Petitions to be Debated in Parliament. A Gateway to Mob Rule, or A More Open Democracy?

This plan to allow the most popular online petitions to be debated in parliament - a Tory election manifesto pledge - has been given the go ahead by the coalition. Naturally this has unsettled some who see it as a potential road to mob rule, however the government and the reasoning behind the plan claim it is a way to reconnect with voters who feel increasingly shut out and alienated since the expenses crisis broke last year. A chance to kick start democracy and parliamentary enthusiasm to a jaded and indifferent electorate. Critics say it will end up meaning that parliament will be honour bound have to debate supporting / opposing wacky petitions such as making Jeremy Clarkson prime minister (50'000 signed that e-petition, the minimum limit proposed is double that.), or making the Jedi a recognised religion, and so forth. Or that these petitions are often rather based on the ephemeral fickle desires of the electorate. These are legitimate concerns, so we must ask; will this idea be a good or bad one?

My own personal answer to this question is yes. It will be both a good and bad thing. Mass participant democracy is so multifaceted and fickle and nebulous it can't be much else. The positives are that the plan is certainly democratic to a degree. It also has the benefit of being able to bring transparancy to the arguments of the proponents and opponents of controversial popular issues such as membership of the E.U, capital punishment and immigration (I guarantee at least one of these will be at the head of the list of stuff to be debated.) in parliament being forced to up their game and fight their corner in the public debate on these issues, raising public awareness of the pros and cons of each. Sometimes lots of people may have strong views on this kind of stuff, but little working knowledge of how these would be put in practice. Hopefully this kind of debate could give laypeople insight into how the mechanics governing a country actually works. It could also reassure an electorate that issues that may be popular talking points in the public sphere, but are seen to be "ducked" in the Commons are now being debated (though we must emphasise that they are "only" being debated and are not full blown referenda.)

Now for the downsides of the idea. Surprisingly the issue of stuff like the "Clarkson for PM" petition having to be debated is pretty minor. For one thing the criteria around the new petitions is more robust, and it would take about 5 seconds to reject it if it was put through for debate (Clarkson says he doesn't want to be PM for a start. Debate over.) There is the risk that parochialism, short term gain at the expense of long term goals and appeals to popular prejudices and xenophobia may become more prevalent. (though that may be seen as acting in the course of popular democracy) That there will be more soundbites and appealing to raw populism. Almost certainly we may see "astroturf" campaigning where petitions ostensibly started by "the grassroot public" will have bigger interest groups behind them, who can use these things to their own effects (and can call it the "will of the people"). Ditto for those right wing libertarian groups who mask their dislike of a certain form of regulation as "climate change scepticism". They will likely slow decision making and the parliamentary process, as the various debates of the pros and cons eats in to Westminster's time. I can see various back bench MP's stirring up these petitions of their own making to pursue their own eccentric obsessions (Don't be too surprised if Philip Davies tries getting a "Ban Political Correctness"* petition started. I could see Nadine Dorres doing this kind of thing as well.) And lastly they could actually make people more dejected at the state of our democracy. People may end up being a bit pissed off when their large petition that they signed; say on leaving the EU, doesn't get them the referendum (and cross channel divorce into the bargain one would presume) they were so keen on, as the Eurosceptic John Redwood explains in this blog post here . As we see the practical issues are not as clear cut we may think. Time will tell I suppose.

*Banning Political Correctness may be both fairly popular and could seem to be an easy thing to achieve. But then we remember that PC is just a vague adjective for a bunch of stuff / people / regulations some other vague group of people don't approve of. Even debating what passes as "PC" and "Non PC" could be wrangled over for ages. I'd hate to think how this would then be translated into workable laws, which could be wrangled over for even more ageser. Ditto for the inevitable calls for bans on "Elf - N -Safety", "Non Jobs" and "Worthless Degrees" How do you translate abstract terms to solid laws? Answer not very easily.

Who will the Mail Hate Now?

