Sex Trade

Something really should be done about these women who are prepared to sell themselves for money.

I'm curious as to what sexual favours this woman exchanged to get where she is. You can hardly say she got the job because she's competent as we all know she isn't.

I have a few issues with this plan to ban prostitution:

1. Where do you draw the line?
Are they planning on banning hardcore pornography as that involves people having sex for money.
If a man buys a woman a drink and ends up having sex with her then has he paid her for it?
If a woman marries an older, richer man and then divorces him for a large amount of money, does that make Heather Mills-McCartney a prostitute?
If a pop star does a raunchy video or poses for a mens magazine like FHM, is she performing a sex-act in exchange for financial reward?

2. Does it even make any logical sense?
Harriet Harman said on Radio 4

We do need to have a debate and unless you tackle the demand side of human trafficking which is fuelling this trade, we will not be able to protect women from it

So Harriet, how exactly is making it illegal for consenting adults to have sex in exchange for money going to fix the problem of adults or children being forced into having sex?

Completely legalise it, license it, regulate it and tax it. Making it illegal only protects the very criminals you're supposedly trying to put out of business.

It does worry me that such a complete moron can become such a prominent member of the Labour party.

Freedom of Speech

I suppose with all this fuss going on at the Oxford Union, now is as good a time as any to talk about Freedom of Speech.

Contrary to popular mis-conception, we do not have freedom of speech in Britain. This is wrong. I always find it amusing that those who want to stop fascist groups like the BNP from having freedom of speech don't see the irony of their actions. (In case you don't either, it makes them fascists too)

Just because you don't like what someone is saying it doesn't mean they don't have a right to say it.

If I ruled Britain, you would have freedom of speech provided you remain within the confines of other laws (e.g. Official secrets act, contempt of court, libel/slander etc.) Inciting racial hatred wouldn't be a crime but you'd be hard pressed to do so without the odd bit of slander in your words - why go after you with new laws when the good old fashioned ones like treason will do just fine?

As far as the news event itself is concerned, making such a huge fuss over these idiots is giving them exactly what they want. There's no publicity quite like free publicity.

Family Law

Having posted a somewhat emotional rant on my other blog, I thought I'd put something a bit more rational in this one.

Family law as it stands is not family law. It's protect-the-mother-unless-she's-a-proven-nutcase law.

This legal judgement catagoricaly proves this. The father has no legal rights concerning his own child but should the mother choose to care for it, he has a financial obligation to pay her to do so.

Whenever a controversial child custody ruling (or Fathers 4 Justice) make it onto the news, we always hear the standard generalisation that 'most men' abandon their children and then don't contribute towards their upbringing.

Do we know this or is it assumed? I'd like to see some metrics to back this up. I'd like to know what percentage of fathers in the UK walked out on their children (not booted out) never to return (not wanting dual custody) and making no maintenance of any kind.

Many fathers refuse to pay maintenance because the mother doesn't give them any access. Others are the ones that are left with the children and without a penny of support. Unfortunately the assumption is that because the perceived majority fall into the above paragraph, the rest can suffer as a result.

Family law is supposed to be about the child.

If the parents split up amicably but then the mother wants to move away and take the children with her, is that best for the children?

If both parents live in the same area and both want to look after the children, should the state even intervene?

If a woman wants an abortion but the would-be-father doesn't, is it fair for the woman to be able to make the choice without his consent?

And in the case of the story that has gotten my heckles up so much, is it fair for the mother to put the child up for adoption without the father having a right of first refusal?

If I ruled Britain I would put the needs of the child/children at the centre of the issue. Children need parents. The relationship between the parents seems to be the core issue rather than that of the relationship between the individual parents and their children.
Therefore parents would have equal rights in child custody. I find it appalling that a father has no rights unless he is married to the mother. Custody would not be awarded to the mother by default and adoption would have to have the consent of both parents.

Something really needs to be done about the issue of payments and access. If I ruled Britain you wouldn't get maintenance payments without allowing access and vice-versa.
Rather than placing the emphasis on the cowardly courts*, if a parent cannot get access to their children, they can suspend their payments until the access has been allowed. Likewise if a parent doesn't pay then they get no access.

