Conference seems a long time ago.  I remember travelling home on the train sitting next to David Willets and Cheryl Gillian, full of optimism.  A great Conference.  Never underestimating the task ahead, key was that everything was pointing in the right direction.  George Osborne had just enjoyed the Conference of his life and delivered a speech which tackled the big issues and underlined the economic competence of the Conservatives.  David Cameron had delivered a barn storming speech which left all with hope, (yes that great word that Obama anchors campaigns around), that we were en route to a better future.  This was off the back of a dreadful Labour Conference that saw a less than half empty hall wearily trudge through a week of depression, until Lord Mandelson rallied their spirits, (and his future career prospects), with throws of inspiring rhetoric for the Labour faithful to finally have a sliver of hope themselves.

Things are bleak for this Government.  Indeed, for the country.

And yet…..opinion polls are throwing up mixed results.  Trending is that Conservatives are not dominating as much as we should be.  Local council by election results, are ‘disappointing’,(in the words of ConservativeHome’s Jonathan Isaby.  Iain Dale also asks the question why by-election results are not going our way).  Yes, there are always localised reasons at play at by-election results, and their impact can never be dismissed.  But we are not dominating.  Opinion polls are patchy and not as inspiring as the recent 17% lead polls.  Tim Montgomerie on ConservativeHome has alluded to a drop in Conservatives support post Lisbon Treaty ‘U-Turn’.  Many seem to agree with that sentiment on that blog site.  But there is more to it than Europe.

What is fundamentally true is that the Conservatives have so much ammunition at their disposal, the question why polls are not moving stronger in our favour is a valid one to ask!

Consider what’s happening around us…..

  -           The economy.  First into recession, last out.  And the deepest recession in Europe.  We hurtle catastrophically towards a £1 trillion debt that our children will still be paying off in years to come. Brown has got away with the biggest lie in Political history.  That lie?  That debt has been built up because Brown states he was saving the UK from recession, (actually he would say saving the world from recession but scrub that).  That’s like Tiger Woods saying he had 10 birdies in a round and his wife believing he was talking about Golf!   Brown was building debt way before this recession even started.  In the good times he was spending like a manic gambler at the roulette table, hoping the ball will end on black.  In the words of the IMF:  ‘Imbalances and balance sheet strains had emerged even before the recent global shocks triggered a sharp decline in economic activity’.  ie we were heading into recession and spending too heavily BEFORE the Global shocks took place. 

 -           Unemployment heads towards 3 million, (that’s by official figures), unofficially claims of 6 million seem more accurate.  That’s people’s lives wrecked, on hold, dignity stripped.  Benefits and dependency culture set in.

 -           Class War.  Entrepreneurs discouraged.  Bankers bashed.  Top talent packing their bags to work abroad as UK thumps those very people who can bring us out of slump, create jobs for others and generate tax revenues, pummelled to the ground, with more ferocity than an uppercut from Mike Tyson in his prime, by punitive tax rates.  50% for top earners.  40% threshold frozen.  More on NI.  VAT back up 2.5%.  Penalties on companies that reward bankers who make money, (the very people we need to save and keep in this country, not incentivise to work and benefit New York’s Stock Exchange). 

 -           The Unions start to flex their muscles.  Just as the nation was free from the strangulation and choking hold of the Unions, like in ‘The Shining’ ‘They’re back’!  Strikes on the increase, Union militancy.  Bob Crow back on the telly chanting his monotone messages like a failed XFactor auditionee.  The Post Office, on the brink of collapse, wont modernise, cancerously pumping money into its bottomless pension pit, faced by striking members, and growing competition.  The RMT, getting the Tube drivers out on strike, more often than we enjoy a boiling hot summers day that we can take off our shirts and bathe!  And that comes before the pending winter of discontent as Unions rally against Darling’s 1% pay rise limit for public sector workers.  Who will be out striking first?  Rush down Ladbroke’s and place your bet tonight. 

 -           Our population continues on its inextricable path towards 70 million.  Immigration remains unchecked.  Asylum seekers lost amongst the population.  Our open borders burden the UK putting huge strain on over stretched public services, with the NHS groaning under the weight, school classes getting bigger, new houses being built on green belt, predicted power shortages for the years ahead as we don’t have the power stations to support our surging nation, public transport wheezing and roads at a standstill. 

 -           We are in the midst of a deeply unpopular war.  Over 200 brave soldiers have been returned home in a coffin.  Debates over strategy have been rife.  More concerning than that, real questions over the equipment troops are issued with and the lack of protection eg helicopters, have undermined this Government.  There could not be a more inept and ‘uncaring’ Defence Minister in Bob Ainsworth.

