THE Guide On How To Vote At The UK 2010 General Election

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 when retook control of the city council at the local elections in 2000, that the plans were 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 their 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 Somerset to Hull, 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 now been abandoned. And another lesson to learn from that is not to take any party’s manifesto particularly seriously.

 

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 has made a slightly milder version of this government policy, and they have plans for after the election to clamp down further. If Labour do not win, but the Tories do, one can hardly feel much confidence in what they might have in store for us. Cameron has been keen to show off his family friendly credentials and did not welcome David Davis back into his cabinet after he took that admirable though slightly eccentric stand on behalf of civil liberties by resigning his seat and then winning it back again. What we need is a parliament where no party can simply push through whatever legislation some top person in the party, e.g. Harman, wants, i.e. a hung parliament which probably means either the Tories or Labour only able to come up with new legislation if the Liberal Democrats approve of it.

 

I must emphasise it 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. After all someone who Anne Widdecombe could not stand cannot be all bad.

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 this website comes in.

Enter your postcode into the search box below to find out what your parliamentary seat is.

 

 

For each seat, I have analysed who you should vote for. In many seats it does not matter what you do. Many seats are safe Labour or Tory and while in these cases, I can advise you who to vote for, so as to push a possibly friendly candidate into contention for next time, basically do what you want. In quite a lot of seats however there is everything to play for. Where the seat has a principled MP, not on the take and/or solely interested in his political advancement, but concerned about civil rights, this website will tell you

Please have a look at whom I am advising you to vote for and bear in mind, if I am simply advising you to vote Labour or Tory it is so neither party will end up with an absolute majority and when the Lib Democrats stand a chance I am generally suggesting you vote for them or the equally principled Plaid Cymru in Wales. Indeed if you happen to live in Ceredigion, the battle there is between the Lib Dems and Plaid Cymru, and you have the luxury of being able to vote either way cheerfully. 

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

George McCoy