to listen.  It has a mission that will be fulfilled.

Unlike the Nazis, Labour does not want to intimidate, terrorise, imprison or murder a significant part of the population or wage war against its European neighbours, though it does seem to need to micro-manage the activities of the citizenry.  This Labour Government’s crime is that it cannot conceive that any British Government should ever wish to abuse the powers it is currently seeking to create.  Its arrogance is breathtaking.

It was in Scotland that opposition to the Community Charge first exploded.  I should not suggest for one moment that the anti-smoking ban in Scotland will lead to so much violent protest, but quiet, large scale disobedience is assured.  No matter how softly softly the authorities seek to enforce the ban, it will just cause more hard feeling and generate the political opposition to the measure that was so singularly missing when it was first proposed.

As someone who does not smoke, it suits me not to inhale others’ cigarette smoke or have the dubious honour of my clothes smelling as if I had polished off a pack of twenty, personally.  Nevertheless, I feel that smokers are being victimised.  Many non-smokers I have spoken to feel the same way.  Beyond our politicians and persons involved in the provision of medical or health care, amongst non-smokers the support for a ban is soft  or non-existent.  Smokers are currently resentful but compliant.  This resignation to their fate will not last long once the inconvenience of their being unable to smoke in their favoured pub or club has sunk it.  The sheer unfairness of it all will rankle.

Many hundreds of thousands of Labour supporters will be directly touched by this ban in a way that Iraq and Sleaze did not.  Iraq did no more than reduce Labour’s Commons majority  from epic landslide proportions to a “pathetic” thumping one of sixty plus. Sleaze, taken on its own, is not likely to lose many seats for Labour, particularly if Honest Gordon takes over at No.10. The smoking ban will irritate many natural supporters and the Government should bear in mind that it is not only bad weather on Polling Day that can keep away Labour supporters.[1]

Andrew Sullivan reports today in The Sunday Times concerning the row that has erupted in relation to an episode of the cartoon series South Park being “pulled” from a television schedule because it appears to have offended Scientologists.  Now others seem to be jumping on the “cartoons” bandwagon, the willingness to kow-tow to the complainers is unsettling.  There may be solid commercial reasons for this particular example of self censorship, but nevertheless more people with super sensitivities about their beliefs might to be encouraged to chance their arm.  Should this trend continue, a line will have to drawn. 

Mr Sullivan argues,

“…it’s this artful ability to say in cartoon form what you cannot say in any other without a libel writ that makes cartoons irreplaceable…

 

Cartoons and puppetry, as the classic series Spitting Image proved, can convey truths and explore fantasies no other form can.

 

We need those truths and benefit from those fantasies. A free society survives partly because the powerful are mocked, and their pretensions undermined. Religions, which guard their own illusions carefully, are particularly ripe for satire.  And they should be.

 

Whenever one human being is claiming to tell the truth about the meaning of life he is making a very powerful claim — and in a free society he also runs the risk of getting a raspberry. Laughter matters because piety begets power.

 

Orwell once remarked that one reason fascism never took off in Britain was because the sight of a goose-stepping soldier would prompt your average Englishman to giggle. Someone is now silencing the giggles.  And our world is a lot creepier because of it.”

Yes, quite.

The Court of Appeal's decision in the Shabina Begum case was disturbing for a number of reasons and happily the House of Lords has reversed it. I suspect that Boris Johnson echoes the thoughts of many of us when expressing his opinions on the matter in his article in The Daily Telegraph, today.

I do not smoke, so the recent legislation that will soon ban people from smoking in certain public places does not concern me to any material degree.  I do not hunt, so I have not been deprived of my sport by that means.  I do not shoot, so when that is banned, I shall not suffer, nor shall I when the time comes for angling to be outlawed.  I am astute enough to realise that sooner or later however, one of my little freedoms will be the subject of Government interference.  It is for this reason, that when the smokers or hunters or any other minority whose little freedoms have been trampled under foot finally revolt, I shall be there alongside them at the barricades.[1]

I have little doubt that Tracy Williams went too far when insulting Keith Smith, a UKIP parliamentary candidate, in a chat room in April 2004.  Whether he should have issued proceedings for libel is another matter.  Ms Williams’ insults were palpably false and were merely intended to insult.  No reasonable person was likely to take them seriously.  Mr Smith’s victory has done no more than broadcast the nature of the insults to millions of people rather than the few hundred who might have visited the website in question.