*I'd say toothless but they have the teeth and choose not to use them very often.

Can't Work, Won't Work

The Governments new proposals to test what a person can do rather than what they can't in regards to incapacity benefit are long overdue.

I don't have a problem with people who can't work claiming incapacity benefit. It's the ones that won't that are the problem.

A guy I work with was off sick for several months. There wasn't actually anything wrong with him and he was desperate to come back to work.
Unfortunately he'd fallen unconscious at home one day and so his drivers license had been revoked on medical grounds. He lives out in the sticks (Cornwall) and had no way of getting in to work without his car.
To get around this he has a friend that drops him in and picks him up most days, when he can't he has a 2 hour train and bus ride (each way - 4 hours in total). He has to work stupid hours to do this but he does so because he WANTS TO WORK. He's my hero - I actually told him words to that effect on Monday.

Another friend of mine was running a successful small business (Providing training courses) but had a fit and so he too lost his driving licence on medical grounds. I do hope he's been able to keep his business afloat but I doubt it.

So If I Ruled Britain I'd revoke the driving license of anyone claiming incapacity benefit.

If you can drive a car, you can work.

If those who DO work are losing their licenses then those who DON'T work (and claim benefits as a result) shouldn't have one either. When you stop claiming incapacity benefits, you can get your driving license back (Subject to a successful medical).

How's that for a carrot shaped stick?

The Judiciary

I've been tempted to post a new idea over the last couple of months but have lacked the motivation. That was until I heard about the bike fucker.

How is it any different to someone using a sex toy? This case just highlights the continual sexual inequality in society:

If a woman has sex with an inanimate object it's viewed as an empowering experience. After all why should she need a MAN to have sexual pleasure? Women will often brag to each other about the sex toys they own (I've been unfortunate enough to overhear such conversations at different workplaces over the last 10 years).

If a man has sex with an inanimate object it's because he's a sad lonely tosser. No bloke would ever admit that he cracks one off when he's not getting any.

Anyway I've gone off the point somewhat, what law has this guy broken?
It was his own bicycle in the privacy of his own room. If anything, the cleaners should be done for invasion of privacy.

He's now on the sex offenders register. Unfortunately when people hear "sex offenders register", they think peadophile, rapist etc.

If I Ruled Britain (That includes Scotland) I would introduce a Quality Assurance Department for the Judiciary. Obviously you have to tread very carefully here as you wouldn't want to end up with a dictatorship like in Pakistan. The QAD would be run by the Judiciary to maintain its independance from the Government.

So what would the QAD do? I hear you ask. (Well I don't as no-one reads/comments on this blog.)
They would act post-verdict on any case that results in a sentance (not necessarily custodial), regardless of plea. They would determine two factors:

1. Was the sentance correct?
2. Were any fundamental errors made?

For factor 1 they would then have the power to increase or reduce a sentance if it was found to be out of step with similar cases.

Factor 2 can only apply to not-guilty pleas. If a person has admitted guilt (Like the bike fucker) then it is counter productive to review the case. The main points I would want the QAD to look at are "presumption of innocence" and "beyond reasonable doubt".
It is for the prosecution to prove you guilty, not for the defence to prove you innocent.
It amazes me that any woman ever went to jail for a Sudden Infant Death trial. If you cannot determine that the child was killed then how can you therefore prove that they were murdered and who the murderer was?
The idea of the QAD is it acts as a turbo boosted appeals process. I have no problem with guilty as hell convicted criminals rotting in jails, but the thought of someone being convicted and incarcerated on flimsy evidence doesn't sit well with me, no matter how 'disturbed' the individual might be. The sooner their appeal is dealt with and they get a fair trial, the better.

Another theory I have with the judiciary is that because they are constantly immersed with criminal behaviour, their perception of society is tainted compared to everyone elses - If you're a hospital cleaner and you deal with shit all day long then it probably bothers you less.
By employing a greater number of judges and periodically rotating them, perhaps they would have a more rounded view of our society and what is right and wrong.
Also, if you then had a sudden backlog of cases you would have the workforce at your disposal to process them quicker. Then all I'd need to fix is the CPS - having cut the beaurocratic ties that currently prevent the Police from doing any policing.

