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Please please please spare us from Harriet Harman. I carry no torch for the sex industry. But this is just playing politics, as unless they are going to enforce these new laws, this is just yet more hot air.

They 'banned' using your mobile phone in the car. They didn't enforce it. People kept using them. Then they said they would put points on your licence. They didn't enforce the law. Now they are going to put you in prison. Well, if they catch you, and as they are not pursuing anyone - well, you get my point.

I am absolutely not a fan of 'raunch culture' and having a lap-dancing club in every high street. But the reason that 'sauna / massage parlour' establishments were tolerated is that the police knew where they were, had an understanding that the women there were relatively safe [or at least were safer than if they were walking the streets]. It kept 'kerb crawling' down, so residents were happier, and women weren't murdered.

Not an ideal solution, I grant you. And sadly these establishments now have become a magnet for drug dealers and people traffickers. But before implementing yet more ill-thought out legislation, should we not consider that the alternative may be far far worse ??

Harman doesn't like prostitution.
Neither do I - but her plans seem to be fated to result in a return to the 70s where prostitutes were murdered with impunity because they operated in a legal limbo land on the outskirts of society.

Of course, she would tell me that things are no better now, and point to the Ipswich murders as an example.

But to resolve a situation like that means tackling the drug problem and that is a lot more difficult and costly than bleating about new laws which the police will not have the time, energy, money or resources to implement.

Re: Mr. Knightley that's the trouble with dream beaus they leave you wanting more -

:(

I like Newsnight promoting
X Factor and then Tea Towels last night what a hoot !
Is this a new co-funding measure to counteract the Salami slicing butcher Mr Thompson ?

Dear Newsnight

I agree with Harriet Harmans proposals. suggest accompanying it with free drugs and help for all addicts and suggest setting up for example a far eastern division of the Met Police to hunt down all UK citizens who abuse women and children overseas such as in South East Asia, ie who use the sex industry there

best wishes
Bob

Re #1. I'd like to echo that.

Harriet Harman has just had a big idea. Apparently the swedish are doing it. Then again, perhaps not. Or maybe doing it alot and not paying for it. I don't really care.

What i do care about is the fact that we have had a long debate in this country for some time, about safety and rights of sex workers, etc. But instead, and in true new-labour style we have to wait for someone in high government to have a sudden flash of morlity followed by the inevitable big idea. Is that really the way it works?

I want to be clear here because, is Harriet Harman determined to be our moral guardian here, by putting paid-for sex pretty much on the same level as rape?

Alternatively, she might consider consulting real people, the ones actually affected by such measures, or no measures or the current situation, as it is. I fear however that her world stops short of that and includes only her close political colleagues, her PR and maybe a few self-appointed think-tank types. Maybe some of them really do have some experience of the sex industry (Ha ha), maybe then i'm wrong?

Really, truely, honestly. Where does she get this stuff from?

POLITICS & GROUP/FAMILY COMPETITION

LONDON

How about looking into what's happening to London demographically and comparing this to the way that NYC went in the C20th?

My basic conjecture is that what happened there is now happening in London. There appears to be an indigenous White (gentile) British exodus and mass immigration/population growth of S Asaian and Africans with the Londion Jewish community staying behind too. I fear this happens when an enclave settles and is sub-clinically a little paranoid (hence a pre-occupation with psychiatry and other fanciful non-evidence based verbal/symbolic passions). Whilst this may facilitate social-cohesion within a traditionally endogamous group, it may do so at the expense of those they settle amidst. I suspect this is not intentional or malicious, I suspect it's just a natural expression of a) gene barriers and behaviours coupled with b) collusive, 'self-protective' group dynamics and lack of awareness of the consequences (which are nevertheless beneficial to the group in terms of hegemony, so this cognitive 'blind-spot' is reinforced & in the longer term, genetically selected).

Whilst one should always be aware of the 'clever' abuse of existential and universal quantification in natural language (SOME=NOT(ALL) and ALL=NOT(SOME), and some is certainly not all) when reading the next link, consider London Stamford Hill's alleged 'poverty' vs all the recent newsworthy people who have been seen to be helping New Labour, entrepreneurs desperate to learn the tricks of the trade on TV from past masters, all of the salient leaders in the financial markets and media etc. 0.4% of the population?

Next consider the mass migration of Africans and S Asians to the UK in recent decades (largely settling in London and teh South East). All the sex and race equality legislation down the years, and why this has all come about. Then have a close look at articles 19, 16, 17, 3 etc of the (red-lined) FCHR (there are 53 articles):

Which 'minority' group dominates in New York City? Is there a precedent?

/blogs/newsnight/2007/09/wednesday_19_september_2007.html
/blogs/newsnight/2007/09/wednesday_19_september_2007.html

What sort of politics does the FCHR proscribe, and what does it prescribe? Which group is likely to benefit most (if any)? Which will be best protected by EU law and why?

I hope we're not seeing history repeating itself, but I fear we may be, and largely through negligence plus a rather naive trust in 'human nature' despite all the evidence.

Surely some liberties have to be curtailed in the interest of the collective good?

No offence, just look at the figures and judge for yourself.

The reason trafficking is rocketing is because there is no real deterrent for the slave traders.
Criminalising men will do nothing to deter these traders. At best it will encourage them take their slaves to countries which have not done the same.
A girl from Lithuania is a slave whether she is in London or Rio. You have done nothing to save her.
On the other hand, a massive pan-european publicity drive letting EVERYONE know that girls who escape their captors will not be deported but will be looked after properly, what might that lead to?
Would slave traders be more anxious about the consequences of a girl escaping? He might, if the law of averages tells him that he is likely to lose at least one over a period of time.
Couple that possibility with the most draconian punishment allowed under European law and maybe the slave trader - a calculating man or woman -
might start to think of another way to make a living.

I would have been interested to see your comments on the 'Omagh case' but failed to see the Newsnight or link to it. However, I did receive this report from "Republican News"
Unsurprisingly the case was thrown out mainly on the evidence of an FBI spy. who disclosed that… a judge today [Thursday] rubbished the case presented by the PSNI/RUC police.
He was also cleared of 26 other charges linked to a series of attacks in the months before Omagh.

The trial had been dismissed as a "farce" and a "show trial" by relatives of the Omagh bomb victims as well as Mr Hoey's family and supporters. It emerged last year that British forces had advance knowledge of the 'Real IRA' bomb plot, which killed 29 people, but failed to intercept the device despite warnings telephone calls. There have been persistent allegations that British agents were complicit in the atrocity,
possibly to undermine support for the breakaway group.

Delivering his verdict nearly 10 months after the 56-day trial finished, Mr Justice Weir also hit out at lies by members of the PSNI and what he termed 'contamination' of forensic evidence. He declared: "It is difficult to avoid some expression of surprise that in an era in which the potential for fibre, if not DNA, contamination was well known to the police, such items were so widely and routinely handled with cavalier disregard for their integrity."
Critical evidence linking Hoey with IRA attacks had been found to have been tampered with while in the custody of the PSNI/RUC.