My concern is that Ms Williams’ insults were very tame when compared to much of the criticism directed towards other, more powerful politicians, individuals and corporations which routinely appears on UK blogs.  I hope a precedent has not been set.  Many political blogs, though full of invective and bile (and almost certainly libellous) are highly entertaining, very much in the tradition of James Gillray.  It would be a shame to see them gagged, particularly as the media in general now seems to be so feeble in its criticism of big business and big Government.  We shall have to wait and see.[1]

Some weeks ago, in anticipation of the tenth anniversary of the Dunblane tragedy, I started work on a long article documenting successive Governments’ attempts to control gun crime by bearing down hard on lawful gun ownership, and pointing out the futility and unfairness of it all.  It is enough to say that the article was not completed.  This article by Ross Clark in The Times today says much the same thing, is shorter, better written and far more interesting.

Nicola Woolcock reports in The Times today about Oxford University’s successful attempt to secure an injunction against animal rights activists preventing their screaming through megaphones and taking photographs. The earlier injunction had placed no restraints on noise, which enabled the activists to use amongst other things, horns, whistles and tapes of dogs howling. They had also photographed and videoed staff, students and construction staff.

The report continues,

"However, the University’s attitude towards freedom to demonstrate is called into question by its decision to apply for an even more stringent injunction at a full hearing next month. It wants the weekly protest cut from four hours to one and the maximum number of demonstrators reduced from fifty to twelve."

Why is the University’s attitude towards freedom to demonstrate called into question? The animal rights activists are not there to demonstrate, they are there to intimidate. They have not just turned up in their hundreds, had a noisy march, called their opponents a few rude names and having made their point, then gone home. They are there every day, causing a nuisance and making it very clear that if anyone disagrees with them, that person’s property and/or health might suffer. It is arguable that the University should have sought an even more stringent order. The animal rights daily gathering in Oxford is nothing to do with freedom of expression.

A persuasive plea from Rachel from North London.

It is ironic that the BBC, which strives so hard to serve “minorities” has been so roundly condemned by a report by Stonewall, the organisation that campaigns on behalf of lesbians, gay men and bisexuals.

The report cites numerous examples of presenters on the two main BBC channels making negative comments about gays.  The report's researchers, who included heterosexuals, watched one hundred and sixty eight hours of programming between 7 p.m. and 10 p.m. over a period of eight weeks.  During that time, it is said, lesbian and gays, references to them, or related issues featured in just thirty-eight minutes of coverage, of which thirty-two minutes were deemed derogatory or offensive and just six minutes were deemed positive.

A number of things struck me about the report.  Whilst I cannot claim to have watched the same one hundred and sixty eight hours of programming as the researchers, I have watched programmes in which the alleged worst offenders, such as the likes of Jeremy Clarkson, Anne Robinson and Chris Moyles happened to be presenting.  None of these individuals are homophobic.  All call a spade, a spade and are vocal about their opinions.  Chris Moyles might be a piss-taker, but very often the butt of his humour is himself.  I accept that gay characters in so many plays, soaps and other programmes seem to be a parody, but then the other characters are clichéd, as well.  I suspect that as the researchers were specifically looking for bias against gays, they found it.  Seek and ye shall find.  Had they been asked to watch the programmes and note down anything they thought to be significant but without being told what they were looking for, the result of the survey might have been very different.

Too often, focus groups and activists from “minorities” are blind to the “robust humour” to which the general population is subjected.  They are too ready to adopt the role of victim and are far too sensitive and perceive slight where there is none.  It is also a sad fact of life, that the World does not perceive any of us as we perceive ourselves, but so often, the World’s perception is right.

The portrayal of homosexuality in the media is very often trite and silly.  The BBC is pro European Union and Tory-Sceptic, but it is not homophobic.[1]

1. Why does the Bill change the current procedures for the enactment into our law of EU legislation? 

2. What guarantees are there that the Bill could not be used to bring in the EU Constitution by the back door? 

3. If the Bill is just a simplifying measure for deregulation, why does it contain no requirement for any orders to actually reduce the amounts of red tape and regulation? 

