A government with its head in the clouds

Well it would be seem that Home Secretary Jacqui Smith is having a cavalier existence these days, either fiddling her expenses or, like Mr Gladstone, saving fallen women...or so she apparently believes. The proposed new legislation on prostitution would make it a criminal offence by the male customer if he pays for sex with a woman who is controlled by pimps.

How ludicrous is that? Can you imagine the conversation? "How much for a ten minute quickie, luv - but I must see written evidence that you are working alone, entirely unconscripted and not subject to force or duress in any way!' Its total bananas.

But of course the government is not mad. It knows that placing the onus in this way is unfair - and it doesn't care. As the holier than thou Mrs Smith said yesterday 'there will be no more excuses for those who pay for sex'. Perhaps there should be no more excuses for those who pay a lot more of taxpayers money to keep their homes but enough of that.

Someone should confront her on this but nobody in politics has the guts to break ranks on an issue which is seen as 'morally justified'. But what is wrong with paying for sex if it is a mutually agreed contract? Not every woman making a living from supplying sexual services has been dragged here from Romania or Albania, not every one has been forced into it by evil men with gold jewellery and flashy BMWs either. And it is clearly totally unfair to put a criminal onus on men who are not in a position to know the truth. People have paid sex for all sorts of reasons and I don't believe, provided there is no force or coercion, that should be a criminal offence.



As one 'punter' interviewed on TV said yesterday, it is an accommodation shrouded in shame and lies..on both sides. The man wants to remain anonymous, the girl is hardly going to admit she is controlled by anybody and thus lose business. All that will happen is that the trade will be driven ever further underground.

I have said before that while I have supported the Labour Party all my life with its creed of social welfare there are times when that falls over the edge into Victorian nannying. It is no good Mrs Smith proclaiming 'no more excuses for paid sex'. Paid sex has been in existence since the dawn of time and will continue to be so. The government needs to start looking at this from a different perspective.

A rather unsavoury analogy of how the government is operating with regard to prostitution might be the of the old British gentry before flush toilets were invented who just threw unsavoury matter into the cellar and let the servants clear it into the sewers, pretending it wasn't there.

This is no way to go on or to keep the girls engaged in the trade safe. The government needs to bite the bullet on its Victorian hang-ups and start thinking seriously about tolerance zones where the girls involved in the trade can be properly housed, pay rent, be medically examined and supervised..and basically be reasonably safe. This is the way to deal with the issue not these petty ludicrous impositions on the man who pays..and especially to impose criminal sanctions when he is hardly likely to be in possession of the facts which turn him into a criminal.