 -           The Iraq enquiry is rapidly tarnishing the reputation of ‘Labour’s greatest Leader’, Tony Blair.  We hear daily about the lack of credible evidence of weapons of mass destruction and the inability of Saddam Hussein’s regime to produce workable ones.  Coded language comes from the Iraq Enquiry that George W Bush wanted a hard line and pushed Blair into it.  Bliar indeed.

 -           A House of Commons with politicians so morally corrupt that make even Ronnie Biggs look respectable.  Yes, you will retort that Conservative politicians have been just as bad.  BUT the Government have been poor in taking any lead in cleaning up this sh*tstorm of a mess.  Cameron, has pushed Brown all the way.  Even this week we hear of Prime Minister Brown repaying £500 for painting a shed!

 -           Europe.  The continued enslavery of the British people continues to the faceless unelected bureaucrats of Europe.  Now we have the dreaded Lisbon Treaty with the instantly forgettable, but powerful. President of the European Union, (Herman Van Rompuy), and Foreign Minister, Cathy Ashton, (a Brit who was as vocal in British politics as Sooty was to Children’s TV!).  Blair and Brown promised a referendum for the British people but it never ever emerged.  Yes, Cameron took some hammering on his so called U-turn but a referendum on a Treaty in force is daft.  Another referendum on whether we have given too much power away, hell yes.  The blame for our European ills lay firmly at Brown’s door.

-           Education, Education, Education.  Blair’s famous pledge that education was his first, second and third priority.  A memorable catch phrase that was almost Turette’s by nature, proved to be as reliable as Amy Whinehouse sticking to drinking coke in a bar all night !   Education failures rack up.  50,000 A-level students miss out on a place at university.  This year 52,000 more people applied to University but only 13,000 extra places were made available.  The number of young people not in employment, education or training (Neet) has leapt by more than 100,000 in the past year.  Government statistics show there are now almost 960,000 16- to 24-year-old Neets in England, more than 230,000 of whom are aged between 16 and 18.  Oh and the flagship policy, SAT’s…teachers aim to boycott them next year!

-           A big brother state that worms its way into every aspect of our lives.  Want to help out at your local school?  Drive friends Children to their Cubs or Girl Guides?  Got to be checked on the anti paedophile register first.

Quite literally I could go on all night listing failure after failure after failure.

Fertile ground to be in Opposition.  Too much to choose from.  Should be Christmas all year round.

Opinion polls should be absolutely hammering Labour for their incompetence.  Criminal incompetence.  But they aren’t.

Some recent polls have put the difference between Conservatives to 10% difference.  Labour commanding a mid – late 20’s position.

Who the hell is being polled?  Who is supporting this shower?

As we head towards an election, the most important in many a lifetime, Conservatives need to open up the gap and generate clear blue water.  This is the ‘Schumacher’ moment when we need to be so far ahead of the field, we need to be lapping not only the back markers but coming up to lap the entire field.  Schumacher never slowed up.  He pummelled his fellow drivers into the ground.  As we must do now.

So what is wrong?

Why are we not opening up more of a gap?

Many commentators say that Conservatives Agenda is not yet bought by the British people.  Voters don’t quite trust us as yet.  They don’t understand what we stand for.  They like nice Mr Cameron but don’t have a feel for what he would do.

Much of this can be brought out in the wash in an election campaign say Conservative campaign team leaders.  Maybe…in them we have to trust!  We are not privy to the campaign they intend to use to convince the people.

But one suggestion I would impart onto David, Eric, George & William is that the key word around the campaigns table must be emotion.  Emotion is what politics lacks.  Emotion means getting personal.  It means relating to the ordinary person in the street.  Emotion creates and bonds loyalty and trust.

Politics today is too focused on debating statistics or policies.  As we all fight the election in the middle ground, choices get confused, differences misunderstood by the public, whose political antenna is not as attuned as Westminster politicians think.  I say we all fight in the middle, the key word is that all parties want to be perceived as in the middle, to attract the largest number of voters.  Matters not that policies may be more left or right wing, the centre is where we all will fight, (rightly or wrongly in your opinion).

Margaret Thatcher and Norman Tebbit had their finger on the pulse of the people.  They spoke in terms that people understood.  They personalised and humanised issues that people could relate to.  Politicians are forgetting that, just as any film director tries to do, it is about getting someone to believe in what they see.  Emotion is created by personalising issues.  Remember when Margaret Thatcher turned complex economic issues into the language that people understood.  On spending she equated the state to the family.  We cannot spend what we cannot afford.  When we are at home, if we cannot afford it, we save and then we can afford it, we buy it.  Simple language but the people loved it.  The housewife spoke!  Powerful and it resonated.  More so that today’s debate which quotes pure stats and percentages that Joe public does not understand…or will try to understand as they worry whether Joe, Stacey or Olly will win the XFactor!

