Prostitution Crackdown ?

So sayeth the Guardian and BBC.

I'm not sure if this is actually going to be a crackdown on prostitution as such. After all, in the 1979 feminist worldview currently informing Home Office policy, they may not quite be able to decide whether the girls are poor victims of society, ordinary "sex workers", or Girl Power exemplars (this post describes their confusion), but they know who the bad guys are - "guys" being the operative word.

We will take a zero tolerance approach to kerb crawling. Men who choose to use prostitutes are indirectly supporting drug dealers and abusers. The power to confiscate driving licences already exists. We want the police to use that power more."

It can't be long before Julie Bindel is wheeled out again to tell the punters what evil murderers they are, while the poor girls are given lots of support, counselling, housing and other goodies, none of which, of course, they can afford themselves.

Alas, no pressure groups have been formed to campaign for the poor punters as hapless victims of their hormones, chained to the village idiot.

In the words of Antonia Bance, rapidly becoming my locus classicus for left-wing self-contradiction, "the real problem is not the women selling sex but the men who pay for sex. Let’s ASBO a few kerb-crawlers, put their photos in the paper, and see whether they come back for more."

We're back to those Victorian times, so well described by the Magna Mater Melanie, when earnest feminists condemned the fleshly lust of fallen Man, and the tragic victims necessary to feed their brute desires.