Picture the scene.
There you are, an 80s throwback lefty feminoid wimmins rights-spouting MEP, merrily posting your usual ill-informed, ideological poppycock about whichever subject you fancy exhibiting your lack of knowledge at the time (in this case, prostitution), before the quick jaunt down to the Empress of Brussels curry house for a Mung Bean Jalfrezi.
Having patted yourself on the back of your dungarees for a good job well done, up pops Belinda Brooks-Gordon, whom I met last month, a psychologist, leading expert on the sex trade and a published author to boot, to explain exactly how you are talking out of your ample, state-sponsored arse.
Yeah, it made me laugh too. She must have eagle eyes that Belinda, I can't {cough} think for the life of me how she found the article so quickly.
It's not the first time Hairy Moneyballs has been found wanting on expertise in her personal crusade against the selling of sex, which she finds distasteful, either.
You see, Hairy is very worried about all those trafficked girls. It's a disgrace, says she, that the Met Police have scrapped their trafficking division.
Perhaps, says Belinda B-G, it could be because the problem is simply not large enough to justify the £3.7m allocated to it. And maybe the reason such a huge sum was directed towards it in the first place is that fake charities and politicians had been hugely exaggerating the actual numbers of trafficked prostitutes. Now, who do you think would do such a thing, Hairy? Eh? Hairy, what say you?
The simple fact is that the problem is almost non-existent. Hairy likes to take this line because, as is customary with Labour bansturbators, if you are angling for bans or restrictions on personal choices, you can't just tell people they mustn't do it. This is a no-no as it's none of your business, a fact of which you are well aware.
Therefore, a scare story must be fabricated to push through your own personal prejudice with the full weight of the law. It's the same with any personal liberties legislation; we have seen it before and we will see it again, and again, and again. It is the political straw man but with more draconian consequences than just winning a theoretical argument with a false premise.
I have written before about how using these tactics is far from beneficial. In fact, it is clearly and logically damaging to those in the sex trade, not to mention being doomed by history to comprehensive failure.
Belinda B-G knows the industry. She spent a year of research living with the girls themselves. Honeyballs, on the other hand, no doubt spent quite a time discussing the issue over a sliver of soap and a communal flannel at Greenham Common.
Fortunately (or unfortunately considering we pay for the dozy cow) Hairy isn't clever enough to hide her true reasoning, even though she attempts a feeble plan B whilst attempting to justify her bigotry.
Prostitution is exploitation of women for fianacial (sic) gain. Few women either enter or stay as prostitutes willingly and most have a drug habit. I want every single woman to have the opportunity for a fulfilling life; prostitution most definitely does not provide this.
See what she did there, with vague and unproven rhetoric, natch? Having had the trafficking rug pulled from under her on two separate occasions, she throws in a completely different concern (that of drug abuse) before, finally, getting to the point.
That being that she doesn't believe prostitution is a life that should be led.
It's that simple.
It's not about what the girls themselves want, it's what Hairy wants. It's not a consensual contract whereby both parties derive consideration after offer and acceptance, it's exploitation.
Just as Gordon Brown is going to single-handedly eradicate cancer in his fourth (pffft) term, Hairy is convinced she will wipe out the sex trade, because she doesn't like it, on the back of fuzzy, decades old, lefty uni feminist ideology.
It really does make me laugh that those who call themselves 'progressive' continually point to discredited approaches such as restrictions, bans and prohibition as the only answer when it's quite clear that a truly progressive approach would be to try something else. Something like inclusivity, understanding, and compromise, for example.
The problem is that self-serving, conceited, holier-than-thou, judgemental bigots, like Hairy, will never so much as begin to see that, when they are so focussed on moulding the world to their own pristine, personal, liking.
