"Good morning, this is James Naughtie in London"
"And Sarah Montague in a leather jacket, mini, and heels in Ipswich"
"Later in the programme we ask - should sex workers get more Government support ? Is it time for heroin to be given free to vulnerable key workers ? Should using the word 'prostitute' be a criminal offence ? But first, the news from Ipswich ..."
"... in the Five Live phone-in today - how would YOU go about finding a ruthless killer ? Call us on 909 or 693. And after the discovery of two more bodies yesterday, we ask - is it time for us to give these vulnerable girls whatever it is they want - if it will help to save lives ..."
"BBC Radio Whore - it's ten o'clock"
"Today in Woman Sour, we talk to a woman who say that sex work is, for her, the most empowering and liberating employment she knows - we speak with the mother of a young heroin addict who disagrees - and Julie Bindel on why all women will continue to be in danger until the last man is fed screaming into an industrial shredder."
"In Newsround today, fifteen-year old Danela talks about her abduction from Moldova, her journey to Britain and her life as a sex worker in a Gloucester massage parlour. And in Blue Peter, you can see her again, when she shows how to make a condom from an empty Tesco carrier bag and some strong elastic bands ..."
"This is Drive on Radio Five, with Rachel Burden in the studio"
"And Peter Allan in a rather fetching wig and fishnets, on an industrial estate just outside Lowestoft. Are you looking for business ?"
Bed Swapping
14 hours ago
26 comments:
"...and Julie Bindel on why all women will continue to be in danger until the last man is fed screaming into an industrial shredder."
Lol!!
Some call them "working girls", but as this term assumes that they pay tax, NI and do not claim benefits, it might not be an accurate description of a good proportion of them.
Sex & Drugs & Violence..........the epitome of the Self-Destruction Society fed by a Nihilist Media
Nicely done, Laban.
A psychopathic low-life tops five other low-lifes and the nation is convulsed by sentimentality. Cheer yourself up with a look at these condolence boards:
http://www.eveningstar.co.uk/content/eveningstar/murders/condolences.aspx
I particularly liked "I knew Anneli when she was six as her father was dating my mum."
It is curious how many of the posters believe that a murdered, heroin-addicted whore automatically becomes "an angel in heaven".
Paul,
Well at least such comments display a latent religiosity on their maker's part...
Dead junkie low life whores DO remain human beings...and regardless of the mistakes they made, they were children of God capable of love and who were loved.
Dead junkie low life whores DO remain human beings
No doubt but what they have experienced is an occupational hazard somewhat compounded by being under the influence
Martin
"Latent religiosity"? More like mere mawkishness and emotional self-indulgence, I'd say.
"Dead junkie low life whores" do NOT remain human: by definition, they are former human beings because they are now corpses.
Vulnerable and pathetic, as they undoubtedly were, I doubt these girls were either truly "loved" by their underclass families or "capable of love" because addicts are utterly self-centred.
And love is, as St Augustine argued, much more than a transitory feeling or even a disposition: it is a discipline - the ordo amoris, the principle of rightly directed love. Angels would, I assume, conform to the ordo amoris, but I doubt the spiritual remains of dead junkie whores do, at least not yet.
paul ilc, it seems obvious that you have never had any daughters or sons of your own, or that if you do that you have no heart.
Whatever the rights and wrongs of these girls lifestyles, they were and are someone's daughter, someone's sister, and in some cases, someone's mother.
I have young children who are dearly loved, but that is no guarantee that ten years down the road they won't fall into the wrong company or meet a boyfriend who gets them involved in drug abuse. I will do my utmost to ensure that this won't happen, but I'm not so cocksure as to say that it is impossible.
To see the photos of these unfortunate women as toddlers and children, just like photos that I have of my own children, makes me think that 'there but for the grace of God go I'.
The real tragedy here is that these women ended up on that slippery slope that ultimately led them to their deaths with their compulsion to fund their drug addiction.
My reading of Laban's piece is that he, rightly, bemoans the media spin on this whole sad business, rather than your heartless who cares attitude.
paul -> the phrase "let who hath no sin cast the first stone" comes to mind.
let us be clear about this - even if they were lowlife scum, nobody deserves to be murdered.
"I knew Anneli when she was six as her father was dating my mum."
a chilling quote if ever there was one.
Paul,
I would disagree with you in respect of mawkishness - you can usually tell that line's been crossed when the teddy bears start appearing at the crime scenes.
If you want mawkishness as far as this case goes, fish rots from the head down - David Cameron's words of support for the police at this week's PMQ's were 100% undistilled mawkishness. Supporting the police is what he's supposed to do. Sending Boris Johnson out to help with house to house enquiries would have been more productive.
Your comment,
""Dead junkie low life whores" do NOT remain human: by definition, they are former human beings because they are now corpses.