The Daily Mails proprietor once summarised his job as "giving his readers a daily dose of hate.", and under a succession of editors like David English and Paul Dacre, he has had willing accomplices. Now I don't think with a new PM, we are suddenly going to see the Mail drop all the same old hate campaigns against immigrants, "feckless welfare junkies", public sector jobsworths, and the liberal elite. It just wont happen, it's as much a part of the papers fabric as the mafia are to the Godfather films. However their number one target is out of the picture now, the Labour party are out of Downing street, so this shifts the focus of the Mails ire somewhat. So how is this going to affect their editorials?

I don't claim to be clairvoyant, but we can assume that the Mail (and Express/Sun) will be glad that their beloved Tories are in. But there is that elephant in the room, the coalition with the Lib Dems, which they may (and will) perceive as a threat to their alliance with Cameron, and these guys absolutely hate to lose! The fact that the inheritance tax threshold [Tories wanted it to increase] will not go up is a concession to Nick Clegg as well as the post of deputy prime minister, and the likelihood he will take up the reigns during Camerons planned paternity leave won't allay those fears. The commentary in the rightwards press does seem to single out Cleggs perceived venality, and that the cabinet level Lib Dems as a bunch of sandal wearing strident protesters out for trouble. I can imagine Clegg will receive a lot of flack for being the man who came third, and got second in command. (in the mold of "unelected Brown" There seems to be an inference that they [Lib Dems] should be reined in, and reigned in as soon as possible. It may be interesting to see how more traditionalist Tories react in comparison to the press coverage. Normon Tebbit said they should have ditched any alliance and gone it alone. Will they accuse Cameron of pandering to his new allies, and straying even further from what they see as "core conservative values", and they think he has been straying too much even before the coalition took power. How much of a stir will this cause? I also think the presence of such a high profile europhile like Clegg in this government of which the majority party is bitterly divided, and increasingly hostile to the EU, just seems to be a big cloud on the horizon, as it always has been for the Tories. Again it doesn't help that Cameron was seen as making promises he couldn't fulfill in regards to the Lisbon treaty. Not to mention divisions on how to deal with the deficit.

Interesting times.

TV Review. Michael Portillo. Power to the People.

WATCH DOCUMENTARY HERE.

There's something not quite right with the way Westminster interacts with Joe Schmuck like me and you. We aren't quite at George Orwells 1984 yet, but there is a palpable feeling that there is a rift between the public at large and the ruling classes. Almost every day we hear "out of touch." "in it for the take." and "don't live in the real world." aimed at the Whitehall mafia. The nadir was probably last year after the expenses scandal broke. It just seemed to cement to so many that politicians were a world apart from real people. I'd also add that I think that our system of the 3 main parties prioritising scrambling for the marginal seats doesn't help, but that's another story. Voter turnouts are very low on almost every type of elections going, and I feel that people are not utilising perhaps their powers of suffrage, and are falling into apathy (or more worryingly that perhaps less savoury politics might fill the vacuum left.) It seems that former top Tory Michael Portillo agrees, and wants to what has eluded our currant crop of chiefs, to do something about getting people back into politics.

The documentary covers the pros and cons of transferring power away from central Westminster back out to the towns and parishes of the country. He gives an account of how prior to WW2, the town hall had quite a whack, a whack that was lost forever by the centralised semi-command economy a war and the peace time rebuilding needed. Then the Thatchers governments attempts to nip "loony left" councils in the bud by reducing thier spending rates, and then the poll tax (community charge, of which Portillo admits his role in creating) which ostensibly set out to make high spending councils pay more, but was so skewed against many people and unpopular it cost Thatcher her throne. To the current target obsessed central government of today (apparently sent a toilet budget projection to Watford. No really!) Not exactly the direction I'd take.

