This explains why the proposed restrictions on underage drinking are purely absurd. The logical conclusion of it would be to employ State inspectors to attend people's houses and have people prosecuted for, umm, putting too much sugar in their cake?

Again the puritans show their nasty police State mentality, calling for State intervention into every aspect of people's lives. It is the same type of logic displayed by do gooders both of the right and the left who support the drug laws and any other piece of legislation which determines what people can and cannot do with their personal time.

While browsing I came across this. Now I have not yet mentioned that I now live in Bournemouth. The reasons for it are a bit drawn out. But it does seem necessary to mention it now it appears relevant politically.

I have noticed, having known the town quite well for a while, that it does appear to have a climate where racists feel relatively welcome. The hostile (and sometimes racist) remarks the journalist received say quite a lot. Bear in mind that the Echo is owned by News West (who also own the Mail, not exactly a bastion of liberalism). She seems to get accused of being a 'wet liberal' simply for writing a straightforward report on the issue. It also appears that she has a point - I can imagine the council would hesitate to allow them there due to fear over the activities of anti fascists, a large proportion of them being communists of some stripe.

I am a believer in freedom of speech and believe the BNP should be entitled to air their views, no matter how obnoxious they may be. I have come to realise that such is the price you pay in a democracy. If you silence one group - the question remains of who will be next. It would not be logical to suppose that those who wish to silence the far right would stop there. There are no doubt some among them who would ideally like the 'no platform' principle applied to anybody who questioned their views, even those from the left as well as from the right.

I was for a time an activist on the far left and did have my reservations about the tactics of 'anti fascism'. I always suspected that it may have had the potential of being the mirror image of what it claimed to oppose. Fascists support the use of force - does this mean I must become like them and get involved in breaking up the meetings? Breaking up the meetings of opponents by force seems to imply that you cannot handle opposition. This is a tool which fascists have in fact used against the left in order to prove it's undemocratic nature. It can be a gift to them.

I believe in counteracting racist propaganda by challenging it. Challenging the BNP by exposing who they are. There is nothing wrong in standing outside a hall with leaflets and banners, but to physically stop a meeting? Count me out.

Two Controversies Surrounding the Issue of Racism

I.

Most people agree that racism is wrong. More under debate is the issue of what constitutes it.

Does, for example, voicing the view that there are too many immigrants in Britain amount to racism? Some may hold that it does. I would dispute this and say it depends on what one's motivations are. If it is a question of wishing to preserve 'racial purity' or something along those lines then there can be little doubt. If, on the other hand, it is due to worries over Britain being 'overcrowded' or the potential costs of immigration then I would not call this in and of itself racist. I believe it is possible to hold this view without necessarily discriminating inherently against people of a different race or culture, or believing that people of certain ethnicities are inferior in whatever area you wish to attribute. Although it may of course lead to propping up or giving ammunition to people who do hold racist views. I for one do not hold such views and have no objection to immigration, I believe it can often bring benefits. But by simply writing off all those who disagree with me as being racist I will not do my own argument any favour; it will simply be intellectual laziness and a disingenuous method of arguing.

This issue was brought to the news last week, the story being outlined here. I understand why 'Star' wished to raise attention to the matter. What I am suspicious of is the demand for Oxford to fire Coleman, which Oxford has said it will not do anyway. I go along with the freedom of speech argument. Academic institutions should be places where any views should be open for discussion and argument. If a view is simply not credible it will not be taken seriously. Take David Irving, the holocaust denier in jail in Austria. Despite the fact that his persecution by the authorities played into his hands as it enabled him to play the victim and be a martyr for the far right, nobody save for a few groupies took his ideas seriously. The fact that 6 million Jews did die in the holocaust has been established as a historical fact, and no credible historian would claim otherwise.

On the other hand it is possible to debate on the benefits of immigration. It is one thing argue that migrants should be welcome on humanitarian grounds, another argument to say that they bring economic benefit to the country at large. It would appear that the jury is still out on the issue.

Coleman has not, to anyone’s knowledge, been putting forward his own views as being those of Oxford. Star argued that advertising his appearances at the Migrant Watch events as being ‘David Coleman, Professor of Demographics, Oxford University’, would be using his status and the name of Oxford to give the organisation academic ‘credibility’. Hmmm. Whether they like it or not, Coleman’s position and his subject matter do give him some qualification to speak on related matters, whether or not you agree with the conclusions he draws.

At a university students are able to disagree with and to challenge the views of an academic when they wish. In fact, education is supposed to facilitate critical thinking in individuals.

The Head Office of Star stopped the campaign in the end, and have distanced themselves from their Oxford branch. This could well be due to the fact that they are publicly funded.

Meanwhile, is Coleman actually a racist? Not having attended any of his lectures nor read his papers I cannot say for certain. However, I looked online and found nothing that looked heavily incriminating in that direction. Yes, he is the co-founder of Migration Watch (see here). The titles of some his papers seem to indicate that he argues from a Malthusian standpoint (i.e. that overpopulation causes poverty and other social ills). Racists can seize upon this view, and it does tend to blame the poor for their problems, rather than focusing on inequality and exploitation, prime causes of poverty. Malthusianism was sometimes tied in with eugenics early last century.

But it is not necessarily racist in and of itself, although it is very easy to use it for such ends. Some people’s views of what constitutes racism are clearly broader than others.

II.

Secondly there was the Mercer affair. Patrick Mercer had made some comments that were insensitive, especially in the current climate. But they did contain an element of truth – namely that the army is a place in which bullying is common. He stated that soldiers with ginger hair were also subject to bullying, which he interestingly claimed was more severe.

Now I don’t wish to claim that the bullying of ginger haired people is the same as racism. It does not have the same historical significance or context. Gingers have not been sold into slavery, deported, been victimised by imperialism or sent into concentration camps. This is partly what makes race such a sensitive issue. Having said that, though, I do not believe that the bullying of ginger haired people is acceptable. Indeed there are wider issues of bullying concerned. Race can simply be a pretext for bullying. Then again, there are wider factors surrounding racism, it is not a simple discrimination along grounds of appearance in the form of one's skin colour, or the way one dresses, what food they eat etc.

Another factor is scapegoating – finding an ‘out group’ then blaming them for your own grievances and for social ill in general, attributing to them traits you find repellent or are afraid of in yourself (also known as projection). I have no idea where the anti ginger tendency originated from – but one thing it does have in common with racism may be fear of ‘the other’ – an irrational fear of anybody who looks different or who is different in other ways (having ginger hair is less common than say, blonde or brown hair).