Right that's all done. What should I fix next? ... I know, incapacity benefit!

Yes Please

The issue of Scotland (and to a lesser extent Wales and Northern Ireland) being over-represented has been something of a bug-bear for me for some time now.

These proposals by Sir Malcolm Rifkind are long overdue.

The only reason that Labour oppose them is because most of their MPs are Scottish and they wouldn't have a strong majority in an English only assembly.

I find it farcical that Gordon Brown has more control over what happens to me in Plymouth than what happens to voters in his own constituency.

I just love the way that Labour are trying to accuse the Tories of destabilising the Union. The Tories were opposed to devolution in the first place. Now they're just making sure the job is finished.

It's worrying me that I'm siding with the Tories more than anyone else of late. I used to REALLY hate them.
Maybe if someone electable (and not Scottish) becomes the leader of the Lib Dems that might redress the balance a bit...

Abortion

I was listening to Radio 5 on the way home and this story was being discussed.

I personally think that the government views abortion as a "sticky topic" and so trys to avoid dragging it into a public/house of commons debate at all costs.

The lady being interviewed on the radio pointed out that the data the government was quoting was from 1995. Bearing in mind that the last time the Abortion Act was amended was 1990, that's a huge amount of time in terms of the accuracy of the data.

I do find it odd that every time a child is abducted, attacked or murdered there is an enormous outcry yet it is perfectly acceptable to kill a child before they are even born. Whether you find abortion acceptable or not, the fact that 193,000 were carried out in England & Wales last year suggests that an overwhelming number of people do.

I always used to despise the pro-life lobby groups (mainly due to their strong ties to religous groups) but as I've gotten older and I'm heading towards having my own children, I'm starting to see their point.

The pro-choice agenda was all about the rights of a woman to choose when they have children.
So what about the rights of the father and the unborn child?

With the exception of rape attacks, you could argue that the woman effectively chose when she consented to sex - if you can't do the time then don't do the crime.

It seems that the father gets a bum deal out of the whole thing. If he doesn't want the child, the mother can still have it and he will be financially responsible. If he does want the child, the mother cannot be prevented from terminating it. The law says that he made his choice when he had sex with her. So why does she get another?

And who speaks up for the child?

I don't oppose the morning after pill as it prevents conception from taking place. I'm talking about the termination of an unborn child.

As far as I'm concerned you should only be able to have an abortion for medical reasons or if you were raped. How many of the 193,000 does that apply to?

Personally I'm of the opinion that teenage pregnancies would drop if this 'safety net' were removed as less teenagers would be having casual sex as they would be more fearful of the consequences. Unfortunately I'm an idealist.

No Shit

It occurs to me that so far my 'original ideas' are hardly setting the world alight. Aside from VAT free waterproofs I haven't suggested anything that isn't already in the public conscious.

So instead of trying to link my ideas together in a manefesto-like approach, here are some of my more original ideas* in no particular order:

Green vehicle licenses - Nothing to do with the environment, a slower moving vehicle or vehicle driven by a retired person would be made road tax exempt provided it remained off the road at peak times. It would have green license plates to give it this distinction. This way tractors, lawn mowers, plant equipment etc could operate on the road at lower cost but not inconvenience motorists that need to get to work. Likewise OAPs would be able to get out and about at a lower cost provided they use the roads when they are less congested.

Missed appointment fines - If you have an NHS appointment and you fail to show or leave sufficient notice of cancellation then you will be fined and barred from making a further appointment until the fine has been paid.

Child benefit caps - We live in a free society (at least we used to) so you can have as many children as you want. However the state ceases to pick up the tab after you have had a determined number of children/births. E.g. If you have two children already you will only receive benefits for the next birth, if you have twins or triplets you will still get full benefits for each of them. You would not be entitled to any benefits for subsequent children. The current system actively encourages those at the bottom of society to have more children and those in the middle to have fewer. (Those at the top are less effected as they have enough money for it not to matter).