As I said we see various examples of people power in practice. The democratically elected mayor of Hartlipool, who got the position he signed up for, for a laugh; dressing up as monkey at football matches, but ended up taking to the job seriously, and becoming a pretty good mayor, being elected several times. The film shows how he is known by name to the people of the town, and is popular for being able to tackle local issues and not seen as an insider of the "political class.". Portillo sees how a local shop in Dorset was saved from closure (nearest shop 13 miles away.) by locals stepping in to volunteer (it has had to expand its services.) their time, and how a group of parents were lobbying their MP's in London to provide a new secondry school to keep their close knit kids together. They had actively participated, even eyeing up an old hospital building, and learning about political process of who to contact and what to do to get their school. It was positive to see them actively meeting half way with their local government, implementing an idea to use collective people power to hopefully get their school. The last example was again in London where voters met up in a community hall to see what local council spending should be allocated, using "Who wants to be a millionaire" keypads. They could vote on what they wanted their taxes spent on (CCTV, minibuses for old people.) after debating with each other. It was like a raffle atmosphere, with countdowns, and charts of who got what. It'd be interesting to see how opening up what got spent and how, results in perhaps more representative spending. Sometimes it wasn't to clear in the programme how effective these things were.

As I said the documentary made clear that People power could become populism by any other name, and two controversial examples of this in practice are the Mayor of Doncaster. Peter Davies (pictured), and Joe Arpaio; the so called "Americas Toughest Sheriff" (you'll probably have heard about the prison camp in the desert he set up where the inmates have to wear pink boxers.). Davies, the English Democrat elected mayor of Doncaster is the bluff talking Yorkshireman archetype, a staunch and vocal plain talking right winger on most issues (e.g PC, out of EU, pro capital punishment.) He is known for his attempts to trim council spending by cuts including his own salary, stopping gay pride funding, and getting rid of PC "non jobs" (though I suppose ironically he would have to spend money in order to create a bureaucracy that deed what was a "non - job".) He has also, even more controversially attempted to cut spending for translation services to new immigrants and established non - English speakers in order to get them to improve English (I can't help think this is like banning Weightwatchers to cut obesity. Are they supposed to read an Oxford dictionary really quickly?) The film does point out (as does a local women) that he doesn't have the mandate as mayor to pull off a lot of what he wants, and that some of it may just be saloon bar politics. Joe Arpaio elected Sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona is an even more controversial example of what people power could bring if police chiefs were democratically elected. He is still popular (but popularity falling) for his ultra hard line policies, but we hear that he is controversial for his treatment of illegal immigrants and from Hispanics who claim he singles them out in particular. One man claims to have been badly beaten by his men for a trivial crime. This is one area I'd be wary of a democratic head. Law enforcement is both emotive and a complex body. We hear from a British chief constable that it could result in complex murder and terrorist monitoring resources being shifted away to popular but limited crime prevention methods like high profile beat based policing. I also think it runs the risk of a police chief under pressure to conclude a high profile case, to get results to satiate public opinion. It would have helped to see how affective Arpaios methods were in recidivism and crime reduction, but we didn't so we have little to go on in that regard, a running problem with the documentary.




All in all the documentary (even though it was edited a little to much to give a really big picture.) confirmed my belief that decentralising powers away from Westminster and giving local powers back to local government is a step in the right direction. There is a lot of bean counting goes on in local councils, and my own town of Bolton has suffered from this. Our thriving Market Hall and its independent small shops were revamped as a small shopping mall in a greatly unpopular move that was supposed to put Bolton more in line with Manchester. I think it was a bad decision that has harmed the town. Why would someone pay good money to park in Bolton, when they could go to a mall with free parking that's 20 times bigger in Trafford? I can't help think that an elected mayor, and a more active council with the ear of public opinion could have stopped this from happening. As for whether we would end up with loads of Peter Davies style mayors? The program showed that people when given the opportunity to influence things this way, that they can be quite focused about it, and can learn political process (sadly lacking in the greater public.). Doncaster also happened after the huge corruption that council has had and the expenses so Davies could capitalise on increased populist sentiment (again the documentary is reticent on how popular he actually is.) during unusual circumstances, rather than what would be the norm. He is also limited in the greater social context of his more dodgy ideas, so the pitfalls of this are reduced. But it seems give the public a stick up to local policies, and they seem to take it willingly. Power to the people then.