Unemployment is not about a statistic of 3 million people it is about Mr Jones, who worked all his life, bought his own council house, can’t find work, wife fallen ill, daughter can’t afford University, a man depressed, lost his dignity but wants better for his family…and is fighting to earn money.  In him we respect and want to see him do well.

The health service is not about dirty corridors, increases in disease, rising cancer death rates, it is about Mrs Hughes, a mother who has a family of 3 beautiful daughters, husband died at war, who is diagnosed with cancer and facing life’s hardest choices.  How do we help her and her daughters.

Afghanistan is so more more than a statistic 200 dead, it is about John, a brave soldier on the front line who died by roadside ambush, a wife pregnant with his unborn daughter, a family torn apart.  How we help that family of a man who gave the ultimate sacrifice for all of us.

Public debt is not about a figure of trillion pounds.  It is about Mary, who is struggling to pay her mortgage, close to repossession, working for a company that is struggling to get credit, that is laying off workers, (her friends).

Violent crime is not about a percentage.  It is about 8 year old Sarah, whose father went to pick up a takeaway for the family, but never came home as youths taunted him, attacked him and used a knife in a savage unprovoked attack.

David Cameron is a thoroughly decent man.  Post the tragic death of Ivan the public saw a different side to the Politician.  They related to him.  A family man.  A bereaving dad.  A loving husband.  And they could associate with that.  We see less of the personal side of David of late.  That loving family man, the dad, the husband, has been less visible.   The emotion of the man not emanating out.

Some may shout this down.

But just sit and watch ‘Britain’s Got Talent’ or ‘The X Factor’.  Watch how contestant’s are introduced.  How emotion is used to get that tear welling up in your eye.  Get that lump in your throat.  Make you leap our your chair and vote for them because, for that moment in time, ‘they’ matter to you more than anything else.  You support them.  You don’t care paying a phone vote because you feel better in yourself for supporting them.  You feel you are making a difference.  We can all point to stories used on shows like this.  The daughter who was told by her dad to audition for Britain’s Got Talent by a dad, who died suddenly and she is now doing this for him.  Who did not feel emotional.

So, David Cameron, more than anyone, realises the election is not in the bag.  By a long way.  It’s not over until he faces the cameras on election night after Gordon Brown has conceded defeat.

So dangerous waters lie ahead.  Gordon Brown has been getting more confident of late.  The last two PMQ’s have been his strongest for a long time.  Iain Dale even concluded that Brown beat Cameron in one of them.  Unheard of!  The economy will start to turn round in the new year.  Brown must sit by the fire at No.10 with Sarah over a mug of hot chocolate and array of biscuits, (as he can’t decide his favourite), and really laugh.  ‘Sarah, look at how bad a mess everything is and yet look at those polls.  We are only 10% behind!  Even with the state of the UK as it is the Conservatives can’t kill us off.  We could still win this Sarah!’…..as she forlornly and adoringly looks into the eye of her ‘hero’! 

And things can change in politics.  The nightmare scenario still exists.  What if Gordon Brown steps down early next year?  A new Labour Leader emerges, be it Johnson, Miliband, Purnell or Mandelson, and starts to distance themselves from Brown’s policies, as the economy picks up and as they benefit from a honeymoon period in the polls, that any new leader always does.

Could Labour win the next election.  Yes.  The public may do a 1992 and shock and keep an ‘unpopular’ Government in.  Better the devil you know.  ‘Oh well things are getting better let’s stick with Labour’.

Worst case, as Ken Clarke would say, a hung Parliament.  The best of no worlds.

Election loss.  Conservatives would tear themselves apart.  Many keeping their lips sealed now for Party Unity would feel empowered to state their case.  Something none of us ever wants to see ever again.

So let’s see more spark to our Opposition.  Let’s see our front bench hammering the Government ever harder.  Let’s see emotion, personalisation and humanisation used to bring issues closer to the public, so they understand what really is going on.

We cannot afford, as a Great Nation, to see Labour in again.

Is there a case to be made for the legalisation of prostitution in a modern free society? 

Would it shock you that official best guesses are that there are over 80,000 prostitutes working in the UK today!  Wikipedia details that, in 2003, it was estimated that, in London one woman in 300 was working as a prostitute (compared to one in 35 in Amsterdam).

