A couple of years ago, I did a brief round-up of the more unusual search engine queries that had led unsuspecting surfers to this blog. I thought it was high time for a more comprehensive list, although believe it or not this is merely the family-friendly edition...
Annabel Croft hates Greg Rusedski
Deadly weapons big breasts
Do 81% of North Sea revenues belong to England? (Er...no.)
Does Alex Salmond have a personal trainer? (Again, my guess would be no.)
Giraffes AV Prescott
Have you got the guts to vote SDP?
How do I get the best sexual experience with an escort in Indianapolis?
I hate First Buses
If Scotland goes independent who pays there unemployed
Is it wrong I payed a cleaner for sex?
Is Annabel Croft a homophobe
Is Barry Manilow a democrat
Is Scotland more violent than us
James Kelly MSP not doing so well
Johann Lamont Krankie
John McTernan does he have a butler
Ku Klux Klan unicycle fairy
Muscular women popping
Naked Goes Pop
Naked News with Jim Kelly
Naked pictures of women from Wick, Caithness
No2AV kittens
Or the kitten gets it
One million Scots to crush
Painted toenail experiences in public
Rambling topless
Say er er er er er say la la la la la
Scottish are inferior to English
The SNP should be banned
Tom Harris moderator on Labour Hame? (Surely not!)
What is the meaning of tae in tae think again
Who is Plato from PoliticalBetting? (Answer : As a "libertarian with a fiscal conservative twist", Plato has the distinction of being Britain's most representative "floating voter", and is someone who Labour must "win back" to have "any chance" of winning the next general election. She is also noted for "never reading" this blog, contrary to the grossly misleading impression given by her familiarity with the contents of this blog. She has done 248 jobs in her relatively short working life, and has naturally signed the Official Secrets Act. Were you really expecting a name?)
Why don't people go to the moon
You allowed on Facebook with electronic tagging?
Alex Salmond English can leave our country alone haggis
Friday, December 7, 2012
Monday, December 3, 2012
Our Head of State for 2060 has just been selected...
We don't have a clue about his or her personality, talents or intelligence, but we're absolutely certain that he/she will be just the chap/chapess for the job.
Democracy and rationality at its finest.
Democracy and rationality at its finest.
Sunday, December 2, 2012
Open questions
Leaving aside the obvious jibe that 'Open Unionism' is a contradiction in terms, my eye was caught by this article of the 'anyone to the left of Enoch Powell is a Marxist' variety -
"It became more and more obvious that many of the people who were attracted to the SNP were attracted precisely because they were disappointed former Labour party voters. They now considered the Labour party to be a party of the right. Independence for many of these people was thus a way of bringing about “Socialism in one country” leaving world revolution for another day!
There are clearly people in the SNP with a variety of political viewpoints, but if supporters are declaring that the present day Labour party is a party of the centre right, then it must be that the SNP is a party of the centre left in a different sense to that in which most people understand the term. Moreover, they must be on the centre left in a different way from other European centre left parties."
Hardly. In fact, I would suggest that the SNP are understood to be centre-left in precisely the way that most of the social democratic parties of western continental Europe are, and Labour are understood to be centre-right in precisely the way that most of the conservative parties of western continental Europe are. It's no coincidence that Tony Blair's closest allies on the continent were not Schroeder or Zapatero, but rather Aznar and Berlusconi. Labour may have made a marginal move back in the correct direction since then, but that isn't saying much when you bear in mind where they were starting from.
"I never understood the almost universal SNP opposition to nuclear weapons until I realised that they truly were a left-wing party. What have nuclear weapons got to do with independence?"
And it could just as easily be asked - what has opposition to nuclear weapons got to do with being left-wing? As the author of this piece has already raised the spectre of 'socialism in one country', it should be noted that Stalin himself wasn't exactly short of the odd nuclear weapon. If Stalinism is being presented as the pinnacle of leftiness, surely any party that does the opposite of what Stalin did must by definition be 'sensible, moderate, compassionate conservatives'?
Alternatively, it could just be that 'Open Unionism' is missing the point somewhat.
"It became more and more obvious that many of the people who were attracted to the SNP were attracted precisely because they were disappointed former Labour party voters. They now considered the Labour party to be a party of the right. Independence for many of these people was thus a way of bringing about “Socialism in one country” leaving world revolution for another day!
There are clearly people in the SNP with a variety of political viewpoints, but if supporters are declaring that the present day Labour party is a party of the centre right, then it must be that the SNP is a party of the centre left in a different sense to that in which most people understand the term. Moreover, they must be on the centre left in a different way from other European centre left parties."
Hardly. In fact, I would suggest that the SNP are understood to be centre-left in precisely the way that most of the social democratic parties of western continental Europe are, and Labour are understood to be centre-right in precisely the way that most of the conservative parties of western continental Europe are. It's no coincidence that Tony Blair's closest allies on the continent were not Schroeder or Zapatero, but rather Aznar and Berlusconi. Labour may have made a marginal move back in the correct direction since then, but that isn't saying much when you bear in mind where they were starting from.
"I never understood the almost universal SNP opposition to nuclear weapons until I realised that they truly were a left-wing party. What have nuclear weapons got to do with independence?"