Postscript. Peter Davies has really been quite low profile as Mayor, he hasn't been as controversial as I thought. I'd imagine he's having trouble putting his money where his mouth is, on the some of his saloon bar talk. This hunch is highlighted by this brilliant interview he has with Toby Foster (aka that guy of Les Alamos on "Phoenix Nights" which shows how depressingly low rent he is. Perhaps showing him up like this will let people be turned away from simple populist tub thumping. Heres Hoping!

This is what happens when mob mentality is stirred up. The wrong people get hurt.

This morning must have been a shock for 27 year old David Calvert, a Liverpudlian who moved to Blackpool, a shock but not; perhaps a surprise. By breakfast time this morning two and a half thousand people on facebook, with a lot of righteous anger, and not so much possession of the facts had decided to start a facebook group (some even got this name texted to their phones.) making the claim that he was none other than the secret new identity for Jon Venables who is currently in prison, and that he has received threats, obviously by people so stupid that they can't see that a man who isn't in jail at the moment, can't really be a man who is in jail at the present time. You know little technicalities like that. This has happened before; five years ago. He was mistaken for Venables, largely because of two things, he's a Scouser who moved away from Liverpool, and he spent 4 months in the clink for fraud (you know, just like murder) Inevitably the threats and insinuations duly arrived, and presumably died down. I assume his name resurfaced after people have googled Venables for his whereabouts, seen this article and Calverts name, put 2 and 2 together, and come up with the letter Z. Now he has to relive the entire ordeal over again. He is said to be too afraid to leave his house, and fears for his wife and kids, and to be honest, who can really blame him? Even more worryingly he says he has received messages threatening to get him out by any means. I must emphasise that his tormentors are apparently so dense, that they are trying to hound a man they think is Venables inside of a Fleetwood house, but who is in fucking jail for God sake !!

This doesn't really do much for the case that Venables should be outed now, or indeed ever. If some people are really acting like this, and are so fired up by this lynching mob mentality, (read the Facebook comments. They're shocking.) on the basis of so little evidence. An innocent man is now cowering in fear in his own home, when it should be self evident, even to a child, that he can't possibly be the target of their ire! I won't say this often, but I almost felt sorry for the government ministers who are trying to placate this vengeful atmosphere, and are largely not succeeding.

I also think paradoxically, it weakens the case for identifying Venables to prevent others from being misidentified for him, and falling foul of the mob. As we have seen this kind of mentality flairs up (his recall brings him back into public eye, and tabloid headlines) and tends to sort of build to a positive feedback, with the mob mentality gathering momentum. If they were outed, we would get a fair amount of coverage of them, stoking the flames, and raking it up every so often. Even the toughest law and order advocate will realise that innocent bystanders are going to get hurt (friends, relatives, neighbours,) by association, if there whereabouts were known. Although we don't know the full story of what he was recalled for, and it could be argued what about the danger they may still (if they still do) pose to others? It is still more difficult for either to be a severe danger, what with the monitoring. (the recalling however may raise questions about how they are being monitored) It is probably for the best that they slip out of the greater consciousness as much as possible, in the hope that the mob lose interest. (these things tend to run out of steam fairly quickly, after the initial source of the ire) I don't even think outing them would stop innocents being attacked. From some of the facebook comments, some of the stupider mobbers would probably attack a sardine tin with a photo of Venables stuck on it, or even footballs Tery Venables. Too little brain and a lot of rage does that.

It's easy to stoke up this kind of unthinking lynch mob atmosphere, and there are many willing to take it up. It's less easy to put the genie back in the bottle, and innocent people like the David Calverts of this world often find themselves on the wrong side of the mob, whether it's malicious gossip, shitty information or general stupidity (a bad combination if all present). As Charles MacKay wrote in his book over 150 years ago "Madness of Crowds"

"Men think in herds. It is seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover thier senses slowly, and one by one."

Still applies today.

Richard Littlejohns take on Michael Foot.