4. Why does the Bill give the power to create new law, including new criminal offences, to the Law Commissions, which are unelected quangos appointed by Ministers? 

5. If the Law Commissions are supposed to be staffed by impartial technical experts, why are Ministers taking the power to amend the recommendations of the Law Commissions before they are fast-tracked into legislation? 

6. Why do protections in the Bill against new laws to permit forcible entry, search, seizure or compelling people to give evidence not apply to reforms recommended by the unelected Law Commissions appointed by Ministers? 

7. If the Bill allows Ministers to “amend, repeal or replace legislation in any way that an Act might”, does this not give them an unlimited power to ignore a democratic Parliament and legislate by decree? 

8. If the Bill is so sensible, why has Parliament used a different way of making laws for 700 years? 

9. If the Bill is meant to retain Parliament’s ability to scrutinise regulations and regulators, why does it not contain a provision for automatic sunset clauses in orders issued under the Bill? 

10. If the Bill gives Ministers powers to charge fees by decree, is that not a charter to bring in unlimited stealth taxes? 

11. As the Bill permits an order to be made by a Minister under the Bill provided its effect is “proportionate” to his “policy objective”, since when in our history as a democratic country has a Government Minister’s “policy objective” directly received the force of law? 

12. What guarantees are there that the Bill could not be used to bring in ID Cards by the back door? 

13. Why does the Bill give the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly a veto over Ministers’ power to change the law which it denies to English MPs?

For more “stuff” about this Bill,  see Right Links

Those amongst us who resort to the threat or use of violence to win an argument number a few score and their supporters, no more than a few hundred.  Yet such is the climate of cowardice in Europe, that rather than to face them down we appear to seek to appease them.  It was depressing to read the article of Douglas Murray in The Sunday Times today (26^th February 2006) which seems to suggest that Holland is being cowed by Islamic fundamentalists.  Is this the same Holland that fought for freedom successfully against the invincible Spanish in the 16^th and 17^th centuries and allied with the Austrians and English in the early 18^th century, successfully resisted French hegemony in Europe? Apparently, it is.

The threat posed by these “Islamic” terrorists is nothing as compared with the armed might of Spain or Louis XIV’s France.  The Dutch did not flinch against the Spanish or French and if the challenge ever arose again, they would not do so in the future, either.  The problem is that whereas it is easy to mobilise against an aggressive foreign power, it is not so easy when dealing with an aggressive cancer in your own society. Dutch silence is not a sign of weakness or of submission but of indecision.  How do you deal with your own nationals who do not wish to live by your rules, but theirs?  It is their democratic right to agitate for a society in which they wish to live and in which they wish us to live.

The Dutch know the answer is simple, though unpalatable.  At the risk of alienating their minority Muslim population and perhaps provoking a violent backlash, the secular Dutch must campaign vigorously for a society that remains forged in their image.  They know that they must confront and challenge the fundamentalists.  They must hunt down the terrorists and bring them to justice. They are gathering the resolve to do what must be done … and so must we, for their battle is ours.

Laurie Pycroft:  Sixth form drop-out.  Pro-vivisectionist.  Blogger.  Hero.

True, Mr Pycroft does not understand yet the true nature of the animal rights lobby and has yet to face the prolonged campaign of threats, intimidation and violence that must, sooner or later, be directed against him and his family. However, unlike the majority of us, he has made a stand.  He has said what he believes, that is to say, that he considers that research involving tests upon animals is vital for making advances in medical science.  The evidence that it does is overwhelming, but that has not prevented the rest of us, the silent majority, from keeping our heads down whenever the Animal Rights lobby come to Town.

Let me make it plain.  Mr Pycroft is not for instance, a lab technician or a scientist dealing with animal experimentation. He is not linked in any way to the targets of the Animal Rights lobby’s ire. He does not hunt or shoot or in any way cause any “suffering” to animals.  He has simply spoken his mind and set up a pro-vivisection website. In consequence, he has been targeted by the lobby.  First, there has been the usual misinformation spread by the anti-vivisectionists.  The Police have had to provide Mr Pycroft and his family with advice as to how to protect their property and keep safe.