And it could just as easily be asked - what has opposition to nuclear weapons got to do with being left-wing? As the author of this piece has already raised the spectre of 'socialism in one country', it should be noted that Stalin himself wasn't exactly short of the odd nuclear weapon. If Stalinism is being presented as the pinnacle of leftiness, surely any party that does the opposite of what Stalin did must by definition be 'sensible, moderate, compassionate conservatives'?
Alternatively, it could just be that 'Open Unionism' is missing the point somewhat.
Monday, November 26, 2012
Response to Rhoda Grant's consultation on criminalising the purchase of sex
Having got into the swing of responding to consultations earlier in the year, I thought I'd have another go with Labour MSP Rhoda Grant's consultation on criminalising the purchase of sex (ie. the Swedish model). I was particularly motivated to take part given that the last consultation on this subject, conducted by Trish Godman, was such a complete joke from beginning to end.
* * *
I am resident in Scotland, and I am responding to this consultation as a private individual. I am a political blogger, but I do not represent anyone other than myself. I am not a sex worker, and to the best of my knowledge I do not know any sex workers. However, given that much of the impetus for the proposed law change comes from women who themselves have little or no knowledge of sex workers, and who primarily see the potential Bill as a means to advance ‘gender equality’ in broad-brush terms (as opposed to improving the lot of individual sex workers in a real-world setting), it seems reasonable to suppose that many of the responses to the consultation will be from women who are as detached from the central issue as I am. There will also undoubtedly be many responses from rather more knowledgeable women, keen to explain how misconceived and counter-productive the proposal is from the point of view of their own gender. But what may well be largely missing is the voice of men. That is deeply ironic, given that the most direct impact of the legislation would be on men, not women. The intention is simple – to criminalise and shame men, and men only, for indulging in a certain type of consensual sex. Given that this disgracefully discriminatory use of the criminal law would be directed against our gender, I feel that it is vital that as many men as possible speak out in opposition, regardless of whether we would be personally affected by the legislation.
It’s important first of all to identify the precise rationale for the desire to discriminate against men. Your consultation document repeatedly uses language that is suggestive of a crusade against slavery in a literal sense - “sexual servitude…a commodity to be bought and sold”. But we know that you cannot be referring to literal slavery, because payment for sex where coercion or trafficking is involved is already comprehensively criminalised and severely punishable. The proposed law change can therefore only have consensual paid sex in its sights. In which case, how can your use of language be justified? Are we supposed to infer that sexual servitude is a self-imposed phenomenon?
Although you don’t spell it out, the answer is of course that you buy into the fantastical ideology that underpins the Swedish law banning the purchase of sex. In noting that the bulk of sex workers are female and that the majority of their clients are male, you discount the obvious explanation of biological differences between the genders, and instead see a manifestation of systematic exploitation and oppression of women by men. It doesn’t matter that many female sex workers believe they are making a free choice, because this is a type of ‘false consciousness’ caused by the economic constraints that women live under in their state of oppression.
The only problem, of course, is that this is bunkum. Men are just as likely to find themselves under the type of financial pressure that drives some women to become sex workers, but the difference is that women may feel they have one additional option open to them. Indeed, one of the papers you cite quotes women who make clear that they do not regard sex work as the only option they have been left with, but simply as an option that is preferable to all the others –
‘What job pays £60, £100 a night? Sometimes you can earn £100 in an hour if it’s busy. You know where you’re well off, don’t you?’
Like you, I come at this issue from a left-of-centre perspective. I can allow myself to imagine a utopian society in which it might be considered a desirable thing that virtually no man has access to consensual paid sex, for the simple reason that no woman feels driven by financial considerations to offer it. But in that utopia, no man or woman would do any other type of work that they would not choose to do if free from financial pressures. Very few people would choose to be cleaners in that scenario, for example. What confuses me is that your party is keen on that (essentially Marxist) utopian ideal for the sole purpose of eliminating sex work, but loathes it in every other context. All forms of potentially unpleasant work other than sex work are not only deemed tolerable, but are considered morally virtuous. Indeed, during the Blunkett era, we were told that work – any work – was an all-purpose cure for sickness, depression and suicidal thoughts. The end result of this bizarre example of doublethink is that you would seek to force many sex workers into another unpleasant job that pays less and that they prefer less.
To put it mildly, that is not a laudable goal in a supposedly liberal society. Until and unless utopia arrives, we ought to be clear-sighted about sex work as being just one more imperfect – but legitimate - option in a world full of imperfect options.
It’s also worth pointing out that a significant minority of the clients of sex workers are disabled men seeking sex for therapeutic reasons, men seeking sex from other men, or women seeking sex from either men or other women. The idea that these individuals are the malevolent drivers of the Great Male Oppression of Women is, I would hope, self-evidently ludicrous enough to illustrate the nonsense of the ideology that lies behind this proposal. In respect of disabled men, some surveys have shown that female sex workers are concerned that they are exploiting their more vulnerable clients (for financial gain), rather than the other way round.
I will turn now to the specific questions contained in the consultation document.
Q1: Do you support the general aim of the proposed Bill? Please indicate “yes/no/undecided” and explain the reasons for your response.
No, for the reasons stated in my introduction. I also want to challenge some of your own reasons for reaching the opposite conclusion.