I'll try to avoid posting articles on Richard Littlejohn. Trying to pin down exactly what is wrong with the articles he writes is like trying to explain why you didn't think Gigli was a good film, or subtly pointing out to Shane McGowan of the Pogues, just why he should try out those people called dentists now and then. Where, and at what logical point do you even possibly begin to start? It's frankly quite depressing to be faced with most of his articles (a black hole of bad puns, lousy skits on 70's sitcoms about gay policemen or whatever, and all the other thinly veiled prejudices and spite he doles out.) and I leave it to the guys who post on Mailwatch to do that sort of thing. I'd just end up slitting all my arteries with rusty garden shears mid way through an article, at the sheer volumes of drivel Littleprick taps out on his word processor. But as he's written about Michael Foot, like I did I thought I should comment on it.

Now as anyone who knows the name Jan Moir will know, the Mail has no objections about their journos writing speculative innuendo and insinuation about the target of their article, irrespective of if they are still warm in the morgue, and this one is no better (I mean they didn't pull any punches for a former boy band member, what hope did a former Labour leader have?) Michael Foot. Good Old Footy. No dangerous deluded hypocrite. In it we learn that the late party leader was a draft dodger during WW2; that he was a Soviet stooge, oh and he wore a donkey jacket at the cenotaph (sigh). Well I did a bit of research into "Footys" background here and here. It's a wonderful research tool, is t'internet, and don't think I'm pointing this out to lazy columnists. So lets have a look at Dickys claims.

FOOT WAS A BATTLE DODGER.

Littlejohn says Foot all but shirked fighting in the second world war, (fine line between conscientious objector and cowardice) to lap it up in comfort in smart Islington society. Well it does seem he was rejected for military service due to asthma problems. It also is unfair that Littlejohn said that he didn't contribute to the war effort. He wrote a popular book condemning appeasement. He was editor of the Evening Standard during much of the war, a protected position, and considered necessary for the domestic war effort. (Londons largest local newspaper) and was considered one of the most able public morale boosting editors. His pieces outlined the need to defeat Hitler, and the strength and value of British democracy against Nazi tyranny. Now it's a "how long is a piece of string" argument what is considered "doing your bit" in war time. But I think that being an editor strongly supporting the need to act against Hitler was a pretty important responsibility in that war. He also claims Foot let others do the fighting against Francos forces in the Spanish civil war, (he did not fight himself.) but he ignores the fact that Foot did visited dissidents to the Franco regime (I'm sure he'd have loved a left wing critic of his regime chewing the fat with his enemies, in his own prisons) in the 70's and was almost imprisoned for doing so. Not the actions of a cowardly person I think.

FOOT WAS A SOVIET STOOGE.
Littlejohn stops short of calling Foot an outright traitor to Britain during the Cold War. But he does claim that Foot was unaware / unwilling to comment on Stalin's crimes, and the repression the USSR committed on the Warsaw Pact countries. This doesn't seem to be the case if we read up on him. Although he was undoubtedly a socialist, and believed in some aspects of Marx's philosophy, he was vocally disappointed that the USSR was behaving dictatorially, and that a long established liberty supported British based system coupled with socialism would have avoided the bloodshed that occured under the regime. He opposed Stalins tyranny and Gulags, and was pilloried by some on the left for what he said, and condemned the tanks being sent in to Hungary in 1956. He even supported NATO.

He also wasn't an outright pacifist in the sense we would understand it, and the charge levelled by some against anti-nuke protesters. (all wars are unjust all the time.) He was passionately anti -nuke and pro CND. He did however support the action in the Falklands against the junta in Argentina. This contradiction between a hatred of war and a need to preserve democracy even by force bothered him immensely throughout his life.

THE DONKEY JACKET.
If you can't go for the big things, just resort to low rent ad hom attacks. And they say that journalism these days relies to much on dumbing down, and low level cheap sniping. I can't imagine why.

Now let me stress I'm NOT saying he should have been banned from writing it. I just think we need a bit more journalistic rigour when we are writing articles that have some pretty serious insinuations (draft dodging and being a kept creature of a hostile power) in them, towards a man who hasn't even been dead for 3 days. It's not too much to assume that Britains (reputedly) highest paid columnist should perhaps do a bit of homework (I didn't know that much about Foot until I researched for these posts) before committing to print. You know, its like good practice.