The Animal Rights movement has declared War against people who have a different opinion to them.  Their tactics are the same as against the scientists and others whom they seek to terrorise. As well as the threat of and use of violence, their targets are smeared.[1]  Recent opinion polls have suggested that support for the antivivisection lobby is declining – a drop of ten per cent since 1995.  Now more people support animal testing than do not. By all accounts the aggressive tactics of the lobby are proving counter-productive. Ordinary people are beginning to put their heads above the parapet and challenge the views of the animal rights movement.  Hundreds of people, including students, scientists and members of the public, marched in Oxford today in support of research using animals.  We owe it to them to voice our support for their cause, not only for continued research using animals, but more importantly, for freedom of speech. The animal rights lobby cannot threaten us all, for we are too many.[2]

Opposition is growing to the Government’s latest attempts to enact to itself powers formally exercised by Parliament.  The Bill is drawn so widely that Government Ministers could rewrite current Laws and enact new Laws that at present Parliament only can make.  The Government claims that “safeguards” are in place, but no matter which way you look at it, the Government will have wide powers that it did not have before. It might not be so much a case of the “Divine Right of Kings” but rather one of the “Divine Right of the Executive”, once the Bill becomes Law.[1]

By any account, Christian Europe did not cover itself in glory, military or otherwise, when conducting its numerous Crusades in the Middle East during the eleventh and twelfth centuries.  Those who have sought (with some remarkable success) during the course of the past forty years or more to rewrite the history of our civilisation, have constantly berated us for warmongering against the peace loving (Muslim) peoples of that region.  I do not have any argument with the proposition that “we” were looking for a fight.[1] However, the suggestion that the Muslim powers were not aggressively expansionist, offends against the truth.

It is often forgotten (or more likely not even known) that Charles Martel’s Frank army saved North West Europe from conquest by the Muslims at the Battle of Poitiers in 732 AD.  Spain had already fallen to the conquering Muslims, as had all of North Africa and the Middle East.  The Austrians were still fighting for their survival against the most successful Muslim Empire, that of the Ottoman Turks, in the late seventeenth century.  Barbary pirates raided villages along the coast of southern England (seizing villagers for sale into white slavery) until the middle of the eighteenth century.

It is too readily forgotten that Europe’s (and now, the United States of America's) World ascendancy has been achieved only in the past two centuries.  Before that, it was the nearest run thing you ever saw in your life.[2]

[1] And more often than not, received a pasting.

[2] For an interesting summary of the history of Islamic imperialism, see James Arlandson’s article of the 27th November 2005 in The American Thinker.

Whatever demons Austria is seeking to exorcize, it should not do so by way of having laws that penalise freedom of speech.

It is mostly irritating but occasionally deeply offensive, when individuals hold views that fly in the face of the evidence.  It is even more disgusting when those unfounded views seek to deny for instance, genocide.  Such views though, are better expressed than allowed to fester in silence.  Once propagated, they can be countered forcefully and exposed for the nonsense they are.  Any people espousing or adopting such views identify themselves as fools or at the very least as lacking in any critical faculty and unworthy of any serious attention.

That there is a significant minority of people holding bizarre and unsubstantiated opinions or prejudices, should not disturb those who are possessed of the truth (or anything closely approximating to it.)  There will always be those who must believe in the most grotesque falsehoods and myths just because it suits them.  However, there are many, many more people of sound judgment who, once fully informed, will never be misled by lies.[1]

So says a report in The Guardian today.  Ok, I'll accept "dead", then.[1]

Dr Theodore Dalrymple doesn’t pull any punches in telling it as it is.

PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) whose animal rights campaigns include seeking to end fur and leather use, meat and dairy consumption[1] claimed the scalp of US socialite Paris Hilton upon the occasion of her opening Julien Macdonald’s London Fashion Week. As Ms Hilton and Mr Macdonald were making their way to the after-show party they were pelted with flour bombs in a fur protest.

Whilst this largely American organisation does not resort to grave robbing and various other terrorist acts routinely committed by their hard-line British cousins, they are similarly afflicted by an aversion to the Truth.