“For example 75% of women in prostitution in the UK became involved when they were children…”
That statistic appears to be pure invention. The study you cite questioned only street prostitutes who started work before the age of 18. By definition, therefore, 100% of that sample became involved in prostitution when they were children, not 75%! The 75% figure is the percentage of the sample who reported that they were still working at the time of the study. How you get from there to the claim that 75% of all female prostitutes (not just street prostitutes) started when they were children is something of a mystery, and to put it mildly, this calls into question the credibility of the evidential basis for your proposal.
“The buying of sexual activity is sexual exploitation and is recognised as a form of violence against women.”
Recognised by whom? Your statement may be literally true in the sense that some people (for ideological reasons) regard all paid sex, no matter how consensual, as “violence against women”. It would also be literally true to say that the moon landings are “recognised” as fake, in the sense that some people devoutly believe that to be the case. In neither example is there any particular reason to suppose that this represents the consensus of opinion. Most people, I would submit, expect actual violence to be present in an act of “violence against women”, and not just the incorporeal type of ‘violence’ you are somehow able to discern in consensual paid sex.
“International and Scottish evidence based research suggests that men who have purchased sexual activity believe that a number of consequences including legal penalties, financial penalties or public exposure could act as an effective deterrent if effectively enforced.”
Placing men, and only men, on the Sex Offenders’ Register if they cheat on their wives would also be a highly effective deterrent against the committing of adultery. But it would still be a very silly, illiberal, and discriminatory thing to do.
“The study also indicated harmful and violent attitudes of men who buy sexual activity:
32% stated that rape happens because men get sexually carried away; or (34%) because their sex drive gets “out of control”;
12% said that the rape of a prostitute or call girl was not possible; while 10% asserted that the concept of rape simply does not apply to women in prostitution.”
There have also been numerous studies and surveys showing very similar results among the general male population. It could well be that if a sample of television repairmen were interviewed, 12% of them would also say that the rape of a call girl is impossible. Would this mean that the repairing of televisions contributes to harmful and violent attitudes? Of course not. It would simply mean that television repairmen are representative of the male population at large.
It’s perfectly conceivable that there may be a correlation between paying for sex and harmful attitudes about rape, but the figures you cite utterly fail to establish one.
Q2: What do you believe would be the effects of legislating to criminalise the purchase of sex (as outlined above)? Please provide evidence to support your answer.
Given that your proposal is essentially identical to the laws already in force in Sweden and Norway, the best way of predicting the effect is to examine the Scandinavian experience. This shows that your law will entirely fail to have the desired effect of literally ‘ending’ demand for paid sex. It will in turn fail in its secondary objective of leaving women who suffer from ‘false consciousness’ (those who ‘erroneously’ think they have made a free choice to sell sex) with little choice but to abandon their work. There will still be many potential clients for sex workers, and therefore sex work will continue. However, the profile of the potential client base will change in character. With ‘nicer’ clients most likely to be deterred by the change in the law, prostitutes will increasingly be forced to take their chances with more violent and abusive clients if they want to maintain their livelihoods. They will also have little choice but to assist their clients in evading detection by the police, leading to the abandonment of vital safety precautions.
As far as women who are not sex workers are concerned, there is some evidence that draconian legislation on prostitution increases the rape rate –
“In the multiple regression model the rape rate was shown to be correlated with the homicide rate and anti-correlated with the availability of prostitution. Both relationships were at above the 95% confidence level. It is estimated that if prostitution were legalized in the United States, the rape rate would decrease by roughly 25% for a decrease of approximately 25,000 rapes per year.”
In a nutshell, your proposal will increase the risk of actual - as opposed to metaphysical - violence against women.
Q3: Are you aware of any unintended consequences or loopholes caused by the offence? Please provide evidence to support your answer.
It’s impossible for me to judge the extent to which the harmful consequences I’ve listed above are unforeseen or ‘unintended’. Some apologists for the Swedish model openly acknowledge the increased trauma that has been caused to thousands of sex workers, but regard that as a price worth paying for the prize of a largely symbolic law. I would hope that forms no part of the thinking of proponents of the Scottish proposal, and that they regard the real-world welfare of sex workers as more important than the pursuit of ideological purity, but the wording of much of your consultation paper leaves me with grave concerns on that point.
Q4: What are the advantages or disadvantages in using the definitions outlined above?
I would suggest the disadvantage is not the difficulty in working out what a reasonable person would construe as “sexual”, but rather the difficulty in working out what constitutes a reasonable person.
Q5: What do you think the appropriate penalty should be for the offence? Please provide reasons for your answer.
Obviously I do not think there should be any penalty at all. However, I am aware of the absurdly extreme suggestions that have already been made by some respondents to this consultation, such as lengthy jail sentences and public shaming in newspapers. I would simply note the grotesqueness of applying such penalties to, for example, a vulnerable disabled man who spends a large percentage of his disposable income on a high class escort. They would, I presume, constitute his ‘punishment’ for an act of ‘violence’ against a woman who cheerfully pockets that money and uses it to help fund a life of considerable luxury.
Q6: How should a new offence provision be enforced? Are there any techniques which might be used or obstacles which might need to be overcome?
Q7: What is your assessment of the likely financial implications of the proposed Bill to you or your organisation; if possible please provide evidence to support your view? What (if any) other significant financial implications are likely to arise?
