No 10 'blocked move to legalise prostitution' (UK - guardian)

[sweetheart]

· Insider reveals how red light zone plan was axed
· Police reveal new killer inquiry breakthrough

Gaby Hinsliff, Mark Townsend and Anushka Asthana
Sunday December 17, 2006
The Observer

Downing Street blocked moves that would in effect have legalised prostitution because the Prime Minister was so concerned that 'hostile headlines' would wreck plans to make sex workers' lives safer.

In a passionate article in today's Observer, Katharine Raymond, a senior adviser to the former Home Secretary David Blunkett, reveals that he wanted to liberalise the law, allowing 'managed areas' for prostitutes similar to those in mainland Europe. Experts say that such areas would mean that sex workers, such as the five women killed around Ipswich over the past month, would be at less risk of attack.

Today Raymond, who was one of Blunkett's trusted special advisers overseeing prostitution policy for more than three years, calls for the legalisation of prostitution and argues that current policy is 'a disgrace' caused by 'political cowardice' and public indifference.
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http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1973888,00.html

[CJCRANE]

1. "The Observer

can reveal that Interpol has now been called into the Suffolk inquiry amid suspicions that the murderer may have fled abroad and that he is thought to have killed with his bare hands."

I wonder if the culprit is ex-military or a trained killer of some kind?

[CJCRANE]

2. "The police have declined to confirm or deny

newspaper reports that a senior officer had been a client of two of the prostitutes killed in Ipswich."

From: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/suffolk/6187073.stm

[WalcottNorfolk]

3. So what's the deal against legalised prostitution

Cities like Amsterdam and Hamburg seemed to have turned it into a billion dollar industry. And all the girls are from Russia and thereabout nowadays, so it's not like it's the British girls which are getting humped.

[sweetheart]

11. welcome to DU!

Yes, john reid's english isn't necessary for a shag. :-)

welcome to DU :toast:

[jody]

4. Politicians are legal so Prostitutes should be legal. Both sell their bodies. n/t

[CJCRANE]

5. It's avoiding the issue.

Street prostitution is a result of drug addiction. It's the addiction that needs to be dealt with not the prostitution.

[iamjoy]

6. Legalizing It Could Help That

Imagine if it were legalized, but regulated.

You could require the prostitutes to submit to random drug tests. Fail the drug test, the prostitute must enter a treatment program or lose her (or his) "license"

Pimps would have to be registered/licensed too. They'd become a business person like any other - responsible for taxes and insurance, etc.

[CJCRANE]

8. I agree to a point

but there is already a semi-legal form of prositution in escort agencies. The girls who walk the streets do it specifically because they are addicted to drugs. Deal with the addiction and you will reduce the number of street-walkers.

[sweetheart]

7. its the tragedy of tony

Labour for the next 100 years will deeply regret the opportunities that blair has squandered,
and for what, a mass murder in asia.

Rather than a pro-labour pro-working person policy to prevent murders in the street and all
the street crime of the drugs war, he's behaved cowardly, and worst of all, the whole time proving
that rupert murdoch runs britain. I can't believe a majority government that was not afraid to
override the people to go murder iraqis, is willing to torture and kill its own people rather
than adopt policies that keep the streets safe.

The sooner that blair skunk leaves, the better. he's denied all reality evidence of the failures
of every single war he's imported from the US, apologized for, and otherwised sucked up to, for
what? what, blair? Do you want this in britain:

[EST]

9. I must presume you are being ironic.

Prostitution has been around nearly as long as has religion and most certainly predates drug addiction.

[CJCRANE]

10. See my post #8 above.n/t