Tuesday, October 18, 2005
Bad for them!
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Bad for them! The Tories have eliminated the one man who could have rescued them from their (now) inevitable spiral of decline. With Kenneth Clarke out of the leadership contest, there are now only variants of the unelectable touting for the favour of the unleadable. It's all rather unspeakable.
It might seem appropriate to say 'Good for us', because the deselection of Ken Clarke has removed the biggest risk to Lib-Dem prospects at the next election. But if it's 'good for us', it's a sour one. Political leaders don't just attempt to win elections. They also set the agenda in the public debate. Sensible leaders, sensible debate. Right wing leaders hope to sway the electorate in their direction. And they open the debate to extremists who live beyond even the Tory right. Britain has gained nothing by the loss of Ken Clarke. And it will gain nothing by the eventual selection of one of the three contenders who remain.
So it's back to bad business as usual for the Tories. Michael Howard will continue as a caretaker -- just as he has done since the very day he became Tory leader. The party will select someone who appeals to their self-image fantasy -- that they have lost the last elections because they were not right wing enough.
And Kenneth Clarke? He can console himself with the fact that the Tories could not have elected him without admitting that they were wrong on the previous two occasions. And if we have learned one thing from the past of the Tory party, it is that Tories cannot learn from their own past. And he can remind himself that he never gave up. History will show that Clarke was right, and his party was wrong.
Saturday, October 01, 2005
Birmingham Raid uncovers tip of the iceberg
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Yesterday's raid on a Sauna in Birmingham uncovered the tip of the iceberg of the UK's sex-trafficking industry. 19 women were rescued from allegedly forced prostitution, from Greece, Hong Kong, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Poland and Turkey.
The Birmingham police deserve every congratulation for facing up to the situation and taking action. But there is far, far more to be done.
The UN estimates that 5 million women and children are trafficked each year. This means that every three years, as many people are sold in slavery in the modern world as were sold during the 315 of the Atlantic slave trade. Nobody knows how many are trafficked in the UK each year -- itself a damning indictment of our failure to begin to tackle the problem.
Key factors in the growth of sex trafficking in Britain include the following. First, in tackling prostitution our legal system has tended to penalise sex-workers while failing to go after pimps, and doing little to discourage the clients. Secondly, the growing tolerance for building-based prostitution creates an environment where traffickers can easily control their victims. Third, the UK heavily penalises people who are illegally in this country, even where they are victims of human trafficking. Chillingly, in yesterday's raid, several of the girls are being held by police while their immigration status is checked. However, the most important factor is a failure by local authorities and central government to take the issue seriously.
While working for charity I was involved in counselling and assisting victims of sex-trafficking in Belgium. It is a long and depressingly fragile process. Belgium has a bad track record for its toleration of this industry. But it has developed some effective support mechanisms for victims, which we would do well to emulate in Britain. There are systems in place for victims to gain immigration status, and help mechanisms to assist them into social housing, language learning and the social security network. All these are missing in Britain.
Ultimately, the Belgian approach is based on the acceptance that sex-trafficking is a crime perpetrated on the victims by Belgian society. It is therefore for Belgian society to redress it.
For as long as we continue to penalise victims, with the occasional foray against the perpetrators to salve our conscience, we in Britain will continue to nurture the conditions which make this trade flourish.
And that is sickening.
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