The BBC reports that the spokeswoman for PETA Europe, Yvonne Taylor explained,

“There is nothing remotely fashionable about the torture and death of animals killed for fur.”

And,

“Julien Macdonald may have been able to ignore images of bloody skinned animals gasping for breath in the past, but hopefully a dash of flour[2] will help him rise to the occasion and forsake fur once and for all.”

Now, just hold on a moment,

“…nothing…fashionable about the torture and death of animals killed for fur.”

Animals bred for fur are not tortured.  The animal rights fraternity always claim that animals are tortured routinely by the humans processing them.  It is a blatant untruth.  Is it truly PETA’s case that animals bred for fur are skinned alive? If so, where is their evidence?

“…ignore images of bloody skinned animals gasping for breath…”

Oh dear.  This all smacks of hyperbole to me.  Now, where did I put those rotten eggs I was saving for Ruth Kelly…

[1] Vegans.

[2] Napoleon preferred a “whiff of grapeshot” to impose his will.

So says Grace Phillips in the Sunday Times on 5^th February 2006.  This follows the ill judged statement of intent issued by animal rights activists who threatened violence against all staff and students at Oxford by virtue of the University’s plans for a £20 million animal research laboratory.  You can do no better than read the report of Ms Phillips’ defiance.  There is more about the matter and student reaction to the threats, in a report by Patrick Foster and Nicola Woolcock in The Times (1^st February 2006).

I wish Ms Phillips well and I hope she is not subjected to too much intimidation by the faceless individuals who seek to terrorise anyone who opposes their view.  It would be a serious error of judgement for anyone to threaten her, because rather than being an “animal murderer” or “torturer”; she is merely holding a point of view.  It would not be only students who would turn against the “animal rights” movement.  Then again, those who God wishes to destroy, first he turns mad…[1]

I am not aware of the full circumstances in which a Danish newspaper felt it appropriate to publish cartoons which caused such insult to Muslims.  I am aware of the circumstances in which those cartoons came to be republished elsewhere and doubt the wisdom of them having been so.  I suspect it was less a case of those other newspapers exercising their right of freedom of speech but rather more of a raised middle-finger gesture of defiance.  I can understand Muslim anger, though its depth betrays a lack of understanding as to why the “secular” West behaves as it does.

I do not have any issue with a Muslim possessing the beliefs that he has.  However, for my part I do not accept that The Prophet spoke the words of God any more authoritatively than any of his predecessors.  I find that there are jarring inconsistencies in the theories of Islam, Judaism and Christianity.  I suspect that if I studied the other religions, I should find fault there too.  Persons of religious persuasions other than Islam would not take my heresy as an affront, however.  There lies the difference.  Only a tiny minority of fanatical “Muslims” would seek to annihilate “non-believers”[1] but I perceive that a small but significant part of the decent, law abiding majority of real Muslims still seems to feel uncomfortable about and is unable to accept people who do not subscribe to its views.  They do not have any concept of  “live and let live” and would prefer that we all lived in some form of worldwide Caliphate[2].  They acquiesce in the behaviour of the unacceptable, violent, unprincipled minority[3].

It is this absence of understanding of our point of view and lack of empathy for our feelings that causes our hostility, not Islam.  The rant of each fanatic conjures the spectre of every tyrant who sought to bring this island race to nought. Ordinary Muslims should dwell upon that.  We use our laws to bear down upon our miscreant racist minority.  It is time that they put their house in order and consider how we feel.

I need someone to tell me that this report today in the The Times, is not true.   Has not the Government more pressing matters about which to concern itself?

That slick, smoothy New Labour minister Ben Bradshaw says that pet owners have little to fear from this new charter of pets rights.  Forgive me if I remain unconvinced.

It appears that the law on prostitution could be changed following a “lengthy consultation process”.  Fiona Mactaggart, a junior Minister at the Home Office announced the Government’s new strategy last Wednesday 18^th January 2006.

Rejecting amongst other things, David Plunkett’s “red light zones”, the new proposals for instance suggest allowing “worker run” brothels involving two or three women, replace financial penalties for soliciting with an “intervention penalty” and amend legislation which results women convicted of soliciting being official designated as being “common prostitutes”.