I blogged on the Celebrity Big Brother issue at around the time of the incident. While there was racism involved in the treatment of Shilpa Shetty this was far from the only or even the primary factor. Shetty was different from the others in ways besides race – she was smarter and more successful than they, for instance, and not on their wavelength. Much of the bullying seemed down to jealousy, along with the fact she was not one of them.

What focusing on the race issue seems to do is mask the wider issue of bullying. The question can reasonably be asked as to why it is deemed unacceptable to call somebody a Black c*** but not a ginger c***. And you will come to the stark truth that there are all manner of insults and bullying remarks. Yet you cannot pass a law as to make anti ginger insults illegal, as where would you stop? It would be impossible to make every form of insult a crime, even if they are designed to provoke hatred towards an individual. This is why legislation cannot solve the race issue. To forbid people voicing a sentiment will not cure them of it. At the most it will simply let it fester while driving it underground. The far right are fond of claiming victimhood by stating that they are being persecuted.

The wider issues surrounding bullying deserve some investigation. The State has a tendency to fetishise race. But in order to fight racism we should first understand what it is and what it is not. Arguing for censorship or other measures to extend the arm of the State does no favours. Neither does belittling racism by simply using it as an insult and/or a way of attempting to discredit somebody. It will get to the stage where people are frightened of even raising certain issues lest they offend someone. People may rather remain silent rather then suffering the insults of racist, sexist, homophobe etc.

It probably goes without saying that I do not believe Mercer should have been sacked. His remarks were careless but I by no means consider him to be a racist and neither should any other reasonable person.

"The Great Global Warming Swindle"

I have no scientific qualifications and I have little knowledge about the science surrounding global warming. Unfortunately I did not see the offending television programme on Thursday either. This article, however, does raise some interesting points. Despite my disagreement with many of their views I have always quite liked 'Spiked'. I tend to go with them on their 'culture of fear' arguments (how the media has a tendency to scaremonger).

It does pose the question: Why are those without scientific qualifications allowed to write about climate change or contribute to the discussion only if they agree with the accepted theory? The scientific world, as always, has it's dissenting and minority views. Although it is hard to believe that Spiked had nothing to do with the programme as they claim, the questions the article poses are nonetheless valid.
George Monbiot and his pals at the Graun put it down to a sinister conspiracy theory, and so do other environmentalists. I believe it os not so simple, and until I see the evidence of both sides and understand the science behind it better than I currently do I shall not adhere rigidly to either side. Yet man made global warming appears to have become the established truth in the current climate. Only a maverick loon or somebody in the pay of big business would doubt this allegedly incontrovertible 'truth'. Why do the media (and for their part, the majority in the scientific community) wish to shut down debate and discredit those who dissent? If one was to claim the Earth is flat they would simply not be taken seriously, as the proof that it is a sphere is taken for granted today.
Global warming perhaps only provokes such feeling because the proof is not so irrevocable as that.

Red Maria posted on this matter herself and I thank her for alerting me on it. Something which I find extremely irritating about the Green movement is the sanctomoniousness and self righteousness displayed by some of it's adherents and promoters. George Monbiot most readily springs to my mind, and so do some of the other Graunistas. Bear in mind that they have no more scientific credibility or expertise than the people they like to discredit. They fail the test themselves, so by their own standards would fall short of the qualifications they demand from the dissenters. They hold the dissenting scientists to be part of a big capitalist conspiracy, which doesn't wash.

Sensationalism sells newspapers. There is always something we should be very afriad of. People should be scared, so silence the dissenters as to better sell this package. Silencing debate is not going to save the planet. Looking at the issue from a less impassioned and calmer standpoint would surely be far more productive in the way of finding solutions as to dealing with potential problems? But no, people must be made to feel guilty. They must be scared so as to make them act.

It seems like a cause like that gives some people a sense of moral righteousness. Perhaps it is an attempt of the middle classes to gain credibility and assuage their liberal guilt. Case in point: A television clip showed a queue of cars outside a recycling unit, causing more pollution than dispensing of their rubbish in the normal manner would have done. Being 'green' is an easy thing for someone to hold up as proof they are kind and caring people, and to hold themselves above those who are wasteful. So easy to moralise about and install guilt into others.

This has really made me angry. Yet it is so typical of this government to stifle the media when it is it's own interests. But they will only look worse for doing so.

This country has a government riddled with corruption. It's authoritarian social policies (i.e I.D cards, detention without trial), along with cronyism and now media censorship make it look less like a democracy but far more like a corrupt dictatorship. Taking one look at the opulence displayed by the Blairs says quite a lot.

I, for one, won't be too sorry to see them go. I somehow doubt the Tories could be very much worse. The results of what little good this government has done don't stand up to very much. The harm seems to outweigh any good that has been achieved.

'Education, Education'

When my parents were at school high hopes were put into the prospects of comprehensive education. It had been noticed that there had been a high socio-economic gap between the children attending grammer schools and those in secondary moderns. Comprehensive schools, it was hoped, would alleviate this. Education would no longer discriminate, and all children from all classes and all abilities would be given equal opportunites.

Alas, it was not to be. What we have instead is a new form of two tier education. Well performing state schools look more like grammer schools with their large intake of children from middle class backgrounds, while those not born in such fortunate circumstances tend to be segregated in what look like badly run secondary moderns.
The government could not afford to ignore this problem, but their proposed measures seem to be doing little to change it.

The rhetoric of parental choice did nothing to address the issues surrounding children in those 'failing' schools, as what kind of parent would 'choose' to send their children to a badly performing school? In reality there is no substance behind the rhetoric, save for appealing to the consumerist tendencies of the class it seeked to impress.

I understand parents wanting the best for their children. But the very idea of professing to believe in a religion you do not truly believe in in order to get your child into the right school is abhorrent to me. And what do you tell the child in question when you are taking him and her to the services? Do you lie and tell them you believe everything they are taught in catechism/Sunday school is all true? Or do you tell the truth and say you don't believe it but you are putting them through it for their education? Either way you would be a fraud.

Segregation in schools by class is not easy to tackle. The poor don't have the same choices that the more prosperous have. A school in a wealthy suburb is likely to be high on the league tables, which is not the case for a school in a run down area of the inner city. Knowing the system the middle classes can move to the right catchment areas, guaranteeing their child a place. Besides the fact that they may not know how to work the system so well, poor families have fewer options on where they live anyway. A sought after school is likely to drive property prices in the surrounding area up.

I don't see the idea of poorly performing schools taking on a quota of middle class children as being workable. Their parents simply will not have it. Yet perhaps hihg performers being forced to accept a quota of children from lower socio economic backgrounds/lower achievement record may just be workable.