Prostitution is known as the oldest profession but one that still can generate the feeling of utter revulsion.  For many older readers of this blog, the word itself ‘prostitution’ conjures up seedy images of dirty old men in tweed coats, sneaking off into side alleys with ‘skanky’ looking women and performing unimaginable acts of depravity.  For others, the freedom of the individual is to the fore, whereby, two consenting adults should be left to do what they want. 

Where do you stand?

A controversial subject….for many taboo.  One in which very few blogs will pass comment.  So why this one?  What got me thinking about this subject?  Two things.  Firstly, the media publicity surrounding ‘Belle de Jour’ breaking her anonymity and ‘going public’ this past week and secondly a recent comment left by a reader, ‘Jenny’, on this blog site about how she was struggling to make ends meet in this recession and how she turned to prostitution to support her family.

‘Belle de Jour’

For those of you unaware of this story, ‘Belle’, was for many years a high-class London call girl / prostitute — who wrote an anonymous blog about her experiences, detailing her many sexual and emotional encounters, (some would say taking the Adrian Mole diary concept to the next step for liberated women!).   This blog was then turned into two best-selling books, ‘The Intimate Adventures of a London Call Girl’ and ‘The Further Adventures of a London Call Girl’. Belle’s books were re-energised two years ago, when they were turned into a highly rated TV series starring Billie Piper.  For those interested to look at Belle’s blog site, you can find it HERE and her Twitter feed HERE  

For those thinking this was some dirty, seedy diary, Belle’s behind the scenes insight into her life and views on men is not a blow-by-blow sex guide, but more akin to a camp & fun Sex & the City style adventure!  It must noted that reviewers of these books critically state that the style of writing is what engages readers and that Belle comes across in a ‘sassy, finger-snapping, girl’s best-friend style’.

What is fascinating in this story is who the real Belle turned out to be!  Now for some, the expectation was for a horrible, ‘ugly’, desperate woman that could be pilloried and held up as an example to batter the oldest profession.  Brooke Magnanti crashed through the barriers of anonymity and revealed herself to be the real ‘Belle’.  But Brooke is in fact, DOCTOR Brooke Magnanti, a research scientist at Bristol University.  Now why did Brooke, an intelligent woman with bright prospects turn to prostitution?  Her reply…..she became a £300 an hour high class escort to help fund her studies for a doctorate!  See her here on Sky News….

Now that is an eye opener.  A clever woman with a bright future freely took the decision to fund her way through college via selling her body for ‘protected sex’.  And today, no one harmed, she is proud to be a successful Doctor, (and writer!). 

Does Belle glamorise prostitution as some are saying today?  Opponents of prostitution, quite rightly, point out that Brooke or ‘Belle’ was a fortunate high class hooker and that ‘in real life’ there are many prostitutes who work in horrific conditions, ‘owned’ by a pimp and who earn little money and live a desolate life.  Which is true.  But supporters of legalising prostitution counter that the very seeds of arguing against the legalisation of prostitution are contained in the opponents arguments for banning it.  Yes it is a dangerous profession, yes Pimps need to be banned, yes disease is prevalent.   But are these in fact arguments that support and regulation solve and that making it illegal, drives it underground and hence into dangerous hands.

But Belle is not the only case.  Let’s take Jenny, who left comment on a blog about the depth of the recession.

 ‘Jenny’

Turning to Jenny and the blog comment she left.  Jenny challenged blog readers to come up for a better solution for her problems.  Seems like Jenny had a boyfriend who left her and their kids and she was left with a mortgage to pay and aforesaid kids to provide for.  She claims that there are too few jobs and that state benefits are pathetic. 

Let’s try and flesh this situation out some more and perhaps stretch this story to its limits as I don’t have all the details but it serves as a useful illustration.  Let’s take for granted that Jenny has a high mortgage, (perhaps negative equity), stays at home to bring up the children, whilst her partner works and brings home the money to support their lifestyle.  But that partner then ups and leaves.  Gone overnight.  The CSA start their work in tracking the father but that can be a slow process.  So this woman, faced with a mortgage, a lifestyle to support and more importantly children, for whatever reason turned to prostitution.  Rightly or wrongly, according to your position.  She claims that she could ‘work’ as a prostitute and sell her body for ‘mindless sex’ for £500.  (Higher than Belle!)

Now most people’s reaction will be first condemnation.  But then, when you think of it, when faced in a desperate position, did Jenny do so wrong in protecting, as she would see it, her family & lifestyle and indeed, maybe enhance it, (if you see money as an enhancer!).  Yes, there are moral decisions being made but perhaps those that an individual should take not society?