On both questions 6 and 7, I would refer you back to the serious concerns identified by the Association of Chief Police Officers in their submission to Trish Godman’s consultation.
Q8: Is the proposed Bill likely to have any substantial positive or negative implications for equality? If it is likely to have a substantial negative implication, how might this be minimised or avoided?
Your proposal will have profoundly negative implications for gender equality, for the very simple reason that it is intended to. Female sex workers and their male clients will no longer enjoy equality before the law when they enter into a consensual paid sex transaction. Both genders will suffer harmful consequences – men will be less equal than women in respect of the criminal law, but women will be less equal than men in the perception of a society that has deemed them incapable of making free, rational decisions and being held responsible for them.
There is no way of ‘minimising’ these negative implications. They can be avoided by not enacting the proposed Bill.
* * *
You can read Ms Grant's whole consultation document, and find information on how to submit a response, by clicking HERE.
* * *
I am resident in Scotland, and I am responding to this consultation as a private individual. I am a political blogger, but I do not represent anyone other than myself. I am not a sex worker, and to the best of my knowledge I do not know any sex workers. However, given that much of the impetus for the proposed law change comes from women who themselves have little or no knowledge of sex workers, and who primarily see the potential Bill as a means to advance ‘gender equality’ in broad-brush terms (as opposed to improving the lot of individual sex workers in a real-world setting), it seems reasonable to suppose that many of the responses to the consultation will be from women who are as detached from the central issue as I am. There will also undoubtedly be many responses from rather more knowledgeable women, keen to explain how misconceived and counter-productive the proposal is from the point of view of their own gender. But what may well be largely missing is the voice of men. That is deeply ironic, given that the most direct impact of the legislation would be on men, not women. The intention is simple – to criminalise and shame men, and men only, for indulging in a certain type of consensual sex. Given that this disgracefully discriminatory use of the criminal law would be directed against our gender, I feel that it is vital that as many men as possible speak out in opposition, regardless of whether we would be personally affected by the legislation.
It’s important first of all to identify the precise rationale for the desire to discriminate against men. Your consultation document repeatedly uses language that is suggestive of a crusade against slavery in a literal sense - “sexual servitude…a commodity to be bought and sold”. But we know that you cannot be referring to literal slavery, because payment for sex where coercion or trafficking is involved is already comprehensively criminalised and severely punishable. The proposed law change can therefore only have consensual paid sex in its sights. In which case, how can your use of language be justified? Are we supposed to infer that sexual servitude is a self-imposed phenomenon?
Although you don’t spell it out, the answer is of course that you buy into the fantastical ideology that underpins the Swedish law banning the purchase of sex. In noting that the bulk of sex workers are female and that the majority of their clients are male, you discount the obvious explanation of biological differences between the genders, and instead see a manifestation of systematic exploitation and oppression of women by men. It doesn’t matter that many female sex workers believe they are making a free choice, because this is a type of ‘false consciousness’ caused by the economic constraints that women live under in their state of oppression.
The only problem, of course, is that this is bunkum. Men are just as likely to find themselves under the type of financial pressure that drives some women to become sex workers, but the difference is that women may feel they have one additional option open to them. Indeed, one of the papers you cite quotes women who make clear that they do not regard sex work as the only option they have been left with, but simply as an option that is preferable to all the others –
‘What job pays £60, £100 a night? Sometimes you can earn £100 in an hour if it’s busy. You know where you’re well off, don’t you?’
Like you, I come at this issue from a left-of-centre perspective. I can allow myself to imagine a utopian society in which it might be considered a desirable thing that virtually no man has access to consensual paid sex, for the simple reason that no woman feels driven by financial considerations to offer it. But in that utopia, no man or woman would do any other type of work that they would not choose to do if free from financial pressures. Very few people would choose to be cleaners in that scenario, for example. What confuses me is that your party is keen on that (essentially Marxist) utopian ideal for the sole purpose of eliminating sex work, but loathes it in every other context. All forms of potentially unpleasant work other than sex work are not only deemed tolerable, but are considered morally virtuous. Indeed, during the Blunkett era, we were told that work – any work – was an all-purpose cure for sickness, depression and suicidal thoughts. The end result of this bizarre example of doublethink is that you would seek to force many sex workers into another unpleasant job that pays less and that they prefer less.
To put it mildly, that is not a laudable goal in a supposedly liberal society. Until and unless utopia arrives, we ought to be clear-sighted about sex work as being just one more imperfect – but legitimate - option in a world full of imperfect options.
It’s also worth pointing out that a significant minority of the clients of sex workers are disabled men seeking sex for therapeutic reasons, men seeking sex from other men, or women seeking sex from either men or other women. The idea that these individuals are the malevolent drivers of the Great Male Oppression of Women is, I would hope, self-evidently ludicrous enough to illustrate the nonsense of the ideology that lies behind this proposal. In respect of disabled men, some surveys have shown that female sex workers are concerned that they are exploiting their more vulnerable clients (for financial gain), rather than the other way round.
I will turn now to the specific questions contained in the consultation document.
Q1: Do you support the general aim of the proposed Bill? Please indicate “yes/no/undecided” and explain the reasons for your response.