Poorer children do not tend to underachieve because they are stupid, it is due to a myriad of factors. Culture is one issue. Poorer children may have fewer aspirations, for one thing. If you know the result may well be a dead end job or welfare as you see your parents and their peers then there would seem little motivation. The exceptional may pull themselves out of this but not everyone is exceptional. Somebody born in the right circumstances may do very well, while go with the flow if they were not so fortunate. Doing well when you are in a run school where studiousness is frowned upon by your peers, and your parents don't have a computer or a range of books on their shelf requires much harder effort.

Singling out failing schools and 'naming and shaming' them was an unpleasant measure which the already stressed teachers could have done without. Rather those schools could be given extra help and facilities. A few of the city academies seemed to have worked out well, while others have not been so fortunate.

It is very sad to still see this problem in the 21st century. It certainly shows we are not 'all middle class now', and it brings shame on the UK for being one of the most unequal societies in the West. It is needless to say that educational segregation, whether or not it is a deliberate policy, further obstructs social mobility.

UK Worst Place for Kids....

This story has distressed me for several reasons. It serves to remind me of why I have strong doubts about bringing children into this world for one thing. Living in a non child friendly country like Britain does not help.

Like most people I can only speculate on the reasons for it. The individualism of the 1980s with it's economic restructuring went a long way towards breaking down community ties and led to a greater degree of social atomisation, for one thing. The Scandinavian countries with their strong Welfare States seem not to have so much of a problem with their youth, and neither do countries where family ties remain strong.

Alongside this goes the long work hours culture of Britain. Most two parent families these days have little choice but for both parents to work, often full time, and this results in them not being able to spend as much time with their children as is ideally needed for their growth. The State is still trying to grasp an idea of flexible working hours and a family friendly workplace but much of it remains hot air. A rush to make profits now appears not to make for good investment in the future - children of course being the future.

It is little wonder that the birth rate is declining as the incentives for having children are highly neglible in the UK. But something will have to be done to reverse this trend if the government do not want to struggle with an ageing population with not enough people of working age to support them.

Aside from the obvious things which spring to mind such as flexible working, better welfare for poor families and children, accessible child care etc we could also do with treating our children as human beings in their own right, not as mere extensions of ourselves. A child friendly society recognises children's needs and accepts them as part of that society. We have a long way to go. The constant demonisation youth receive in the media is a big part of this problem.

I have a working pc once again at home so I should be back in circuit. It has not only been that inconvenience which has kept me away but a slight lack of motivation for writing. Not having a pc always to hand does not really help with a case of writer's block (for want of anything better to call it).

But I shall get myself back in gear by beginning my musings once more, starting with a controversial subject (as is my nature!).

What dominated the news when I returned from my disaster of a trip was the issue surrounding Catholic adoption agencies and gay adoption. It may be a bit old now but the issue has had me thinking.

To be blunt I have been wondering what the big fuss is really all about. To begin with it strikes me as unlikely that a gay couple would use a Catholic adoption agency to anyway. If it is the issue of public money being spent then a clause could have easily been added that obliged the respective organisations to refer the hypothetical couples elsewhere in the unlikely scenario in which they were approached. Who would be hurt by this, really? But as always this has brought out the usual chorus of Catholic bashers in the form of militant secularists and intolerant liberals.

Now it may be argued that an exemption on religious grounds could set a dangerous precedent. It could be speculated, for instance, that a Muslim restaurant could refuse to serve Hindus, or vice versa. Or that religious hoteliers of any persuasion could refuse to admit gay couples. However, accessing a public service such as a hotel or restaurant is not the same thing as adopting a child. It raises a different set of issues.

However, setting an exemption clause for religious organisations alone on this matter raises other problems. For instance, an organisation could conceivably object to gay adoption on non religious grounds - merely on a traditionalist belief that a child needs both a father and a mother. Why should such a secular group have to comply while religious groups have an opt out clause?

Surely a simple solution would have been to allow it to be a matter of conscience.
A simple clause that obliged organisations which objected to refer potential adopters to other organisatons which would be able to help them would have seemed a fair enough compromise. There would of course have been some people on either side of the spectrum who this would not have sufficed for but you cannot please everyone. Most reasonable people understand that in life there will come situations where one must compromise.

Despite the commonly held liberal orthodoxy I do not feel that objecting to gay adoption on the belief that children need both a father and a mother amounts to homophobia or even discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation. Ask me honestly if I think a child would be better off in a traditional family set up and I will give the honest answer that I simply do not know. Who can say in all seriousness that they do? There have not been enough case studies to find out and it may be unlikely that there ever will be.

The closest parallel I can think of is the opt out clause doctors and other medical staff have been given in regards to performing abortions. 'Pro choice' extremists have sometimes opposed this, voicing the ludicrous idea that it amounts to a form of discrimination. This idea is ludicrous simply because refusing to perform an operation because it is against your ethical code is not the same thing as refusing to treat somebody on the grounds of their colour.

Enforcing by law adoption agencies to serve gay couples may indeed set a dangerous precedent. It may well encourage people like those described above to be bolder in demanding that abortion be recognised as a legal right. If this was to be the case then the right to opt out could become a thing of the past. Doctors who refused to participate could find themselves struck off on the grounds that they would be refusing patients what is their legal right. Or people with ethics not unlike my own would cease to enter the profession in the first place. Catholics and Muslims would in effect be barred from the practice.

Such a framework is not what amounts to tolerance. Paradoxically it is an authoritarian form of liberalism that is unable to accept that not everyone shares it's value system. It is willing to use the force of the State to ensure that everybody does share it at least in practice. Whether or not they really do in their hearts is secondary - why use a carrot when the stick suffices to do the job?

Using the might of the State does nothing to shift people's basic value systems. All this will result in will be Catholic adoption agencies shutting up shop, organisations which by all other means have provided a good service over the years. What it will not do is change the view of the church towards homosexuality. A view that for the record I will say that I would like to see change. But I certainly do not believe that this is the way to change it. If anything it has merely created more pain and tension with the gay and Catholic communities (leaving aside gay Catholics for the moment, who I would suspect don't like being once more in the middle of this). I for one would not like being pitted against my own organisation by an agressive and intolerant 'liberal' State.

Dead Avian Mule.....

There was a strange story on New Zealand radio yesterday concerning drugs being smuggled into a prison via a dead pigeon. The offending mule was thrown over the wall of the prison yard, after which the prisoner caught it. Alas, he was caught by the guards and had both his mule and its booty confiscated.