Goodbye Michael Foot.

I was saddened to hear of the death of Michael Foot at aged 97, the former Labour leader from 1980 to 1983, yesterday morning. He is often remembered as the eccentric looking, shock white unkempt haired, nutty donnish duffer looking man whose leadership of Labour, brought about one of the most crushing defeats for that party of all time. the Labour manifesto under his leadership was considered so damaging, it was referred to as the "longest suicide note in history." Then there is the incident of when he supposedly wore a donkey jacket (actually an expensive overcoat that the Queen Mother complimented him on) to lay a reef at the cenotaph on Remembrance Sunday for which he was pilloried mercilessly by the press, as an out of touch socialist buffoon. But I think to remember him for just these things is really not to do; perhaps one of the cleverest men to sit in the commons, justice.








He never really had a chance at being prime minister. Thatcher was at her most powerful -before '83, from the successful outcome of the Falklands war. Foot, even leaving this aside;- couldn't compete in the TV age, physical appearances had started to matter by this time (he looked 90, 30 years back.) He was perhaps the greatest parliamentarian of the last 35 years, possibly 40, but this was a debating style obsolete by then. It's kind of ironic that he was too good a speaker, half the population probably couldn't understand a bloody thing he was talking about. Not going to win you elections any time soon. His Methodist upbringing, alongside his extraordinary broad literary knowledge, and 19th century socialist rhetoric (his dog was even called Disraeli) just didn't have the capacity to spread his popularity to the masses.





Despite what you may have thought about his trenchant socialist views, or his staunch opposal of the nuclear deterrent, it is unarguable that he spoke with such conviction and passion about issues close to his heart. I would challenge anyone to not be moved by the various anti - nuclear speeches he made. Though he wouldn't budge on nukes, he always defended the Falklands conflict as defending the islanders from the unpleasant Galtieri junta. Almost everyone who knew him said that he was one of the nicest men in politics, and the nicest person ever to lead a political party in the UK. (self admittedly a rare virtue in politics.) Although he held a lot of responsibility for the Labour rebels splitting to form the SDP, it is testament to his character that he could manage to keep the various factions (Bennites and Healeyites) together in a hollowed out party, when it seemed that the internal fractures and the sudden loss of the liberal arm of Labour should have condemned the party to oblivion.

It is unfair then to say Michael Foot was a disaster for the Labour Party. Yes he had some iffy economic views, and looked like so old, that he could have gone to school with the Flintstones, and really had lost the election before it was even called. He was in one sense a success. Few would have been able to keep Labour, even slightly together in the early 80's but somehow Michael Foot succeeded in this and that is no small achievement. At the very least it should earn him a more suitable epitaph than "that old guy who wore a donkey jacket at the cenotaph."

Oh Peter Hitchens, when will you learn?

I want to start off by saying that I don't have a Peter Hitchens obsession. I don't hang around his house. I don't want to steal his clothes off his washing line to keep as little souvenirs. I have no intention of turning this blog into a line by line rebuttal of everything he ever commits to his word processor. However when he starts pulling these articles out of his arse. I feel honour bound to step in.

More sex education means more teenage pregnancies. Always.

A pretty bold statement of fact if ever there was one. He goes on to say.

"Sex education has failed. So the Establishment decrees that we must have more of it, and in fact that there shall be no escape from it"

He means in the context of these figures from the Office of National Statistics, that in 2007 the number of teen pregnancies in the UK has risen (albeit very slightly. 1 baby born per 1000 to mothers aged 15 to 17.). However the figures seem to contradict some of what Peter is saying, by showing that overall teen pregnancies have been dropping since 2002, with 2007 being a slight blip in the trend. (see the graph below, orange line.) His claim perhaps carries some validity if you take into account that the government wanted (but didn't reach) to halve teenage pregnancy by 2010. (from 1999 levels) An ambitious goal, but in all fairness, reducing teenage pregnancy requires concerted long term effort, and ground root social shifts. This will be a long time on going work in progress.