No, for the reasons stated in my introduction. I also want to challenge some of your own reasons for reaching the opposite conclusion.
“For example 75% of women in prostitution in the UK became involved when they were children…”
That statistic appears to be pure invention. The study you cite questioned only street prostitutes who started work before the age of 18. By definition, therefore, 100% of that sample became involved in prostitution when they were children, not 75%! The 75% figure is the percentage of the sample who reported that they were still working at the time of the study. How you get from there to the claim that 75% of all female prostitutes (not just street prostitutes) started when they were children is something of a mystery, and to put it mildly, this calls into question the credibility of the evidential basis for your proposal.
“The buying of sexual activity is sexual exploitation and is recognised as a form of violence against women.”
Recognised by whom? Your statement may be literally true in the sense that some people (for ideological reasons) regard all paid sex, no matter how consensual, as “violence against women”. It would also be literally true to say that the moon landings are “recognised” as fake, in the sense that some people devoutly believe that to be the case. In neither example is there any particular reason to suppose that this represents the consensus of opinion. Most people, I would submit, expect actual violence to be present in an act of “violence against women”, and not just the incorporeal type of ‘violence’ you are somehow able to discern in consensual paid sex.
“International and Scottish evidence based research suggests that men who have purchased sexual activity believe that a number of consequences including legal penalties, financial penalties or public exposure could act as an effective deterrent if effectively enforced.”
Placing men, and only men, on the Sex Offenders’ Register if they cheat on their wives would also be a highly effective deterrent against the committing of adultery. But it would still be a very silly, illiberal, and discriminatory thing to do.
“The study also indicated harmful and violent attitudes of men who buy sexual activity:
32% stated that rape happens because men get sexually carried away; or (34%) because their sex drive gets “out of control”;
12% said that the rape of a prostitute or call girl was not possible; while 10% asserted that the concept of rape simply does not apply to women in prostitution.”
There have also been numerous studies and surveys showing very similar results among the general male population. It could well be that if a sample of television repairmen were interviewed, 12% of them would also say that the rape of a call girl is impossible. Would this mean that the repairing of televisions contributes to harmful and violent attitudes? Of course not. It would simply mean that television repairmen are representative of the male population at large.
It’s perfectly conceivable that there may be a correlation between paying for sex and harmful attitudes about rape, but the figures you cite utterly fail to establish one.
Q2: What do you believe would be the effects of legislating to criminalise the purchase of sex (as outlined above)? Please provide evidence to support your answer.
Given that your proposal is essentially identical to the laws already in force in Sweden and Norway, the best way of predicting the effect is to examine the Scandinavian experience. This shows that your law will entirely fail to have the desired effect of literally ‘ending’ demand for paid sex. It will in turn fail in its secondary objective of leaving women who suffer from ‘false consciousness’ (those who ‘erroneously’ think they have made a free choice to sell sex) with little choice but to abandon their work. There will still be many potential clients for sex workers, and therefore sex work will continue. However, the profile of the potential client base will change in character. With ‘nicer’ clients most likely to be deterred by the change in the law, prostitutes will increasingly be forced to take their chances with more violent and abusive clients if they want to maintain their livelihoods. They will also have little choice but to assist their clients in evading detection by the police, leading to the abandonment of vital safety precautions.
As far as women who are not sex workers are concerned, there is some evidence that draconian legislation on prostitution increases the rape rate –
“In the multiple regression model the rape rate was shown to be correlated with the homicide rate and anti-correlated with the availability of prostitution. Both relationships were at above the 95% confidence level. It is estimated that if prostitution were legalized in the United States, the rape rate would decrease by roughly 25% for a decrease of approximately 25,000 rapes per year.”
In a nutshell, your proposal will increase the risk of actual - as opposed to metaphysical - violence against women.
Q3: Are you aware of any unintended consequences or loopholes caused by the offence? Please provide evidence to support your answer.
It’s impossible for me to judge the extent to which the harmful consequences I’ve listed above are unforeseen or ‘unintended’. Some apologists for the Swedish model openly acknowledge the increased trauma that has been caused to thousands of sex workers, but regard that as a price worth paying for the prize of a largely symbolic law. I would hope that forms no part of the thinking of proponents of the Scottish proposal, and that they regard the real-world welfare of sex workers as more important than the pursuit of ideological purity, but the wording of much of your consultation paper leaves me with grave concerns on that point.
Q4: What are the advantages or disadvantages in using the definitions outlined above?
I would suggest the disadvantage is not the difficulty in working out what a reasonable person would construe as “sexual”, but rather the difficulty in working out what constitutes a reasonable person.
Q5: What do you think the appropriate penalty should be for the offence? Please provide reasons for your answer.
Obviously I do not think there should be any penalty at all. However, I am aware of the absurdly extreme suggestions that have already been made by some respondents to this consultation, such as lengthy jail sentences and public shaming in newspapers. I would simply note the grotesqueness of applying such penalties to, for example, a vulnerable disabled man who spends a large percentage of his disposable income on a high class escort. They would, I presume, constitute his ‘punishment’ for an act of ‘violence’ against a woman who cheerfully pockets that money and uses it to help fund a life of considerable luxury.
Q6: How should a new offence provision be enforced? Are there any techniques which might be used or obstacles which might need to be overcome?