What touched me more than anything was the naivety displayed (probably wilfully for the benefit of his listeners) when talking to the prison spokeswoman. It did not transpire until the end of the interview that the bird in question was a pigeon and not a hmm, penguin or albatross. ‘Surely you’d need a big bird to fit drugs into?’ he said.
‘Well, no’, she replied. ‘People today still assume the drug of choice would be cannabis, for which you would need a bird the size of an albatross. These days the drug of choice in prisons tends to be crystalised methamphetamine, for which a pigeon suffices as it can be measured in spoons’.

Crystal meth! The same evil which has plagued rural Montana!

Can you imagine such an interview taking place on the BBC? No chance. People know that the drugs of choice taken in prison would be cocaine or more likely heroin, which can easily be measured in teaspoons. The Brits are not so naïve to assume that somebody would go to that trouble for a bit of weed. I assumed immediately the bird was a damn pigeon and had no need for it to be explained to me!

To speak frankly I don’t know whether this is something I like or dislike about this place, as it is only a sign of its isolated nature and its provincial tendencies. Yet at the same time it makes me slightly nostalgic for the innocent days of my parents.

What more can I say?

Kiwi and Aussie Chavs (Bogans)....

It seems in australia and New Zealand 'chavs' are called 'bogans'. But they seem nowhere near as subject to hatred and ridicule as are their British counterparts. This site appears to be the nearest Australian equivalent of the British 'chavscum' site. It appears to be relatively benign in comparison with 'chavscum' and I do wonder if the creators were bogans themselves..

'Littledick' and the Sewer Press.......

Here is a piece of bile from the Hate Mail's Little Dick. The murder victims in Ipswich evidently asked for it, according to him. They deserved what they got, had it coming, blah blah. If anything their deaths were a good thing as there are five fewer heroin addicts and sex workers in the UK.

I hope he one day gets an obituary that is as hateful as this one. I hope whoever chooses to write of his demise in the pages of the 'Graun' points out his total failure as a human being, and what a vile and stinking specimen of a man he was. What does Littledick do for humanity? Does he do any 'missionary work' in Darfur? Has he discovered any breakthroughs in medical science? Fat chance.

He is far, far worse than any heroin addict. He makes a living out of writing hate lit for the equivalent constituency of those who brought Hitler to power - the lower middle classes, with all their projected frustrations and pent up rage. Muslims, 'white trash', economic migrants, asylum seekers - in other words all those who are more vulnerable in society than themselves. I don't absolve the Mail's readership as was there not a market for Littledick's bilge he would not write it.

But to dance on the graves of five murdered women on the grounds that they were sex workers and heroin users should even make the readers of the Mail blanch a wee bit. However, I wouldn't be in tears if Littledick popped his clogs. Therefore I wouldn't expect him to shed any crocodile tears for the vulnerable who he despises. But I'd at least have expected him to have had the decency to have respected the feelings of the relatives of the dead women and have written nothing about it. It seems there are no depths to which he will not sink. It is lower than gutter journalism - 'sewer press' would be a more apt description. To expect any shred of human kindness or decency from this piece of slime is clearly is too much. Go to hell, Richard, or more accurately to the sewers.

It is vicious and bigoted to reduce heroin users down to any one thing just as much as it is with sex workers. Some heroin users I have known have been among the most gentle and sensitive people I have met. Perhaps too nice for this world - a world that stinks because it contains people like Littledick. Not because it contains heroin addicts, sex workers, Muslims, asylum seekers. etc etc.....

A very good argument here against the prohibition of drugs, in relation to the murder victims in Ipswich having been heroin addicts.

Check it out. Prohibition kills.

The British Tradition of Puritanism and Sleaze (and the Myth of Nancy)........

I.

I came accross a copy of a John Bunyan book yesterday in the public library. 'Puritanism' the writer on the sleeve commented, 'is undoubtedly part of the English character'. I don't know if this is an aspect of my character that I am unconscious of. But while I cannot help but agree on the whole with that statement, it is not an aspect of the national character that I take pride in by any means.

But it is alive and well in the press, in Westminster, in the pressure groups, on the web and in the homes and the streets of the United Kingdom. It can exist similtaneously in the pages of the Graun and the Torygraph. It is a big part of the heritage of both English socialism and feminism (one main reason why I don't really identify myself with either of these traditions, which are essentially as middle class as George Orwell once pointed out). It is what causes the English to be more preoccupied with the sex lives of politicians than the Latin countries. It was this Anglo heritage that almost brought down Bill Clinton.

Sexuality, when it is repressed by puritanism, becomes 'dirty'. Part of the thrill of British sex is down to the belief that something wrong is being done, that a trangression is taking place.

This came to my attention after having read an Emile Zola novel (French writer of the late 19th century). it was entitled 'The Kill' and was a depiction of the decadence of the bourgeoisie of the second empire. There were some fairly graphic sex scenes. I realised that such a novel would not have even been penned, let alone published, by any respected English Victorian author.

I remembered the scenes of 'Oliver Twist' (one of my favourite Victorian novels). I recalled the way that the fact Nancy was a prostitute had to be spelled out by Dickens in the introduction as any description of her trade would have been considered indecent in the novel. Contrast this with Zola's (Zola often being described as the 'French Dickens' for his realism) 'Nana' - an entire novel being devoted to the tragic life of a Parisian courtesan from a working class background. The sexual activities of Nana were described just as graphically as was the bourgeois sex of 'The Kill'.

Let us compare the stories of Nancy and Nana (Paris and London, a Tale of Two Cities, Nana and Nancy, a tale of two.......).
Both women come from poor working class backgrounds. Nana's upbringing is documented in Zola's earlier novel 'L'assomoir', which describes the lives of her alcoholic parents in the Goutte d'Or district of Paris. Nancy's background is only referenced briefly in her discussion with the middle class virgin 'Rose' - but is taken to be not unlike that of Nana. Here, however, is where the similarities end.






Zola does not morally endorse Nana's profession. Her tragedy stems partly from her greed. But it is made clear that Nana decided herself to embark on her profession, and is relatively in control of her work. She gets involved briefly with an abusive boyfriend but it doesn't last that long. Her downfall comes more with the corruption of one of her wealthy clients with a fetish for bondage. Like Nancy Nana has to die, but she catches typhoid).

Nancy, on the other hand, is an unwitting victim. She did not embark on her profession via her own choice but was bullied into it by Fagin and her violent partner Bill Sikes. She was 'led astray', in other words. And she is full of remorse and self pity for what she is, a trait noticably absent from the unrepentant Nana.