Structured prison sentances - A first offender would have 60% punishment (monotonous tasks such as sorting recyclable materials, stripping mobile phone handsets, stripping car tyres etc.), 30% rehabilitation (education, vocational training etc) and 10% adjustment (Day release, external community service etc.). A repeat offender would have 90% punishment and 10% adjustment - they would not be rehabilitated twice. Those who win appeals/re-trials would be offered the 10% adjustment period if they have become sufficiently institutionalised but it would not be compulsory.
Good behaviour would result in a shorter or less unpleasant punishment, bad behaviour would result in a longer (and less pleasant) one.

Hung verdicts for rape - The reality of a rape trial is that it is the accused versus the victim - it should be the accused versus the state. Why not formalise it. If a hung verdict is reached then it would count against someone in court in future. Serial rapists would be put away eventually as would vindictive accusers.

That'll do for now, I have more but I struggle to get them all out of my brain at the same time - the little voices stop me.

*Although I believe these ideas are original, that doesn't rule out the possibility that someone else hasn't publically suggested them before. The odds of having a truly original thought are 6 billion to 1 against.

Vice

Having heard about this story on the radio en route to work this morning (In my car) I began thinking about various vice issues.

On the story itself, I find it bizarre that in order to get a drug addict off one drug you offer encouragement in the form of more prescribed drugs if their urine sample comes back clear.

It's not so much the issue of giving drugs to addicts - although I'm not convinced about prescribing Methadone as a treatment, it turns a Heroin addict into... a Methadone addict - it's more the fact that you shouldn't offer an incentive to someone that resembles the very thing you're trying to fix.

It'd be like giving Mars bars to compulsive eaters, lap dances to sex addicts, booze cruise tickets to alcoholics etc.

Anyway onto the bigger picture. As with prostitution, I fail to see how making drugs illegal protects anyone that matters. The only people the current laws protect are drug dealers.

You protect them from having to pay any tax on their ill gotten gains and also from prosecution - Why would anyone want to snitch on their drug dealer? As well as the violent repercussions they would probably face for doing so, they'd also lose their supply of drugs. The only way you would be able to bust drug dealers would be through surveillance and tracking. This costs a lot of money. If drugs were legal, drug dealers would be out of business overnight. All they'd have left would be the dole - which many of them claim already*

Unlike the pot-heads that want certain less harmful drugs legalised (I.e. the ones they take so therefore must be OK) I say legalise all drugs. There are plenty of legal ways of fucking your own body up so as long as you don't force them onto anyone else (Which would still be a crime) and pay taxes on them like the rest of us do with our drugs of choice (alcohol & tobacco) then why should I care?

The illegality of drugs increases the appeal, especially to those who are young and impressionable. Perhaps by removing the 'coolness' of drugs, people might actually realise that Pete Docherty is a rubbish musician and deserves none of the fame he has.

The most dangerous aspect of drugs is the impurities they have. By giving people clean pharmaceutical quality drugs, this problem is fixed.

In order to supply Britain's junkies with all this quality smack, we could buy all the opium off of the poppy farmers in Afghanistan. They would then love us and cease to support the militias in the area... Would you want to piss off your number one customer?

As I said at the top, I think prostitution laws are a farce. They don't protect vulnerable women (Many of them drug addicts), they only protect pimps - many of whom now hold women against their will in slavery.

Although I started watching "Confessions of a London call girl" to see if Billie Piper got her kit off, it occurred to me when her character was whinging about paying 40% of her ill-gotten gains to her "agent" that most high earners in this country have to spend their 40% elsewhere.

I'd allow prostitutes to operate in licensed brothels (located all over the country - none of this "zones of tolerance" shite) then if a punter had any problem with them or felt they were being mistreated then they could report the brothel to the authorities without fear of reprisals. Again they would also be paying taxes.

Plus think of all the carbon saved as the only people who would be wanting to fly to Amsterdam from Britain would be the ones who actually want to visit rather than those that go merely to use the facilities.

