The Press has reported that a log book, used by Special Branch[1] police officers during the counter-terrorist operation in which the Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes was shot dead, had been tampered with, the effect of which , we are told, could have passed blame for the mistake from those officers immediately involved in the incident, to those in command.  We learn also that though it was known that a mistake had been made, the Commissioner Sir Ian Blair was not told until the following morning. There is gleeful excitement that the Commissioner will be under “fresh pressure” by reason of these latest disclosures.  I do not see why.

These latest revelations show that the Commissioner had not been told the true facts when he faced the media, following the shooting.  As it was not he who did anything wrong, he is off the hook. We live in the Age of New Labour, where the political buck does not stop with the man (or men) at the top.  It trickles down the food chain until it reaches the first individual who looks as if he might have been the one who actually messed up and who does not have the political wherewithal to defend himself. It is that unfortunate fall guy, who takes the whole wrap.

Now we know that somebody fiddled an entry in a logbook.  The guys on the ground deny it of course, but then they would, wouldn’t they?[2] One thing is for sure. No one of any importance is going to have to resign or suffer even the slightest discomfiture over this matter.

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.

Matthew Parris asks some pertinent questions in his article in The Times, today (28th January 2006). Unfortunately, the answers are all too obvious.

When a Government’s policies are all style and no substance, it is not immediately obvious to the naked eye that they are built on thin air. Not immediately obvious to politicians addicted to style over substance, that is.

I did not have any inkling of Simon Hughes' pending "outing" earlier this week.  I cannot say that I took any pleasure from his discomfiture, save that I have always fumed at the manner in which he allowed his supporters to disparage the openly gay Labour candidate, Peter Tatchell in the 1983 Bermondsey By Election.

The revelation about Simon Hughes' bisexuality, taken in conjunction with his less than frank remarks about the issue during the course of the past week or so and the Bermondsey blot in his copy book, must have put him out of the running for the Liberal Democrat leadership.  Someone is just that bit closer to claiming the Leadership, but is it necessarily Menzies Campbell?  Who is next for the banana skin?  If Ming is truly merciless, who might be his Flash Gordon?

And remember.  This leadership contest might not be the definitive one prior to the next General Election. There are still 59 Liberal Democrat MP's to go. 

I have never been a believer in conspiracy theories, but the recent demise of so many senior Liberal Democrats in recent weeks has set me thinking. Is there someone who is plotting their way quietly to the top?  If so, which one of the remaining sixty MP’s is it?  Can it be a Tory “sleeper” planted in the dying days of the last Tory Administration?  Have New Labour had a hand in it?  Where was the BBC at the time of the crime?  How about the other usual suspects?  Who is going to “get it” next?  Or have I been reading too much Guido Fawkes?

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.

I do not profess to know whether or not Tony Blair's proposed education reforms are going to improve the state of education in England and Wales. I perceive that our system of education is not so effective or successful as it once was, before decades ago the tinkering began in an attempt to improve upon the supposedly inequitable system that had evolved following the Education Act of 1944.  At the very least therefore, I accept that a full debate upon this issue is essential.

These latest proposed reforms by the Government do not have any impact in Scotland, where the Scottish Assembly has sole jurisdiction concerning matters involving education. Parliament is thus faced with an issue that affects England and Wales, alone.  It is reported in The Times today (21st January 2006) by Rosemary Bennett and Tony Halpin, that up to a third of the forty strong group of Scottish Labour MPs intent to actively oppose the Government's education reforms.  This opposition is to be low key, we are told, so as not to attract attention to the "West Lothian Question", which would be a diversion from the main issue.

It is wholly objectionable that Scottish MP's should be allowed a say in English affairs when Parliament has no say over the same matters in devolved Scotland.  That a Labour Government will never address the West Lothian Question, is without doubt.  The plain fact of the matter is that, save for the odd aberration, a Labour administration needs its Scottish contingent to carry the vote in matters relating to a largely Conservative/Liberal Democrat England.

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.

So, the two Thai fishermen responsible for the rape and murder of Katherine Horton on New Year’s Day 2006 have been sentenced to death.