Nana and Nancy respectively can be seen to symbolise the British and the French attitudes towards the sex industry. Nancy remains the perpetual archetype for the downtrodden English prostitute. Every woman working the street is Nancy. Every Nancy has a Bill. The shame attached to the sex industry makes it all the sleazier.

I split this into two parts as it is long and not on a straight continuum. Please read on......

II.

The Myth of Nancy (Continued).....

We know the story of Nancy. We know that she met her death at the hands of Bill Sikes, her 'bully' (Victorian for pimp). She was a pure victim of circumstance, of poverty and of male oppression.

I'm glad in a sense that I'm not in the UK right now. The tragic murders in Ipswich will bring the puritans out with no leash, snapping their jaws and using the deaths of these poor women for their own agenda. Agenda being to attempt to prove that all sex workers are Nancy.

Despite New Zealand's law reform, this attitude has found it's way into the press here. A hack named David Harrison writes an article entitled 'Stark Truth of the Sex Trade'. He comments that the murders have shone a dismal light on the extent of prostitution in the UK. Why, I could almost be at home. I'm feeling homesick already, in fact. And guess what? The article is couresy of the good old Torygraph, given to the 'Dominion Post'. Nice one.

'Britain's dark underbelly is a seedy world of desperate, drug addicted women who sell their bodies for their, or their pimps, next fix of heroin or crack'. Harrison unquestionally cites the home office stats on the prevalence of drug addiction among the UK's streetwalkers (stats which I pointed out yesterday were unreliable).

The drugs come early, most are offered heroin by their abusers, and are forced on the streets to feed their habits and pay their pimps (bullies). Some are 'launched' as early as the ages of 12 or 13 (as was the case with Dickens's Nancy, led astray by Fagin and Sikes).






Harrison writes "The street girls (sic!!) are the most vulnerable "workers" in Britain's expanding sex trade". He puts the term workers in inverted commas.

Such an article could just as well appear today in the Graun as the language is identical, patronising while denying sex workers their rights as sex workers. I am not questioning the fact that the vulnerable women he describes exists. I am sure they do. I don't doubt that there were women like Nancy who actually existed at the time Dickens was writing either. I have no doubt that the women are predominately from poor working class backgrounds either (I don't like the term 'underclass' used on the British poor). The fact that such conditions persist is a condemnation of 21st century Britain.

But it is misleading to suggest as he does that almost all streetwalkers are as he describes. They are not. Not all of them have a pimp or bully. Not all are on drugs. Some are simply freelancers who don't want to pay a brothel keeper and do not have the means to set up themselves or work from home. But what about minders? The issue is not one of the men themselves but their behaviour, and whether or not there is coercion taking place. Buying drugs for a partner doesn't necessarily mean he is forcing you either. The options of the men are often just as limited as those of the women. It may make more sense if you are a couple of addicts for the woman to sell sex rather than for the man to do a burglary and land himself in prison. I am not condoning these conditions, simply being straight and avoiding the implication that all partners of sex workers are 'pimps'. The drugs issue will of course be partly resolved by the decriminalisation or legalisation of heroin use - but few people promote this as an option when discussing the issue of addicted sex workers.

But I'll tell you what makes me mad. It is hard for me to express how I feel about this organisation using polite language. But I'll try. Harrison quotes Diane Marshall of Britain's 'Poppy Project', the home office funded programme to provide shelter for victims of sexual trafficking. Don't get me wrong - this in itself is something I would support. I believe that women abused in such a way should be given shelter and support, and it is a good thing for the British government to provide this. But alas, they are giving the money to the wrong people for this purpose. 'Poppy' are connected to a group known as the 'Lillith Project/Eaves Housing' who have a whole other agenda.

These ladies are continuing in the notable tradition of the 'National Vigilance Association' - to stamp out vice and public immorality. They are modern Victorians. They oppose prostitution being defined as 'sex work' - insisting it should remain 'prostitution' (root - to commit an immoral act for money). Yet how do these feminists do this without condemning the fallen women they wish to save? Easy. They use the term 'prostituted women' - meaning that nobody is doing such work voluntarily. Taking their cue from the Victorian social reformers, they believe that no woman would choose to work in the sex trade, all women being forced via economic or social circumstances beyond their control.

Marshall blames the 'normalisation' of the sex trade for the murders. What utter crock. What of the women murdered by partners and men who they know, women who are not sex workers? What is to blame for that? Monogamy? Marhsall praises the 'good old days' when "it used to be taboo to go with a prostitute, something to be done furtively, something that brought shame if you were found out". Aah, the joys of English puritanism. So it is somehow not so bad if it remains a dirty secret, Ms Marshall, so as to protect the virtue of decent ladies like yourself? It is better that sex workers remain stigmatised, the lowest of the low, so as to seperate themselves from respectable women.

Please don't think that Marshall's project to rescue sex slaves is anything new or remotely radical. It isn't. Victorian groups consisting of middle class women very often indulged in such projects - providing safe houses for fallen women who wished to leave the trade. The 'female mission for the fallen' distributed tracts outside brothels protesting the exploitation of women. Dickens himself was involved in such a project.

Predictably Harrison does not interview any sex workers themselves, only police, charities, and their self appointed redeemers Ms Marshall and a group named "Women for Justice' - who claim that drug addiction, homeless rape and murder are occupational hazards of the sex trade, therefore it is hardly a career choice. Yet they don't consider the possibility that criminalisation may have something to do with this. Oh, no. If they were really worried about the safety of sex workers they would call for policy to help protect them. But they prefer they be criminalised, hence running greater risks to their safety. Nay, they and their ilk call for heavier criminalisation. Which shows their real concern is not the safety of prostitutes but rather the virtue of decent ladies like themselves.

Harrison concludes by saying that 'the world's oldest profession is really the oldest oppression'. With his social conservatism (writing for the Torygraph) and his questionable sources, along with his patronising attitude towards women and his failure to speak to any prostitutes themselves it is not surprising that he says this.

Many middle class (decent and respectable) women give sex in exchange for something, be it security ( often dressed as commitment) or status. The prostitute is a threat to the middle class lady as she direcly asks for money, hence blowing the cover and thus the facade of decency. This exposes the hypocrisy of conventional morality - and the morality of puritanical 'feminists' and their buddies on the right.

It is interesting the way the Torygraph has dropped it's rhetoric of traditional values, public morality, etc and adopted the Graun's rhetoric about the exploitation of women. I guess it puts a better and more modern sounding spin on what is ultimately conventional morality.