If we legalised drugs and prostitution, just think of all the police resource that would be freed up to catch criminals that do pose a threat to innocent members of the public.

Finally, GB is reviewing the 24 hour licensing laws. Bearing in mind that the law hasn't even been in place for a year yet, does he not think that it might be an idea to wait for it to bed in a bit more before deciding what to do?

Whenever you get something new you take advantage of it as much as possible to start with but after a while you just know it's there and are less bothered about it. Give it another year and there will be less alcohol related incidents than there were before the law was changed.

*Convicted drug dealers are often found to be claiming unemployment benefit (I have no stats) as they have no recorded income. I am not implying that those claiming unemployment benefit must therefore be drug dealers.

Transport

I've been thinking a lot about transport over the last 24 hours.

This might be loosly related to the fact that my car is in for repair and I've had to rely on lifts from the wife, buses and my own two feet. Then there is the absolutely absurd plan announced by government advisors today.

It's been raining a lot in Plymouth today and as per usual the amount of traffic on the road has doubled. This is no doubt because of a combination of factors :

1. Those that normally cycle to work would prefer to get their alive.
2. Those that normally walk their children to school don't want them to get wet.
3. A lot of others people who would normally walk or take the bus say "Oooh, not rain!" and get in a car.
4. Numpties drive even worse in the wet.

I can't see an awful lot of legislation that would help with points 1 & 4 (apart from the ethnic clensing of numpty drivers but that wouldn't be in my first manifesto) but I can do something about the middle two.

As Billy Connolly often says (and my brother in a bad Billy Connolly impression):

"There's no such thing as the wrong weather, only the wrong clothes"

There have been some amazing advances in waterproof technology over the last decade and textiles such as Gore-Tex will not only keep you completely dry but they're breathable as well.

However Gore-Tex is also incredibly expensive. (Unless you bought a DPM coat off an army surplus website like I did)

In order to encourage people to walk to work/school etc. in rainy weather I would therefore make waterproof clothing VAT exempt.
No doubt this would lead to a trend of designer waterproofs but I don't care. The issue is to get people walking in all unhazerdous weather. Umbrellas would not be VAT exempt as quite frankly they're a f**king menace!

As far as the plans for 20mph speed limits in all urban areas go, I have my reservations. I certainly wouldn't want this to be a blanket policy (Which it more than likely would be) and it screams of policy dictating reality rather than vice-versa.

The article above acknowledges that road deaths have more than halved since the 1960s so where is the justification for this?

Motorists already think that existing traffic policy exists to generate revenue and this comes across in the same way.

When I was a young child (1980s) there were adverts on all the time telling me how to cross the road safely and more importantly what happens when you don't. We even had police officers visiting our schools to reinforce the same message. I would bring that back. I would make it a policy to ensure that young children are sufficiently fearful of busy roads. They need to be scared of the road and aware of the danger it poses to them.
Even if a car is doing 20mph, if the child walks out on it without looking and the driver has no time at all to react then the child is a gonner.

I would consider introducing 20mph speed limits to roads where there are parked cars but this could only happen if it was introduced in tandem with double red lines on urban trunk roads (i.e. no parking at any time). A blanket 20mph speed limit in all urban areas would be a disaster.

Introduction, Ideals and Rules

Introduction

On my other blog and in general conversation I have always said about what I would do if I ruled Britain. I've decided that as the current government is so good at nicking other peoples ideas, if I post mine then some of them might actually get adopted.

I'm not really interested in taking credit for anything, I just want things to work better. Besides I have no interest in politics, just government (I believe the two are completely unrelated and one regularly restricts the efficient operation of the other)

Ideals

I suppose I should really outline my political ideals but the trouble is I don't have any. I (like most people I talk to) care more about the issues of government than the core beliefs of the politicians in charge.

Some of my ideas could be interpreted as right-wing, others left-wing. This isn't important to me as I only care about them working and possibly altering them to make them work better.

Rules

If I have a policy it will be in bold. This is to enable people to skim read through my drivel.
If I think of any further rules I will add them to this post.