This is all really “bog standard” New Labour reform, all style, no substance and it achieves little, if anything.  The idea of allowing up to three women work together is to enable them to “protect themselves”, we are told.  The intervention policy is to “ensure that prostitutes receive help with drug or alcohol problems”.  The term common prostitute is “outdated and offensive”.  All of these laudable aims could be achieved so much more effectively simply by a change of attitude to the idea of prostitution.

Ms Mactaggart’s real attitude to prostitution can be gleaned from various public pronouncements she has made this week and late last year.  Rejecting any suggestion that many women make a choice to undertake this life style and were workers in the ordinary sense of the word, Ms Mactaggart announced that,

“[It is] wrong to regard those involved in prostitution as sex workers…”

She went on to say,

“Tough measures were needed to tackle the markets for prostitution”

and

“I’m not tolerant of the view that prostitution is the oldest professional in the world and there is nothing we can to do to reduce it.  Prostitution blights communities…Men who use prostitutes are indirectly supporting drugs dealers and abusers.”

Last Wednesday, she was reiterating that,

“We are not going to eradicate prostitution overnight.”

To round off Ms Mactaggart’s fifteen minutes of fame we were treated to a television news item by the BBC where the Minister accompanied some vice officers on a curb crawler bust.  An unfortunate punter was detained and processed by the Police whilst the hapless young lady who had been the object of his attention was subjected to a condescending, patronising lecture by the all knowing Ms Mactaggart.

When you know that there are 80,000 prostitutes in the country, 95% of whom are dependent on crack and heroin and that they are all abused by their pimps, clients and are unfortunate victims of a cruel Society it is hard to take against Ms Mactaggart’s Wilberforcian crusade.

The problem arises when you examine the facts.  It is the Home Office that estimates (my emphasis) the number of prostitutes in this country.  Facts and figures emanating from the Home Office in recent years have been shown to be highly dubious and very often wrong.  In this age of New Labour spin so many facts and figures are massaged when being used in support of Government policy, it is hard to accept anything unless it can be independently verified. What of the statistic that 95% of prostitutes are crack and heroin addicts (not just drug users, of say cannabis, amphetamines or cocaine, but the seriously addictive substances?)  I do not believe it.  It is preposterous.

The arguments of those “in the know” who are more sympathetic to working girls are minimised and dismissed out of hand. The truth is that people who inhabit the sex industry need the protection of being involved in an activity which is lawful and socially tolerated, if not accepted.  Legalised brothels for instance would ensure protection of those persons involved in that section of the industry from violent criminals who current pimp and the abusive clients.  Health care for these workers (including drug counselling for the small number who need it) would be so much easier to provide. Social acceptance would raise the esteem of these working girls so much more than changing an old law that describes them as common prostitutes if they are convicted of soliciting more than once.  Does Ms Mactaggart intend to proscribe the use of words such as “tart”, “slapper” and “whore” (to name just a few) which are derogatory terms that have arisen over the years entirely because of the attitude of people like her towards the provision of sex for money?

The anti libertines might find comfort in the fact that less than half of men use prostitutes now than was the case in 1949.  They are winning the War. However, if they are deluded enough to think that prostitution can be eradicated, then they are fools.  It is natural for men to seek sexual gratification.  Women are naturally suited to providing that gratification for something in return, be that by way of a complicated social contract called marriage, cash or benefit in kind, or for the less adept, for free following the provision of too many alco-pops.  You are not going to be able to prevent these sex-for-money contracts without increasingly draconian (but ultimately ineffectual) laws.

To feminists, a woman selling her body to a man is subjugating herself to him, and this must not be allowed to happen.  Faced with evidence that a woman might choose to earn money in this manner, feminists ignore it, choosing to believe that the girls are forced into such behaviour by one means or another.  In their view of the Universe, men (which, for the theory to work, are all intrinsically evil) are always the cause for the girls' downfall.  As many working girls will admit, their choice to earn money by offering sex was made because they could not earn so much working as, for example, a sales assistant at Woolworths.  Many part time working girls (who I suspect, without anything other than empirical evidence, represent the majority) supplement their income even though they do possess other employment or forms of income.  Perhaps if the more mundane jobs were better paid, many girls would choose those and not sell sexual services, though I am not entirely sure.  Some women appear to be comfortable with the concept of charging for their services and do not feel that they have diminished themselves in any way by doing so.