To conclude my heart goes out to the murder victims in Ipswich and their relatives - and I am sorry that their deaths are being exploited in this way by the usual suspects.

Prostitution and NZ Law Reform.....

I see a man is being held on suspicion over the Ipswich murders (see link). It is too early to assume him to be guilty, he could well just be a lonely man who is an easy suspect, having known the murdered women and being a client of sex workers. Time will tell.

Meanwhile, I met yesterday with Catherine Healy of the New Zealand prostitute's collective. I had a very interesting discussion with her over the effects of the law reform. I also spoke with a couple of workers who were visiting the building.

Surprisingly the first one I spoke with said it had made little difference to her personally, she pretty much continued working from home as she had done prior to the reform. However, when pressed she stated that she no longer has to register with the police when advertising in a newspaper. Even prior to decriminalisation, NZ had a relaxed attitude in comparison with Britain, with the police not always enforcing the law. Juliette also told me that she could be more upfront when talking with clients on the phone. Another woman told me that the law reform felt like a weight had been lifted off her shoulders as the threat of being busted no longer hung over her.

Something notable about this law is that it is the result of vocal campaigning by sex workers since the late 1980s, campaigning for their right to work as sex workers. It has not been handed down from on high by some thinktank who believe they are protecting the public from a social evil or containing it. Hence the law is based upon the human rights of sex workers as sex workers. It was won in parliament by a narrow majority, and it's opponents were largely on the religious right. It has received the support of most women's groups in the country, and of the liberal left. Ambivalence was also voiced by some residents groups, who feared there would be an increase in both streetwalkers and brothels. Their fears have been unfounded as there has not been a great increase in women choosing to work in the sex industry.

One thing Catherine made clear was that we cannot expect miracles to result from a change in the law. The problems associated with the sex industry have not all dissapeared, and it is doubtful they all ever will as every profession has it's problems and hazards. But there are a few things worthy of note.

Relations between sex workers and police have improved, and violence from clients is more likely to be reported. A murderer in the Christchurch region (who killed two prostitutes) was caught quickly due to the co-operation of sex workers with the police. Being free of police harrasment provides a better environment to work from, and due to the scrap of the pimping charges some women have chosen to take their partners with them as bodyguards or minders to take the license plates of the cars they get into. As sex workers are no longer illegal there has been a slight shift in the social stigma attached to them - they are no longer criminals but are workers with rights under the law.

Something that particularly struck me was the fact that there has been a shift away from brothel work and an increase in freelancers - women working themselves from home or in collectives. Brothel keepers have in fact been complaining that they cannot find enough workers anymore as women do not want to pay the shift fees they charge - they also prefer to work their own hours and charge their own prices.

It is little wonder that the brothel keepers opposed the model of decriminalisation. They were rather in favour of the Dutch model (State licensed brothels) being imported to NZ. The self interest here is pretty obvious. Those who advocate this model for Britain would do well to bear in mind that what they are advocating is a boss's law - not one that enshrines the rights of workers. Marxists would do well to think of the struggle between capital and labour, and remember which side they are supposed to be on. In the Auckland area brothel owners with massage licenses had a rather questionable relationship with local police prior to decriminalisation - they demanded that police clamped down on unlicensed premises, which clearly was not in the interest of freelancers. As I have stated before, one should not confuse legalisation with decriminalisation. They are not the same thing. Sex worker's rights groups almost unanimously oppose the former and support the latter, as do I.

It is also a misconception that most streetwalkers are also drug addicts. Some are (as were the women murdered in Ipswich) but not all are. The stats from the British Home Office on this matter (that 90+% of streetworkers are addicted to heroin or crack) are misleading as well as self serving, as they are taken from the women who use the government's drug treatment programme. In Catherine Healy's experience with street workers some are drug users but they don't make up the majority. That tallies with my own experience with sex workers. I have known women who work on the street and not all have been drug users. It obviously depends on the area too - districts which are struck with poverty and crime in general tend to have a higher percentage of drug users. Heroin and cocaine use is not as widespread in NZ as in Britain, crystal meth seems to be more of a thing here. But there is at least a needle exchange service for intravenous drug users.

But I should also stress that I support the rights of drug users as well as sex workers. If a sex worker is also a drug user (or the other way round) she will need rights as both. Hence my support for the legalisation of all drugs, or at least their decriminalisation.

We also spoke about the misconception that most (even all) migrant sex workers are forced into the trade. This is not the case in Britain and neither is the case in NZ. The main problem facing migrant workers in the sex industry here is their illegal status (as illegal immigrants, not as sex workers). They tend to come from South East Asia rather than Eastern Europe. Some come specifically to work in the sex industry, some arrive for other reasons. But the issues are the same. While it cannot be doubted that trafficking is an issue, it is wrong to assume that all migrant sex workers are slaves. They aren't. Claiming that they are is counterproductive as inflating the numbers is not conducivr to actually formulating policy to tackle the problem. The United Nations recognises that there is no reliable data in the way of human trafficking. If there was then the problem would be closer to being tackled.

A couple more items relating to the law in NZ. A few councils have managed to create by laws restricting the sale of sexual acts from certain zones. These have been opposed by the collective as being contrary to the law, and some have been repealed. Others have remained. What complicates matters is that a brothel in this country does not have the numbers clause as with Britain. In NZ one woman working from home would be effectively keeping a brothel, whereas in Britain it must be more than one.

It is also illegal to practise unsafe sex in exchange for money in NZ. While the collective opposed this clause as it could conceivably be used against sex workers, most sex workers have reported that the law works in their favour. If a client asks for activity without protection they can simply tell him that it is illegal and he will normally drop the matter. Client insistence has usually been the reason that some sex workers admit to practising unprotected sex in many countries.

On Prostitution Law........

Many well meaning folk on the blogosphere and in the UK press have been calling for a legalisation of prostitution in the form of State licensed brothels following the Ipswich murders.

They are wrong on several grounds.

To start with, legalising something does not automatically remove the stigma attached to it, at least not straight away. And in the case of prostitution it is debatable as to whether it ever can be totally removed, although society does seem to be taking a less condemnatory approach to sex workers than it has done in the past.

Legalisation of the sex industry will require more State regulation. Women will likely have to register as prostitutes with the British State, something many of them will understandably be loathe to do. This may also have the effect of institutionalising women in the sex industry.

Licensing sex establishments will not stop managers from charging extortionate 'rent' for the women to work on the premises. Compulsory medical examinations have been suggested as part of the package, a law which would in practice be discriminatory. The mentality behind the proposition is not unlike that of the 'Contagious Diseases Act' which was proposed in the Victorian era.