It has been customary in those jurisdictions were the death penalty remains, for the ultimate sentence to be reduced to one of a life sentence were the crime is admitted and a guilty plea entered at Court.  In fact, the principle of a routine reduction of sentence upon admissions being made and/or guilty plea being entered is common to many jurisdictions for many crimes, both serious and minor.  A spokeswoman for Amnesty International, Sarah Green was reported to be “disturbed” that the death sentence had been passed upon the two men, Bualoi Posit and Wichai Somkhaoyai.

It is very disturbing.  Leaving aside the indecent haste with which the whole trial process proceeded, it is very likely that the defendants were persuaded to enter guilty pleas for the sole purpose of avoiding the death sentence in the event their “not guilty plea” failed at trial.  The intervention of the Prime Minister of Thailand, Mr Thaksin Shinawatra could not have been helpful[1].

No one can be criticised for drawing the conclusion that the death sentence was imposed for the sole purpose of protecting the tourist industry and had nothing to do with the perceived seriousness of the crimes committed.  This is a case of Justice clearly not being seen to be done.[2] 

I have been deeply disturbed by the case of Paul Reeve, the teacher whose appointment was authorised by a Minister, notwithstanding having been cautioned for an alleged offence relating to viewing pornographic sites containing unlawful pictures of under age children. 

Let me state at the outset that I endorse many of the comments of  Matthew Parris  in The Times (14.01.06) and Simon Jenkins in The Sunday Times (15.01.06). 

The problem I have is this. Given the nature of Mr Reeve’s “offending” I do not see anything wrong with his appointment having been approved after careful vetting by a Minister of the Crown.  I understand how the public furore came to be and why the Government has found itself in hot water over the issue.  However, save for the inadvisable act of allegedly viewing child pornography, following his caution being administered by the Police, Mr Reeve’s behaviour has been, to all accounts, blameless. 

The exact details of Mr Reeve’s offending are not known; save that following his credit card details being associated with a child porn web site (as a result of Operation Ore) he accepted a caution from the Police. 

The Police have strict guidelines as regards whether a suspect should be offered a caution rather than being prosecuted.  Factors taken into account include the offender’s previous good character but more importantly the seriousness of the offence involved.  A caution is not given where the offence might merit a term of imprisonment.  This leads me to the irresistible conclusion that the “child porn” that Mr Reeve admitted to viewing was very tame.[1] 

The caution system is very useful in enabling the Police to dispose quickly of cases where the miscreant is “banged to rights” and has admitted the offence.  Having said that, it is my experience that unfortunately people sometimes accept a caution in circumstances where they have a triable defence but wish to avoid publicity and the embarrassment of a trial.[2]  In Mr Reeve’s case it is easy to understand how he might have accepted a caution “just to get the matter over with”. 

As Mr Reeve is now a “sex offender”, he is deemed to be a risk to children.  On the known facts the risk that he poses must be so tiny or theoretical that in fairness he should not be barred from teaching children. Thus it was right that his case was carefully vetted and that he was cleared to continue teaching children. The decision of the then junior education minister Kim Howells was unimpeachable.[3] 

Much is made of the myth peddled by the Child Protection Industry that all sex offenders work their way up from viewing porn to actually abusing children.  This is such dangerous nonsense.  In the present climate, all cases must be considered upon their own facts, otherwise injustice results.

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.

Ferrets in a sack 

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More from The Sunday Times

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What is David Cameron for?

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Ouch!

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David Cameron and the Tory Front

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I am not a public authority!

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What are the Tories for? # 3

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Are we all potential child abusers and paedophiles now?

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What are the Tories for? # 2

For those Conservatives out there looking for ideas or inspiration, eat this!

3rd October 2005

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 What are the Tories for?

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According to the news this morning, sixteen thousand people have joined the Conservative Party since David Cameron was elected as its Leader in December 2005. Now, we are told, the party has more members than The Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats put together. This returns us to the situation that had existed prior to the "bad old days" (1992 - 2005) when Conservative Party membership had usually exceeded that of the other major parties individually, by a fair margin.