Q7: What is your assessment of the likely financial implications of the proposed Bill to you or your organisation; if possible please provide evidence to support your view? What (if any) other significant financial implications are likely to arise?
On both questions 6 and 7, I would refer you back to the serious concerns identified by the Association of Chief Police Officers in their submission to Trish Godman’s consultation.
Q8: Is the proposed Bill likely to have any substantial positive or negative implications for equality? If it is likely to have a substantial negative implication, how might this be minimised or avoided?
Your proposal will have profoundly negative implications for gender equality, for the very simple reason that it is intended to. Female sex workers and their male clients will no longer enjoy equality before the law when they enter into a consensual paid sex transaction. Both genders will suffer harmful consequences – men will be less equal than women in respect of the criminal law, but women will be less equal than men in the perception of a society that has deemed them incapable of making free, rational decisions and being held responsible for them.
There is no way of ‘minimising’ these negative implications. They can be avoided by not enacting the proposed Bill.
* * *
You can read Ms Grant's whole consultation document, and find information on how to submit a response, by clicking HERE.
Friday, November 23, 2012
Ashcroft poll : SNP lead in Westminster voting intention
The Tories' billionaire puppet-master Lord Ashcroft recently conducted a UK-wide mega-poll of Westminster voting intention, with a sample size some eight times larger than a regular poll. That means the size of the Scottish subsample was almost as large as you'd expect for a full-scale Scottish poll. The results make fascinating reading -
SNP 39%
Labour 33%
Conservatives 16%
Liberal Democrats 6%
Others 7%
There are a couple of important caveats here. Firstly, even a massive subsample is still just a subsample - ie. the figures may not be properly weighted. Secondly, the fieldwork is a few weeks out of date. Nevertheless, given the fact that this a poll that shows a very healthy Labour lead at GB-wide level, these numbers are obviously hugely encouraging.
SNP 39%
Labour 33%
Conservatives 16%
Liberal Democrats 6%
Others 7%
There are a couple of important caveats here. Firstly, even a massive subsample is still just a subsample - ie. the figures may not be properly weighted. Secondly, the fieldwork is a few weeks out of date. Nevertheless, given the fact that this a poll that shows a very healthy Labour lead at GB-wide level, these numbers are obviously hugely encouraging.
Thursday, November 22, 2012
Special appeal : Scots Wikipedia contributors needed!
I've just found myself writing a rather impatient email reply to someone whose heart is in the right place, but who I think is lashing out in entirely the wrong direction. Basically, he's one of only two active editors on the Scots language Wikipedia at the moment, and he's annoyed with me for a) having created several hundred short articles in 2005/6 on non-Scottish politicians, and b) not maintaining those articles. I told him that in creating the articles I wasn't entering into a lifetime commitment, and that in my view it was healthy for the Scots Wikipedia not to become ghettoised in Scottish-only topics. I added that the growth of any user-generated site depends on people feeling free to write about subjects that they know about and are interested in, and that if he wanted the site to thrive it was counter-productive to berate someone for actually creating articles six years ago!
Nevertheless, I'm terribly sad to learn that the site has been so neglected of late. It occurred to me that many readers of this blog may not even be aware that a Scots language Wikipedia exists, so I thought I'd give it a mention in case anyone is interested in becoming a contributor. For obvious reasons, it's much more of a blank canvas than the English Wikipedia, so there are far fewer constraints on writers. (It's become almost unbearable to contribute to the English wiki in recent years - if you dare to even insert a comma somewhere, a zealot will pop up out of nowhere and bang you over the head with Wikipedia Rule XY75-RF.)
If you'd like to set up a Scots Wikipedia account, click HERE.
Nevertheless, I'm terribly sad to learn that the site has been so neglected of late. It occurred to me that many readers of this blog may not even be aware that a Scots language Wikipedia exists, so I thought I'd give it a mention in case anyone is interested in becoming a contributor. For obvious reasons, it's much more of a blank canvas than the English Wikipedia, so there are far fewer constraints on writers. (It's become almost unbearable to contribute to the English wiki in recent years - if you dare to even insert a comma somewhere, a zealot will pop up out of nowhere and bang you over the head with Wikipedia Rule XY75-RF.)
If you'd like to set up a Scots Wikipedia account, click HERE.
Sunday, November 18, 2012
Clinton doesn't just oppose "separatism" - he opposes democratic self-determination
Our old friend Duncan Hothersall was full of beans yesterday about the supposed 'endorsement' of the No campaign by Bill Clinton. In truth, of course, it was no such thing - the comment Clinton made was vacuous and full of creative ambiguity, and as Jeff Breslin has pointed out, was entirely misconceived if it was intended to subtly steer listeners towards the 'correct' conclusion. Both unionists and nationalists agree that it's possible and desirable to be both Scottish and British, thanks all the same Bill, so there's no need for you to worry your pretty little head over that issue. Indeed, the SNP were quickly able to confirm that their philosophy is entirely in accordance with the one Clinton set out, and while they were at it they could also have pointed out that they share Clinton's fervour for motherhood and apple pie.
