Porn, And Ed Vaizey's Handbag

Here go the government again, desperately assuaging the massed ranks of middle England Mail readers.

Internet pornography sites will be automatically blocked from home computers unless households request access under an ‘opt-in’ system.

Ministers want to reverse the current situation in which such sites are accessible to anyone surfing the internet, including children, unless a lock is installed.

Under the plans, those who want access to pornography sites would have to ask their broadband firm to make them available.

Well, that was perhaps the aim, anyway. Unfortunately, the comments seem to suggest that even Mail readers think this is an idea so fucked up as to render the coalition a laughing stock.

The Coalition is hoping to persuade Internet firms to devise this system voluntarily, but would legislate if they fail to comply.

Ah, the old 'do as we say voluntarily, or we will force you' trick. Previously seen in tobacco control, alcohol awareness, music and games classification, and the latest bête noir, fast food.

13 years of Labour and they still can't stop bloody interfe ... oh, hang on.

The [Tory] Communications Minister [Ed Vaizey] told the Sunday Times: ' This is a very serious matter. I think it is very important that the Internet Service Providers (ISPs) come up with solutions to protect children.

'I am hoping they will get their acts together so we don't have to legislate, but we are keeping an eye on the situation and we will have a new communications bill in the next couple of years.'

Well, screw me sideways with a glass dildo last seen in "Where the men aren't: Connossieur's Collection". It's a Tory suggesting this? Seriously?

Oh, I get it now. It's that new 'Nudge' thing, innit. You know, opting in rather than out? Or, in this case, being presumed to be an irresponsible cunt until you prove otherwise by giving your name and porn preferences to the state.

Quite remarkable.

Of course, Man Widdicombe has quickly spotted a couple of flaws in such desperately frown-ridden nonsense.

How will they know which homes and have kids? Will you have to provide that information to your ISP when you sign up?

Or even be required by law to notify your ISP when anyone in the household gives birth? No. Silly me. A government department will be set up to monitor such things and then pass forms - in triplicate - to your ISP once a birth certificate crosses their desk.

What exactly is pornography? Bill Hicks famously paraphrased in one of his routines that "pornography is anything without artistic merit that causes sexual thought, that's their definition, essentially." So what does our Government define as porn?

Another good question. Who decides?

Here's a picture currently carried on fun retro-site, victoriporn.

Hmm, very nice too.

Does that count? There are more revealing ones, just as there are ones with all subjects clothed. Does the entire site get blacklisted, or just some pages?

My guess is that it would be the lot. After all, now the UK government has fully signed up to the precautionary principle, banning everything is the only way to ensure that no-one sees something which will almost certainly have NO FUCKING ADVERSE EFFECT ON ANYONE!

Hands up if you didn't witness - in fact, actively seek out - porn in your teen years despite the best efforts of your parents to hide it (admittedly, ladies may be different here). Anyone?

It's been a natural thing for time immemoriam. Pubescents will kill for a view of whatever they can find (and they are comprehensively resourceful), kids will not, and even if they do see it, they will probably just ignorantly giggle. If there is a significant conversion rate from youth porn-viewing to hideous sex cases, it's been hidden for quite a few millenia now.

We are led by astoundingly myopic fools. A modern day bunch of arrogant King Canutes, as the Moose has pointed out.

Do they really believe that every pornographic image can be blocked. There is a hell of a lot of porn out there, I've looked.

Err, are we not in the midst of public sector cuts? Yet here is a lumpen-headed Tory - I'll say that again - a lumpen-headed Tory, promoting legislation which would require an infinite number of civil service monkeys, sitting around an infinite number of computers, just to keep track of one day's worth of newly-set up porn sites.

And if they fail? The Moose has done me a favour again by morphing into Mystic Meg on unintended consequences.

What happens when some gets through and children see it because there is no parental filter in place on the PC, as will obviously happen? Does the parent then sue the Internet provider and get compensation?

That's the usual consequence of taking responsibility away from the individual. They start to believe that they need not do anything as the government is looking after them. When something then goes wrong, they want compensation.

Oh, but you see, it's that other top-down illiberal cunt soup so beloved of our hideous parliamentarians - the next logical step.

The initiative comes following a successful trial by British ISPs to stop innocent people accessing child pornography websites.

Innocent people accessing kiddie porn? Err, I don't suppose they could name one? I mean really, just one.

I seem to remember a heck of a lot of defendants saying that they stumbled across child porn by accident, followed by about the same amount of sentences stating that they had been added to the sex offenders' register. No-one just stumbles across child porn, that is pure unadulterated bollocks.

In fact, the nearest we have seen is when a state organisation ballsed up so much that they directed the world and his wife to a Scorpions album cover from the 1970s.

As scaremongering justification for the state as mother and father goes, it's incredibly weak.

No. What we have here is Vaizey and cohorts vainly thinking they are clever enough to succeed where prurient fucknuts have failed for thousands of years.

People will watch porn. Teens will try to access it (I used to sell Mr P Snr's stash at school for 50p a pop mag). All this initiative will do is throw good money - our money - at irrelevant employment, with no possible positive outcome.

Ed Vaizey - a guy I thought I had respect for - has illustrated quite comprehensively today why MPs should be given a 5 year sleeping pill the day they are elected. Every time the dozy fucks open their gob, the country suffers the potential of a further spiral into terminally-expensive futility.

All this without pointing out what should be crystal clear to a conservative MP. What people indulge in is none of your business, Ed. Nor you, Claire Perry, the self-righteous mare who thought this crock up when scrambling for an original angle which could make her fuckwitted name. It's not your life, there is no problem, and they are not your kids.

John Major was arse-whipped for his talk of 'back to basics' and the Victorian mindset. Ed Vaizey seems to think that a return to some puritan crone-like hand-bagging of those who paid their penny to see 'What the Butler Saw' is the way forward. Worse still, he and prissy Perry naively believe that they are capable of defying the lessons of history.

Listen. This is as pathetic an initiative as I have seen in the past decade. If parents wish to throw their keks around their ankles and get jiggy to "Gang Bang Auditions 13", what the fuck has it to do with Westminster, and why the fuck are they wasting time and money on such poppycock.

Hey, Ed, didn't you see the memo that talked of cutting public sector bullshit? Shut the fuck up, eh?