So are we at the point we should liberate our minds and re-consider prostitution?  Why would prostitution be legalised?

The case for legalisation?

So why legalise prostitution?  There are several key arguments propounded.

— Freedom of liberty.   Supporters say that it should not be in the remit of the state if two consenting individuals want to exchange money for sex.  As long as both sides are consenting, nothing is done against anyone’s free will.  Why should the State intervene?  The woman or the man providing sex is proving a ‘service’ that should be seen in the same way as a foot massage or facial.  The State they argue never knows best.

— Safety for both the prostitutes and customers could be assured.   Prostitutes can end up missing, murdered, or severely beaten. If prostitution is legalized and regulated, the number of tragedies involving prostitutes can be lessened. Those in favour of legalizing prostitution feel that “violence, exploitation, and health effects suffered by women in prostitution” are not deep-seated in the trade but are the outcome of the behaviour of “bad pimps or buyers”; many feel that if “prostitution were regulated by the state these harms would diminish”

— Less disease.  Prostitutes would be checked for disease.   With proper and mandatory health care provided to prostitutes, the risk of disease can be lessened significantly. Prostitutes could be required to have mandatory disease testing done every six months.  In the age of AIDS and other sexual diseases, greater control and monitoring is propounded as a step forward. This way, if the prostitutes are clean then they cannot transmit diseases to their customers.

— Pimps would be eliminated.   The power of pimps could be lessened, and perhaps even banned, to ensure the safety and well-being of prostitutes. Pimps often beat, or even kill, their prostitutes, and Prostitutes could be required to be licensed and made to carry some sort of government issued identification card. The state of Nevada gave the right to each county to determine whether or not to legalize prostitution. Churchill county voted two to one in favour of licensed brothels, which were not to be placed on main streets or close to churches or schools. Prostitutes working in these brothels are required to carry identification cards and are usually fingerprinted (“Prostitution”). This is for the safety of the prostitute.

— Better stability of relationships.  Given divorce break up’s, affairs and cheating is endemic in society, would ‘mindless, uncommitted’ sex act as an outlet and ensure more couples stay together for their families?

— A multimillion dollar business would be taxed.  Just consider the amount of tax revenue missed out…… do the maths

                        Miss X charges £250 per hour

                        She sees 1 client in the afternoon and 2 in the evening

                        That’s £750 per day ‘earnt’

                        Miss X works Monday – Fri ie 5 days and pulls in £4,500 per week

                        She works, let’s say 48 weeks of the year, (takes 4 off like the rest of us).

                        That’s an annual salary of £180,000  untaxed……

                        So from a taxation point of view….who is being screwed?

— Prostitution would be removed from residential neighbourhoods.   The famous, ‘Not in my back yard’ argument.  Set, controlled, regulated, safe environments.

My conclusion

Do I have answer to whether prostitution should be legal in a free society?  I find this a tough subject.  My conscience wrestles between a strict moral code where it is abhorrent to the values I hold.  I can see the depths that some dive to and feel so low and desperate that they will do anything to support their families/earn a living.  I revile in reading about the dreadful conditions that these prostitutes have to reportedly work in, many bullied, (physically & emotionally), by pimps to make money for others that they never see.  So where do I stand?  Would I ever entertain the idea of using a prostitute?  No.  Never under any circumstances.  I have my own strict moral guide.  BUT….and this is a big BUT.  I love and revel in freedom.  I want more personal freedom….tough in a society throttling the very liberties we once enjoyed).  Everyone has a right to be different in society.  The State holds no legitimacy or right  to regulate others in personal matters.  My passion for the freedom of the individual knows no bounds.  I cherish individual freedom above issues of morality like this.  Why should I say that people should not be free to do what they want?  Consenting, (and that is a critical word), adults, engaging in a ’service’, harms no one else’s life, indeed the arguments above for legalising prostitution in fact help society….less violence, less crime, less sexual disease, more money for the state.  Therefore, my desire for liberty supports the legalisation of the oldest profession.

Don’t expect to see the legalisation of prostitution in the next Conservative Manifesto.  It is not a vote winner.  But true followers of a free society know that the fight for more freedom for the individual never ends as we ‘continue down the road to serfdom’.   What do you think?  Would you visit a prostitute if it were legal?…but more importantly would you frown on your friends if they did?………………………

Those that condemn….did you enjoy watching Pretty Woman at the cinema/DVD?  Watch Billie Piper on ITV as Belle?……………………..