But if we leave aside what Clinton actually said, and turn our attention to what he almost certainly thinks, then perhaps Duncan has a point. You see, Clinton has form on this. During his presidency, he launched an utterly disgraceful intervention into the internal affairs of a neighbouring state by not only coming down firmly on the side of the federalists in Quebec, but also by disputing Quebec's right to seek independence even if the majority voted for it. In case anyone doubted that this position was part of a wider belief-system, he astonishingly went out of his way to commend Russia's "rightful" defence of its national sovereignty in Chechnya (while quibbling about some of the specific methods used to do this).
This is the problem, Duncan - Clinton doesn't just oppose 'separatism', he also opposes democratic self-determination. He's an unreconstructed 'territorial integrity' dinosaur, who thinks that the vested interest of an international elite in keeping all national borders exactly as they are should trump the democratic will of citizens.
Is that really the sort of friend you want, Duncan?
As you might have guessed, I'm not Clinton's greatest fan - all he really achieved in office was the effective disenfranchisement of millions, who were hoping for a slightly wider choice in 1996 than between two right-wing Republicans. The fact that Dick Morris ran his campaign that year says it all. In a sense, the George W Bush presidency was a monster of Clinton's own creation - after eight years of triangulation, it's little wonder that many liberal voters were sick of being told they had nowhere else to go, and either stayed home or voted for Nader.
But if we leave aside what Clinton actually said, and turn our attention to what he almost certainly thinks, then perhaps Duncan has a point. You see, Clinton has form on this. During his presidency, he launched an utterly disgraceful intervention into the internal affairs of a neighbouring state by not only coming down firmly on the side of the federalists in Quebec, but also by disputing Quebec's right to seek independence even if the majority voted for it. In case anyone doubted that this position was part of a wider belief-system, he astonishingly went out of his way to commend Russia's "rightful" defence of its national sovereignty in Chechnya (while quibbling about some of the specific methods used to do this).
This is the problem, Duncan - Clinton doesn't just oppose 'separatism', he also opposes democratic self-determination. He's an unreconstructed 'territorial integrity' dinosaur, who thinks that the vested interest of an international elite in keeping all national borders exactly as they are should trump the democratic will of citizens.
Is that really the sort of friend you want, Duncan?
As you might have guessed, I'm not Clinton's greatest fan - all he really achieved in office was the effective disenfranchisement of millions, who were hoping for a slightly wider choice in 1996 than between two right-wing Republicans. The fact that Dick Morris ran his campaign that year says it all. In a sense, the George W Bush presidency was a monster of Clinton's own creation - after eight years of triangulation, it's little wonder that many liberal voters were sick of being told they had nowhere else to go, and either stayed home or voted for Nader.
Thursday, November 15, 2012
Today is Thursday 15th November 2012...
Remember that date. It will live in infamy.
Just eighteen months ago, brave men and women across the United Kingdom raised their hands in defiance, and said: "No. This shall not be." In doing so they saved the lives of 17,984 seriously ill babies, 9,254 heroic British soldiers, and 24,897 very cute kittens. My Auntie Doris was able to have a hip replacement, my cousin Julia kept her job as a nurse, and my mate Charlie is still able to educate the young.
How crazy must we have been to think for even a moment that a preferential voting system was more important than all THAT?
And yet the noble actions of the British people have been in vain. Yet again, we've been betrayed by the political class. The very same politicians who earned our respect and gratitude by leading the charge against the Alternative Vote system have shamelessly introduced a near-identical system for today's Police Commissioner elections in England and Wales - and there isn't a damn thing you or I can do about it. We shall just have to watch in despair as our economy collapses under the weight of the extra pencils required for electors to cast a pointless second preference vote for John Prescott. The public transport system will collapse. Food supplies will run short. Sanitation will be but a fond memory. Many cute kittens will die today.
There is a word for what these politicians have done. That word is 'evil'.
I'm not sure I've ever felt more ashamed to be British than I do right now. It's sad to say it, but independence may be the only answer here - if we can't protect the babies of England and Wales from the insanity of preferential voting, perhaps we can at least protect our own babies.
Just eighteen months ago, brave men and women across the United Kingdom raised their hands in defiance, and said: "No. This shall not be." In doing so they saved the lives of 17,984 seriously ill babies, 9,254 heroic British soldiers, and 24,897 very cute kittens. My Auntie Doris was able to have a hip replacement, my cousin Julia kept her job as a nurse, and my mate Charlie is still able to educate the young.
How crazy must we have been to think for even a moment that a preferential voting system was more important than all THAT?
And yet the noble actions of the British people have been in vain. Yet again, we've been betrayed by the political class. The very same politicians who earned our respect and gratitude by leading the charge against the Alternative Vote system have shamelessly introduced a near-identical system for today's Police Commissioner elections in England and Wales - and there isn't a damn thing you or I can do about it. We shall just have to watch in despair as our economy collapses under the weight of the extra pencils required for electors to cast a pointless second preference vote for John Prescott. The public transport system will collapse. Food supplies will run short. Sanitation will be but a fond memory. Many cute kittens will die today.
There is a word for what these politicians have done. That word is 'evil'.
I'm not sure I've ever felt more ashamed to be British than I do right now. It's sad to say it, but independence may be the only answer here - if we can't protect the babies of England and Wales from the insanity of preferential voting, perhaps we can at least protect our own babies.
Tuesday, November 13, 2012
It's been a while...