That a few influential feminists had pronounced a Holy Jihad against prostitution was not of great significance.  We know who they are and instinctively take a pinch of salt with anything they say.  However, a more worrying development of recent years is the rise of a new Puritanism which has allied itself with the feminists. This is all the more worrying as New Labour is heavily infected by this Puritanism.  There is always something unsavoury about a creed that is so intense and inward looking that it wishes to impose itself upon unbelievers.  It is worse when that creed is laced with large helpings of hypocrisy.  It is a politically correct Puritanism.

Only fifty years ago, men who indulged in sexual practises with other men were considered by most “right thinking people” as disgusting perverts.  The most innocuous homosexual acts were punished with imprisonment for months and the more intimate acts were visited with sentences of years.  The uninformed “straight” majority were all convinced that these vile individuals were also routinely a threat to our children. The Police expended much time and effort tackling the “threat” that these practising homosexual males posed to Society.  Common sense eventually prevailed.  The bogus facts upon which bogus arguments were based were gradually exposed.  Homosexual behaviour was finally legalised and gay relationships absorbed into the mainstream of Society. As one of Kinsey’s subjects once announced when questioned about why he saw himself as a heterosexual male when he regularly indulged in the “habit” (as it was then called in the US, apparently) he answered, “sex is sex”.  Exactly. If consenting adults wish to indulge in a particular sexual activity, it matters not whether it is man on man, woman on woman or man on woman upon the payment of a fee of fifty quid.  Of course, homosexuality is protected by being one of those politically correct lifestyles/conditions and there lies the hypocrisy.  A woman charging for sex or a man being prepared to pay for it is no more reprehensible than two men wishing to be sexually intimate with each other, or any opposite sex couple indulging in pre marital sex.  Call me a Jeremy Benthamite, but I say that any consensual, adult human to human sexual behaviour should not be proscribed and the moralisers should butt-out and mind their own business.

Much misinformation is published to support the case of the New Puritans in their War against men and prostitutes.  We are led to believe that many women are trafficked to the United Kingdom and tricked or threatened into prostitution. Research in 1999 indicated that 0.06% of prostitutes found themselves in that unsavoury position.  The estimated number of prostitutes at the time of the survey was as it is now, that is to say, 80,000.00.  In other words, there were 48 women who had been trafficked and brought into prostitution by this means.  Of course, since this research was published, this current Labour Administration has admitted to having made a mess of immigration, so no doubt there are now a few hundred such girls; or 0.24% of the total.  Not a lot is it?  It is certainly not enough to warrant “eradicating prostitution”.

I have already stated that the figures concerning hard drug abuse amongst working girls looks dubious to say the least, but we have to examine what else the puritans have to say in this respect.  It is this equally fabricated fact; that the girls are introduced to drugs which are used to trap them into prostitution.  Forgive me for pointing this out, but it is highly improbable that 95% of our 80,000.00 working girls (that is 76,000.00 girls) were tricked into drug addiction so that they then had to become prostitutes.  Think about it.  It does not add up.  I do not have any gripe with the proposition that many girls use might use drugs.  It goes with the territory and the socio-economic class from which they derive in the main. That this use is other than largely recreational, under control and involves the “lesser” drugs, is simply not believable.  That some chaotic drug users do “go on the game” to pay for their habit is correct, but the point is that they were already heroin and crack addicts.  I would not even disagree that there are many hundreds of such girls.  I cannot imagine that they would have a lot of business, or repeat business. They are likely to be so desperate for a fix that they continue to brazenly solicit such that their arrest becomes inevitable and routine (and documented; Oh! And there the puritans have their evidence!)

In essence, the “case” against prostitution is just another example of dangerous, woolly thinking by those amongst our political classes who have an axe to grind, in this instance an alliance of feminists, moralists and fellow travellers.  It is complete and utter humbug.

“I don’t like what you do and I’ll fight to my dying breath to stop you doing it!”

Voltaire will be turning in his grave.