This has obviously been pounced on by elements of the press as concrete evidence of council estates brimming with a huge army of slaggy chavettes, popping out sproglets and being paid a million pounds in benefits, free fags and cider, and YOUR paying, do you hear middle England? In fact it only really shows that the numbers of conceptions, which are in a fairly stable declining trend since 2002, have fluctuated upwards for 2007, before regressing back to trend. But as we know statistical analysis will always take a back seat to Fleet Street sermonising about this issue. Sermonising like this.

"Despite the casual massacre of unborn babies in the abortion mills, and the free handouts of morning-after pills (originally developed for pedigree dogs which had been consorting improperly with mongrels), and the ready issue of condoms to anyone who asks, and the prescription of contraceptive devices to young girls behind the backs of their parents by smiling advice workers, and the invasion of school classrooms by supposedly educational smut, the Teenage Pregnancy Strategy has failed, is failing and will continue to fail.
In the week that figures clearly showed that the Government’s supposed target for cutting teen pregnancy by half is never going to be reached, compulsory smut education – a key part of this ‘strategy’ – was forced on all English schools by law for the first time."

I don't really need to paste much more. It's the same old straw man, slippery slope, their having abortions in assembly these days type of article that have been duly trotted out in the press, since as long as I can remember. The dogs comment is irrelevant anyway, all mammals produce the same sort of reproduction based hormones, so yeah they work pretty well across the spectrum. It seems there may be undertones that he thinks that teenage girls who get pregnant are somehow bestial and "improper". All this is beside the point of the article if we are really honest. The last two words are what it is really about.

"Some years ago, I wrote a short history of sex education in this country. I didn’t then know about its first invention, during the Hungarian Soviet revolution of 1919, when Education Commissar George Lukacs ordered teachers to instruct children about sex in a deliberate effort to debauch Christian morality."

I thought he directed "Howard the Duck". His opening statements are so falsifiably shoddy, and the reasoning in the rest of the article is so convoluted, I am pleased that he gets slammed in the comments to the article (and boy there can be some real mindfuckery on display there sometimes.)

"Mr. Hitchens is disingenuous when he argues that sex education in schools has failed to stop the national illegitimacy rate climbing to 46%. Classroom sex education is designed to stop childhood pregnancies and the spread of sexually transmitted infections, not to dissuade or stigmatise the many stable cohabiting adult couples whose families are presumably acceptable to Daily Mail readership in all but their lack of church and/or state approval.
As for sex education being advocated exclusively by "militant Leftists who loathe conventional family life", this could only be believed by someone who prefers manufactured simplification to reflecting on the real world. Most parents I know prefer schools to teach their offspring some of the biological basics. Sometimes this is due to haziness about some of the finer points of biology (the same reason why we are also sometimes happier about the teaching of first aid and cooking in schools). Sometimes it is sheer embarrassment. These reasons may well be deplorable on other grounds, but they are not evidence of militant leftism. A further reason, laudable from virtually all caring and responsible viewpoints, is that should parents' attempts to instill a sound sexual morality fail, they would rather deal with the emotional fallout without the added disaster of pregnancy.
Oversimplification is usually required to fuel the baser emotions of political reaction, but hopefully most readers will in this particular case have developed an immunity to it through contact with everyday life"