There was a time (in 2009, I think) when this blog was primarily a round-up of Scottish subsamples from UK opinion polls of Westminster voting intention. It would be a bit difficult to sustain that now, given that there's a YouGov poll virtually every day. However, I thought you might enjoy the latest one (fieldwork was carried out yesterday and the day before) -
SNP 42%
Labour 31%
Conservatives 18%
Liberal Democrats 5%
Did someone say something about a 'Scomnishambles'?
The poll also shows that Scots are less likely than respondents from any other region of the UK to think that British troops are "winning" in Afghanistan, or that the war is winnable.
SNP 42%
Labour 31%
Conservatives 18%
Liberal Democrats 5%
Did someone say something about a 'Scomnishambles'?
The poll also shows that Scots are less likely than respondents from any other region of the UK to think that British troops are "winning" in Afghanistan, or that the war is winnable.
Wednesday, November 7, 2012
The black hole where the US media's coverage of third party candidates should be
It was an interesting experience watching CNN's election coverage as one of the roughly 1% of voters who had plumped for someone other than Mitt Romney or Barack Obama. Although I'd been in that position before, in past elections I'd voted for the relatively high-profile Ralph Nader. This time it was as if third party candidates didn't exist, and indeed as if their voters didn't exist either. The subliminal message was "if you didn't vote Democrat or Republican, you didn't participate in this election". Psychologically, it's very hard to swim against that tide, and I found that I had to remind myself a few times why the easy option of a vote for Obama really wouldn't have been such a great idea.
This subtle pressure on voters to conform is undoubtedly very convenient to some. At about 6am, I saw a former Clinton adviser talking about his party's "growing up" process in 1992, which included an embrace of the death penalty. The Democrats "wouldn't have been ready" to make that change four years earlier, he added with a degree of smugness. This repugnant notion that putting people to death somehow equates with "maturity" is enabled by the assumption that left-liberal voters have nowhere else to go - or if they're uppity enough to think they do have somewhere else to go, that they can and should be browbeaten back into line. Witness the disgraceful attempt to pin the blame for Bush's 2000 election victory on Nader and his supporters. Seemingly it had never occurred to the "centrists" and "moderates" (ahem) that their complicity in maintaining a discredited electoral system might just have consequences for them, as well as for the constituencies of opinion that they are happy to patronise and marginalise.
On a more positive note, it's conceivable that CNN may have been kind enough to actually count my Senate vote, because I happened to vote for the winning candidate - an unashamedly socialist independent. Which is a timely reminder that if enough people persevere with voting for third party candidates for long enough, eventually some of those candidates will make a breakthrough, and then they can't be ignored anymore.
It should also be pointed out that the US media's treatment of third parties is infinitely worse than anything we've ever seen in this country. Even when British politics was a genuinely straight fight between the Conservatives and Labour, the BBC used to faithfully report the results for Liberals and fringe candidates (indeed they probably did so more faithfully than they do now).
* * *
A quick update on my previous post - somewhat surprisingly, Puerto Rico seems to have broken the habit of decades by voting against the constitutional status quo. The most popular option was to become the 51st US state, so it'll be intriguing to see if their wishes are respected, or if "only English-speaking states are welcome here". Unfortunately, the attempt to abolish the death penalty in California failed, which is without question a considerable setback for the abolitionist movement throughout the US. I do still firmly belief that America will join the civilised world eventually, but it may take a few more decades yet.
This subtle pressure on voters to conform is undoubtedly very convenient to some. At about 6am, I saw a former Clinton adviser talking about his party's "growing up" process in 1992, which included an embrace of the death penalty. The Democrats "wouldn't have been ready" to make that change four years earlier, he added with a degree of smugness. This repugnant notion that putting people to death somehow equates with "maturity" is enabled by the assumption that left-liberal voters have nowhere else to go - or if they're uppity enough to think they do have somewhere else to go, that they can and should be browbeaten back into line. Witness the disgraceful attempt to pin the blame for Bush's 2000 election victory on Nader and his supporters. Seemingly it had never occurred to the "centrists" and "moderates" (ahem) that their complicity in maintaining a discredited electoral system might just have consequences for them, as well as for the constituencies of opinion that they are happy to patronise and marginalise.
On a more positive note, it's conceivable that CNN may have been kind enough to actually count my Senate vote, because I happened to vote for the winning candidate - an unashamedly socialist independent. Which is a timely reminder that if enough people persevere with voting for third party candidates for long enough, eventually some of those candidates will make a breakthrough, and then they can't be ignored anymore.
It should also be pointed out that the US media's treatment of third parties is infinitely worse than anything we've ever seen in this country. Even when British politics was a genuinely straight fight between the Conservatives and Labour, the BBC used to faithfully report the results for Liberals and fringe candidates (indeed they probably did so more faithfully than they do now).
* * *
A quick update on my previous post - somewhat surprisingly, Puerto Rico seems to have broken the habit of decades by voting against the constitutional status quo. The most popular option was to become the 51st US state, so it'll be intriguing to see if their wishes are respected, or if "only English-speaking states are welcome here". Unfortunately, the attempt to abolish the death penalty in California failed, which is without question a considerable setback for the abolitionist movement throughout the US. I do still firmly belief that America will join the civilised world eventually, but it may take a few more decades yet.
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