The current "hot" debate that has arisen in relation to the Animal Welfare Bill currently before Parliament has provided more evidence of our politically motivated classes being unable to think through the logical consequences of their prejudices, or of the cans of worms they open inadvertently.

I am not qualified to comment as regards the rights and wrongs of tail docking for "working dogs".  It makes sense to me that if the undocked tail of a dog will suffer repeated injury during its working life, then docking very shortly after birth is the answer.  Then again, routine docking of all dogs of certain breeds suggests that in many cases the purpose is more aesthetic, than for health reasons.  The problem I have with all the concern generated by the issue, leaving aside the waste of parliamentary time that is likely to result, is the fuzzy thinking that it discloses.

Tail docking is not a great moral issue of our time.  If it was, all such similar mutilation of mammal body parts would be up for debate.  As Byron Walmsley, a Consultant Urological Surgeon, says in his letter to The Times today (21^st January 2006):

"How can a Government that is so concerned for the welfare of puppy dogs' tails, continue to allow the practise of male circumcision for non-medical reasons?"

Quite.

Mark Honigsbaum and Alok Jha report in The Guardian today (14.01.06) about amongst other things, the tight security on site at Oxford University’s planned new animal research laboratory in South Parks Road, Oxford.  As will be well known, animal rights activists have used terror tactics in an endeavour to close down animal research establishments and intimidate anyone connected to them.  The previous contractor at this site withdrew after a campaign of intimidation against its shareholders. Now, workers of the new contractor are escorted to and from work each morning.  Commenting upon the security at the site, it is reported by Honigsbaum and Jha that the head of the National Extremism Tactical Co-ordination Unit, Superintendent Steve Pearl explained,

“In the past, activists haven’t hesitated to commit criminal acts against contractors and their suppliers.  Last year we also saw arson attacks on college boathouses.”

It had been noticed that the workers on site wore balaclavas which hid their faces.  Though it was admittedly cold, the protesters picketing the site remarked to the reporters that they did not believe that the balaclavas were for warmth alone.  A spokesman for the protesters is reported to have explained,

“Perhaps it’s because they are ashamed.”

That may be, that may be.  Then again, it might be that each worker appreciates that if his identity became known a dear departed relative’s remains might be unlawfully exhumed and secreted away by someone from a terrorist Animal Rights organisation or fellow traveller.

Since a child I have felt a little uneasy at the knowledge that an animal has been killed so that I can eat meat.  I have taken some comfort from the fact that I have been designed by Nature to be omnivorous[1] though I have never been entirely convinced by the pro-meat eating argument (most recently propagated by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall eloquently in his book “The River Cottage Meat Book”.)  However, because I have never been presented with a convincing, decisive argument in favour of vegetarianism, I have continued to be an “omni”.  It has not been uncommon for my meat eating prejudices to have been reinforced by half-baked, flawed arguments made by vegetarians in favour of their preferred diet, relying upon facts I know to be bogus.[2]

I was reminded of this when reading the letters page of The Guardian Weekend (14.01.06).  My attention was drawn to correspondence by Nitin Mehta from Croydon, provoked by an article in the same publication a week earlier, entitled “Super Green Me”.

Remarks Ms Mehta,

“Some 55 billion animals are raised and killed for meat every year.  Our planet is simply not big enough for these numbers. The result is destruction of rainforests, spreading of deserts and massive methane gas emissions.  The grain fed to these animals could feed almost 4 billion people…”

Leaving aside the dubious, funny figures quoted, the destruction of rainforest arises almost entirely by way of demand for wood (such as teak) from the First World.  Thus in the main, these forests are not cleared for agriculture and where they are, it is not exclusively for growing fodder for animals that are to be killed for meat.

The staple diet of the six million people currently living on this planet is not grain (in fact it is more likely to be rice.)  If the land to which Ms Mehta refers were put over to producing the type of vegetable foods[3]  that those 4 billion people actually wanted to eat, it could not support all of them.

Yes, methane is a greenhouse gas, but the Earth has always been full of it and remember this, the alleged Greenhouse Effect is still a hypothesis, no matter what the Media says to the contrary and some scientists would like us to think.

Woolly, lazy thinking like this is enough to make any reasonable person reach for their chicken roast.