"This column on sex education contains so much misinformation, bias, and slanderous opinions stated as fact that I would hope that most readers would reject it, but I will comment anyway. Notice that he credits a nasty reign with dreaming up the idea and blames liberals for pushing the idea and offers only his own opinion, no references, that the programs always fail. In fact, here in Texas, we have no sex education (or actually are only allowed to teach "abstinence" if anything is taught and we have the highest teen pregnancy and highest second teen pregnancy rate in the country. This program was rammed through by people who believe Hitchen does (along with trying to get creationism into the biology books while already keeping evolution out.) States, such as Wisconsin, which have good well balanced sex education programs have much lower teen pregnancy rates (and lower abortion percentages in the population.) About the only statistic Hitchen actually offers is that the "illegitimacy rate" for one area rose from under 8% to over 40%, but he fails to define whether that applies only to teens or omits the likely fact that as time has passed an increasing number of people of all ages are living in an unmarried but permanent joining, so he may be reporting on a population 10 or 20 years ago that has now grown to adulthood (beyond teens) having children without "benefit" of marriage while those that thought "illegitimacy" was humiliating have grown beyond baby producing age and thus out of the statistics.
And like our abstinence-pushing, information-denying folk, it does not make it clear when young people who plan on holding off until marriage and then not having children immediately are going to learn that birth control is a possibility in arranging their family growth. Or is that a liberal "sin" also?"

"The annual number of teenage pregnancies in the UK has fallen by 13% since 1998, so more sex education clearly doesn’t “always” mean more teenage pregnancies.
The government has indeed failed to meet its own very ambitious target, but there has nevertheless been a significant move in the right direction.
The country with lowest rate of teenage pregnancies in Europe is the Netherlands, which has plenty of sex education in its schools.
No doubt there are many reasons for the differences between the UK and the Netherlands, but sex education does not seem to be one of them.
Everyone learns about sex from a variety of sources, and a country’s attitudes to sex have many influences. Sex education in schools is just one aspect of this, and almost certainly not the most significant."

"Peter, sex education has indeed failed but not for the reasons that you state. In my view its failure can be seen in the number of men who die unnecessarily of bladder, prostate and testicular cancer because they are too embarrassed to see a doctor and so leave it to late. My brother works in a comprehensive school and recently they had to take a teenage boy to hospital; he was in agony with a strangulated testicle (caused by a sporting injury) and had done nothing for days because of embarrassment.
If sex education was working boys and girls, men and women would have no problems seeking medical help for problems "down there". I am a middle aged man who has to attend regular urology clinics and have done for 20 years. I know the frustration that staff feel when cancer is left untreatable because of late diagnosis. I believe that gynaecologists and obstetricians and constantly amazed at the ignorance of women and what has to be explained to them. Again a sign of the failure of sex education.
For those who say there should be no sex education and that it should be left to parents should look at the story of the Rev Chad Varah and why he set up the Samaritans. The main reason was that he and his clergy friends were fed up of carrying out the funerals of teenage girls who had committed suicide after menstruation; the girls wrongly thought that they had some terrible, shameful illness. The Samaritans started as a sex advice line; dealing with more general causes of suicide came much later.
So to be against sex education per se I can not agree with. Wanting it to be more about health, understanding medical issues and having a moral element I can agree with."

Now don't get me wrong. I not being flippant about teenage pregnancy. (nor do I condemn them all as sponging slags either.) Even the staunchest advocates of sexual libertarianism will agree that at the very least, 15 and 16 year old girls should go and live life for a while before faffing around with bottles and shitty nappies. Then there's the psychological burden of parenthood/pregnancy at a young age, and the disruption to studies and work that a baby brings. I have no problem with anyone highlighting these to teenagers. But that isn't what Hitchens is concerned with. (He doesn't seem concerned with evidence to back his claims up either. But what's new there?) He is hiding behind a legitimate (but smaller than many actually think) social issue, to promote his fundamentalist Christian philosophy. Attacking those who teach sex education as "educational smut" peddlers, and Marxists, is particularly objectionable. It has nothing to do with genuine concern for teenagers, and everything to do with his own evangelical baggage. We must remember that "sex education" is a broad term anyway. You could argue that teaching the Karma Sutra (I doubt very much this happens in the PSE lessons of secondary schools) is sex education, but then so is explaining the general biology of sex organs, and STD's (I'd think most 16 year old lads would flinch at what a male smear test entails.), and even womens rights. It's amazing how sex education is malleable enough a term to mean whatever a pundit wants it to mean. My own take is that in the real world, teenagers are going to get their info either from unsolicited playground gossip, pornos, or from sex education lessons by professionals. I know which I think is the best source.