"The Acts made the assumption," Megara Bell points out,

that prostitution was a permanent and necessary evil. They condoned male sexual access to fallen women and were specifically directed at women in order to protect the health of men. If the priority had been to fight VD, then inspecting the prostitutes' clients would also have been required by the Acts. However, the assumption was that, while men would be offended at the intrusion, the women were already so degraded that further humiliations were of no consequence. ["The Fallen Woman in Fiction and Legislation"]"

She is right on that score. It has not been proposed that clients of sex workers be examined as they would indeed find it intrusive. The assumption is made that the women are already degraded to an extent where being 'rounded up' weekly or fortnightly by a doctor (as sex workers in Germany described it) would be of little consequence to them. The assumption is wrong as some women have, in fact, found it intrusive and discriminatory when and where it has been practised.

If prostitution were legalised a two tier system of workers would be the result. The law in Holland has not eradicated streetwalking. Women who do not register and work in licensed establishments do not benefit from the perks of being legal, but on the other hand they do not suffer the downside of having to pay brothel keepers on top of their taxes. They are hence underground, but they retain the ability to be freelancers. Neither do they have to register with the State as prostitutes.

Streetwalking will remain as many (not all) women on the streets have drug problems, and the indoor market is known to be highly intolerant of drug use. Due to the prohibtion of narcotics we can assume that State licensed brothels would be even stricter in this regard. Addicted sex workers would therefore have to find their income elsewhere and still fall victim to State persecution.

New Zealand has taken the step of decriminalisation. It is too early yet for me to say much about this, but expect this to be updated as I have arranged to meet the collective next week sometime. But from what I know so far this seems to be the most sensible route.

All laws regulating prostitution or consensual sexual activity should be scrapped, including the 'living off immoral earnings" charge. Women would then be able to work safely from home and have men on the premises for security reasons without fear of them being prosecuted. These men may or may not be their husbands or partners. Or women could work in groups of two or more for safety reasons. Sex workers should have access to services such as non discriminatory medical care.
They should be able to register as self employed with the taxman (not the same as registering as a prostitute with the Home Office or whoever the body would be) and therefore work as freelancers without having illegal status the way that their Dutch counterparts do.

The State should only intervene when it is a public order issue - hence there may be a case for limiting street prostitution to certain zones, which would be good for safety reasons too. I will have to find out more, but it appears that in NZ the level of street prostitution has dropped since decriminalisation, and more women are in fact working from home.

Watch this space.

Statement from the English Collective of Prostitutes on Ipswich Murders.........

When prostitute women are not safe, no woman is safe

Gemma Adams and a woman the police believe to be Tania Nicol, have now both been found tragically murdered in Ipswich. We pass our deepest condolences to their loved ones. A number of women also working as sex workers have gone missing in the area in recent years. In order to save lives and not to repeat the horror of the Yorkshire Ripper, who was allowed to continue killing until 13 women had been murdered, the Suffolk police must not use the criminality imposed on sex workers by the prostitution laws as an excuse to deny women the protection we are all entitled to by law.

We demand:


an immediate temporary amnesty from arrest for prostitute women and clients so that anyone can come forward to give information to this inquiry without fear of criminalisation or harassment; (Previously, women with outstanding arrest warrants either couldn’t contact the police or when they did were arrested. (See Criminalisation: the price women and children pay, English Collective of Prostitutes response to the government’s review of the prostitution laws, December 2004)

an end to street sweeps, arrests and ASBOs against prostitute women and clients which have forced women into darker, more isolated areas making them more vulnerable to rape, violence and even murder. Women working under increased pressure are less able to look out for each other, have less time to check out clients and are forced to take more risks;

a change in police priorities; money and resources being used to prosecute women and clients for consenting sex must be re-directed into vigorously pursuing violent men and protection of all women

following the example of New Zealand, decriminalisation of the prostitution laws, which by criminalising sex workers signal that women’s lives are not worth much. The police and courts don’t protect women and violent men think they can get away with attacks.

Comment: Currently being in NZ I intend to find out more about how the prostitution law reform has worked out, if possible arranging to meet and interview some sex workers via the collective or union. I can say, however, that I was very upset when hearing about the murders back in Britain. Criminalising prostitutes only endangers them further, and I feel nothing but anger, contempt and scorn for those 'feminists' who insist that these women continue to be criminalised, socially stigmatised and marginalised so as to protect the virtue of 'respectable women' like themselves. I can see through their rhetoric. But they quite happily scream 'my body, my life' when abortion is the issue at stake, not seeing the contradiction and the irony. I'm kind of glad I'm not in the UK right now.

A feminist once remarked to me that her opposition to prostition stemmed not from the effect the work has on individual prostitutes but rather from the way that the sex trade implies that ALL women's bodies are commodities. Clearly she has a lot to learn. All women, yep, respectable ladies too, have used sexuality as a bargaining chip. Respectable bourgeois women have used this bargain for marriage and security. The prostitute is a thorn in the side of the bourgeois feminist as she directly asks for money, thus exposing how fragile the mythical virginity and purity of the middle class lady actually is. All the prostitute is doing is exposing a truism about sexual relations and the organisation of society, she is not creating it.
She is simply being explicit about it, and renting her sexual services rather than selling them for life (as is the case with many bourgeois marriages). The middle class feminists who support criminalising prostitutes are in fact supporting the status quo.

I'll also add that I mean no disrespect to those sensible feminists who see through the good woman/bad woman myth and realise the harm caused by the prostitution laws, and the hypocrisy behind them. Meanwhile I hope this bastard gets caught soon so he kills no more.

Meanwhile, vulnerable women with addictions and deep emotional problems (who do make up a large number of streetwalkers) could be greatly helped by at least being given heroin on prescription (ideally an all out end to prohibition will be best but that does not seem likely in the near future). And there should be more access to psychotherapy and counselling on the NHS. The mental health system in the UK is a shambles.

I heard today that a Pakistani court has ordered Misbah Rana (aka Molly Campbell) back to Scotland while a Scottish court decides the verdict on her custody (see link)

.

According to her father (who she wishes to stay with) she is so distressed she say she 'will run away again'). She surely does not like her mum.

Meanwhile her mother states that she is looking very forward to the 'reunion'. Not much of a 'reunion' of the other person involved does not want to see you, is it? I have before on this topic, but any parent who puts their own wishes above those of the child does not really have their best interests at heart. From all empirical evidence it appears that Misbah's father is not by any means abusive, nor does he wish to 'force her into an arranged marriage' as the British press had previously assumed due to their prejudice. If this mother ever wants any respect from her daughter, respect on which any kind of relationship is conditional upon, she should respect her wishes simply by letting her be where she wants to be. Which appears to be in Pakistan with her father and sister.

