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Dear Concerned Citizen, We live in fearful times, fearful of terrorists, fearful of global warming, fearful of knife crime, I could go on and on. But perhaps what we should be most fearful of is the unremitting advance of needless government interference in our private lives, of Tony Blair’s eyecatching initiatives and laws that look good to the neurotic section of our society. Ronald Reagan had it right when he once so memorably said “The worst ten words in the English language are “I’m from the government, I’m here to help.” When this Labour government came to power in 1997, it was widely assumed they were going to be a liberating influence in matters sexual. And so far as the Gay community was concerned that was what happened. Then again, there are plenty of Gay people in the parliamentary Labour party who would have been outraged if they had not. When it comes to commercial straight sex however, this government has let us down. During the Thatcher years, when Labour took over the city council in Edinburgh, they licensed all the city’s massage parlours, on the basis that they were aware of what went on in them, but so long as they kept their houses in order, with no drugs, underage girls, illegal aliens, stolen goods etc., they would be left alone. The local police force have found this set up very convenient leading to a lot less hassle for the local vice squad and a splendid example was there for the nation to copy. Then in 1999, when the Liberal Democrats ran Sheffield, it looked as though they were going to follow suit with comprehensive licensing of the establishments there and the ladies working in them. Jack Straw gave them the nod that he would not object to any such plans and it was only Labour retaking the city council at the local elections in 2000, that led to the plans being dropped. Meanwhile after the Yorkshire Ripper, the police forces in Greater Manchester and West and South Yorkshire, each in turn had decided it would be a good idea to let massage parlours operate undisturbed along the Edinburgh lines anyway and so long as they paid taxes and kept the houses in order, they would be left alone and this unspoken agreement between the massage parlours and local police forces was adopted by other urban areas around the country from Glasgow to Brighton from South Wales to Ipswich. When this Labour government announced plans for a white paper on prostitution, most people concerned about the adult services industry in Britain felt that at long last the veil of hypocrisy surrounding it was about to be lifted. However we had not counted on the Christianity of Tony Blair, who made it clear he was not going to agree to any relaxing in the laws relating to prostitution and so our hopes evaporated in a pronouncement of one proposed small relaxation of allowing two ladies to work together and even that has not yet come to pass. Meanwhile our opponents have been busy. Initially a Tory backbencher, Philip Hollobone, the MP for Kettering in Northants proposed an amendment to a bill going through the house that it should be made a crime for a man to pay for sex. This follows an example set initially in Sweden and recently copied by Norway. When the Government told Hollobone they were considering this option anyway, he dropped the amendment and now it is clear that a puritan feminist element in the Labour party who think everything Swedish is fantastic, led by Harriet Harman, the party’s deputy leader is keen to make this government policy, although it would now appear they have dropped such an extreme measure at least for the time being. However we do not know what the future might hold. A Cameron government might decide it needs to be “family friendly” and put such a measure forward itself, although the Tories are as divided on the issue as Labour. From the above facts it is obvious that this is not a simple clear cut party issue. While the Liberal Democrats are all on our side, within the Labour party, and this includes the parliamentary party, there are plenty of people who disagree with Harman, after all it was a Labour run council in Edinburgh, that started the idea of allowing massage parlours to operate without undue interference from the powers that be. And while there are plenty of hardline, illiberal, “family values” Tories, often Christians who agree with Harman, plenty of libertarians within the party disagree. Indeed while Howard was home secretary under Major, the industry was by the main left alone. The problem is, if this issue matters to you more than any other as it does to me, when one comes to vote at the next election, it will be extremely difficult to know who to vote for, particularly in the seats where it is simply a battle between the Tories and Labour. This is where I want this website to come in. MPs do not have to answer letters from just anyone. That is why when the BBC canvasses opinion from MPs it is only able to say what the half that bothers to reply to their letters thinks on a particular issue. But every MP is duty bound to reply to a letter from any of their constituents. I have drafted a letter available on this website to send to your MP, so you and then I can find out and then I can report on what each MP’s views on Harman’s proposed repressive legislation are. Enter your postcode into the search box below to find out who your MP is. You can then find a copy of our proposed letter and the contact details for your MP. Send the letter by e-mail to your MP. When you get a reply forward it on to me at george@mccoysguide.com and I will then be able to slowly build up an accurate picture of the views of all MPs on this matter. I will then slowly but surely build up a picture of who one should vote for when Brown gets around to going to the country. Some MPs might not even reply to you and if they do, we should initially assume they are on Harman’s side. If you do not get a reply, please let me know and then I will contact them myself, confronting them with that assertion and if they still do not reply to me, I feel we can assume they are just that. We may live in an elected dictatorship, to quote Lord Hailsham and again quoting him, hypocrisy may be the glue that keeps our society together, but that does not mean we have to take it lying down. Yours sincerely
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