I have commented before on this issue both here

and here.

This story upsets me as it is a case where a parent is failing to see a child as a person in her own right but rather as an extension of herself. This mentality remains for me a source of grievance wherever I encounter it, and it causes no end of heartache and damage among young people.

Society rarely suggests that an adult should be forced to continue living with a spouse if they no longer wish to. Why therefore are children still treated as chattel of their parents in this way? Ms Campbell clearly does not want the voice of her daughter to be heard, and she is patronisingly silencing her when she does attempt to be heard. If the courts take into account what is best for the child it may well seem that the father is more of a responsible caretaker with a more stable life, not subjecting her to live in what she defines as a 'hellhole' (which was how Misbah described her mother's home in Scotland).

The Hitch and Mother Teresa...

I read Xtopher Hitchens' exposure of the arch reactionary Mother Teresa of Calcutta yesterday (see link). I know it is a few years old but it's still worth a read for those who still harbour any illusions of the saintliness of this character.

I had long disliked her brand of Christianity - one that proclaims itself 'apolitical', one that advocates the giving of charity yet never questions a system which allows so many people to starve or die of treatable diseases, while others have many times what they need. This type of Christianity is in fact not 'apolitical' but is in fact deeply conservative, as Hitchens stresses.
It rests nicely with the status quo and big capitalists have no issue with it - in fact they actively praise and encourage it. At times they donate to its adherents to assuage their guilt, to salvage their reputations, or to buy favour from the Lord.

However, the crimes of MT go further than this. Her 'apoliticism' proved itself to be a sham when on a visit to Nicuagara in the 1980s she criticised the Sandinistas while remaining silent on the crimes of the US backed Contras. Despite the existence of weapons of mass destruction, racism and all the other ills in the world she explicitly believed that abortion and contraception were 'the greatest threats to world peace'. Although I deem it extreme and untrue to hold abortion to be *the* greatest threat to world peace, I can somewhat see the logic behind such an idea. But contraception?? Yet MT's opposition to birth control did not spur her to oppose Indira Ghandhi's coercive population control policy, which involved forcible sterilisations. You'd think someone who believed birth control to be such an evil would have something to say about such a practice going on in the very region where they work. But not MT. Clearly her desire to curry favour and praise from her host government (one of this world) was stronger than her professed ideals.

Not just this but she accepted money from white collar thieves while she ran her shelters on an ethos not unlike that of the Victorian workhouses. Money lay in her bank account while orphans under her care led an existence not unlike that of Oliver Twist. She refused painkillers to the terminally ill in her 'shelters for dying destitutes' due to her belief that suffering was holy, those dying in agony from cancer being united with Christ's sufferings on the cross. However, the Christian religion teaches that holy pains such as poverty and fasting should be voluntary. Jesus could have avoided death on the cross but he chose not to as he believed it to have been part of his mission. Jesus healed the sick and relieved them of pain, he didn't tell them to accept it and suffer as it would somehow purify their sin and hence unite them with his future suffering on the cross.

Hitchens is a declared atheist but that doesn't discredit his arguments. The paragraph above should show it to be possible to be a believing Christian while opposing the hypocrisy and obnoxious theology of Mother T.

Anglo Youth - 'Respect' and Sexuality

It has been interesting to note that New Zealand seems to have the same issues with the youth of today as does Britain. I read a column yesterday in which a Kiwi journalist (Pamela Stirling) was praising Britain's approach with the use of Asbos for anti social youth. The column was titled 'It's all about Respect', and the word was used more than once. Not very subtle in her admiration of the British prime minister.

Meanwhile the same magazine had an article on teenage pregnancy. Evidently New zealand has the third highest rate in the world, Britain being second, and the highest I believe is the United States.

I have long wondered as to why English speaking countries seem to have this problem and have yet to come to any firm conclusions. Conservatives tend to blame it on too much liberalism while liberals tend to blame it on too much....Conservatism!

I think this is far too simplistic from either view. The Netherlands is often praised by liberals and pro choicers for it's liberal approach to youth sexuality and it's sex education programme, and they point to the fact it has a low rate of teenage pregnancy. But again, I don't quite see this. Why does Britain's rate of teenage pregnancy continue to rise in spite of the programmes of the last few years? Surely if the assertions made about the Dutch stats were true the opposite would be happening!

The reasons behind the Dutch stats are most probably of a cultural nature. For one thing - The Netherlands have a stronger family structure in their society than does Britain. The reasons behind the phenomena in the English speaking nations may also be economic - the monetarist policies they have been subjected to has contributed to greater social atomisation and weakened traditional family structures, families which help children grow through puberty and become adults. Children in lower socio economic groups also tend to have sex at an earlier age.

I'm a cynic about the usefulness of sex education as is currently constituted. If it is failing in it's aim it is simply not working and another approach needs to be taken, the format needs to change. Perhaps schools should also recognise the pressure children are often under to have sex before they are emotionally mature enough. Negative sexual encounters can emotionally scar youth and sometimes blight their adulthood (needless to say girls being more affected by this then boys, some of whom are taken advantage of by older men). It is difficult what with the sexualisation of children in our culture, but teachers and parents should try to express firmly that children should not capitulate to the pressure if they do not feel ready to have sex.
Many young girls have sex not because they want to but because they wish to placate their male partners, fearing the relationship may end otherwise. This is one area in which feminism has made no impact and I am doubtful if it ever will, experience telling me that men will always be men. So it may simply be down to women and girls to be firm and give boys and men a message that will be clear enough for them to hear.

Queens Speech

Like much of the population I am extremely cynical and almost apathetic about the contents of yesterday's Queen's Speech. The only thing that really bothers me right now are the proposals for police to be able to evict troublesome tenants almost immediately, and after that they become 'intentionally homeless'(see link). Anti social neighbours are indeed a problem for some people, but what does turfing them out onto the street do to address the issues behind their behaviour?

But what always springs to my mind is the uselessness of the monarchy. It is a farce as we all know these policies are not the invention of the monarch but of the government.

Yet those who are in favour of a Republic must think of viable alternatives. We do not want a US- style presidential system in which the prime minister has unlimited powers (he already has too much as it stands). It would also be pretty useless and a waste of resources having any Head of State that is a mere figurehead, as with some countries. A modern republic would need a whole new constitution. It would need an elected second chamber and decentralisation of political power, voting reform and a proper chance for citizens to participate in an active democracy. Not the sham we have now.