Vulnerable and pathetic, as they undoubtedly were, I doubt these girls were either truly "loved" by their underclass families or "capable of love" because addicts are utterly self-centred."
does betray a lack of compassion on your part. Of course, mawkishness is not geniune compassion but emotional onanism; its expression makes the expressor feel good for a monent then the sensation's gone - not unlike a fix.
However the ostentatious cold-heartedness you display is just as new and just as rife in our culture, and just as corrosive of the spirit.
Its character is not dis-similar to the feral grouphate exhibited to those who surround prison vans seeking to lynch the occupants.
One can only speak from personal experience, and unfortunately this is unverifiable - but your analysis of the depth of feeling of which elements of the 'underclass' are capable doesn't ring true.
Many years ago, I was a solicitor. My best client exhibited all the classic markers of underclass behaviour - a self-harming alcoholic who had been institutionalised several times, broken marriage, on benefits for 15 years by the age of 35, children in the system, the oldest beginning a promising career in petty crime, the youngest receivng compulsory measures of care.
Her one saving grace was reported to be chastity; knowing the lady, one might wonder her practice of that virtue was voluntary.
At times her behaviour was utterly self-centered; yet by the same token it was absolutely clear that she loved those children, not mawkishly, not insincerely but genuinely - and after four days of evidence, a sheriff (judge) agreed.
She could give many of the rest of us lessons in the 'ordo amoris'.
It was also once my duty to attend a suspected murder victim's second post mortem. A first PM had already been conducted - the second was on the accused's behalf.
The 'victim' was not disfigured in any way - they had died of a brain injury sustained by falling backwards against a coffee table during the course of a drunken household argument. The question of murder depended on whether they had slipped or been pushed.
At university, I had had no problem looking at the more gruesome photos in the forensics textbooks, and had seen several corpses in open coffins - death was not a stranger.
One's recollection of that afternoon is quite clear, Paul. The cadaver had been quite crudely stitched up after the first PM, and their organs were sitting in black bin bags in a stainless steel sink.
One could not help but be moved by the fate of the human being lying in front of me. Yes, hopefully their soul was at peace, yes their remains were no longer of no use to them - but even at that, Paul, to become literally an exhibit, an object of research, is a fate one wouldn't wish on one's worst enemies.
And given his own tendencies to underclass behaviour, it is slightly ironic to see you quote St. Augustine in your defence.
Yes, Andrew, I do have a daughter (20), who incidentally visits Ipswich. And, no, I am not being heartless. I feel compassion for the murdered women (and their families); but they were engaged in an illegal activity (soliciting), which they must have known to be high risk. Of course, ghost of jt, that does not mean that they deserved to be murdered; but the element of contributory negligence -- there are safer ways to sell your body (agencies, adverts, etc), if you must; and there are state-funded routes out of prostitution and drugs -- reduces my sympathy for them.
I was mocking the sickly ‘Diana-ification’ of their deaths – eg street shrines (yes with teddies, Martin), their images on altar frontals, lachrymose drivel on websites, trite ‘religion-lite’ suggestions that the victims are now “angels in heaven”, etc, etc
Martin: You are a master of the non sequitur. (1) What has ‘Dave’ Cameron to do with this? (2)What logical or empirical connection is there between my rational detachment (or “ostentatious coldheartedness”, as you characterize it) and the feral behaviour of the hysterical, lawless brutes who try to lynch the occupants of prison vans? There is none. (3) And, in clarifying the issues, your testimony about particular cases known to you but not any others on this blog is not much use. (4) And if you believe Augustine was exhibiting underclass behaviour, you understand little about either.
The murdered prostitutes were underclass by birth or association – losers, low-lifes criminally-inclined, drug-addicted, parasitic and almost certainly welfare-dependent. Respectable, hard-working people pay dearly to support, sustain and subsidise the feckless lifestyles of such people. I feel compassion for the victims; disdain for the outbreak of hysterical sentimentality over their deaths; and contempt for the underclass and for the liberal elite who encourage their social deviance.
Paul
Re Cameron - read my comment again. Precisely what can Cameron do to help this enquiry? Nothing. Therefore why did he comment? Mawkishness.
Re grouphate - those who surround prison vans seeking to rip accused but not convicted persons limb from limb display are presumably exhibiting both disdain and contempt for the occupants - the only difference between their behaviour and what you describe as your rational detachment and I have described as your ostentatious cold-heartedness is that you admit contempt and disdain of a slightly more sophisticated character and directed towards different targets; a matter of degree.
As I said, Paul, the two incidents I recounted were unverifiable; although I do like to think I have enough integrity not to get creative about these kind of events.
They were human beings.
Andf if you think old St. Augustine didn't know how to walk on the wild side you need to re-read his life.
You write,
"The murdered prostitutes were underclass by birth or association – losers, low-lifes criminally-inclined, drug-addicted, parasitic and almost certainly welfare-dependent. "
The next stop in this sort of rant is to talk about phrenology and brain volumes.
Paul, the use of words such as 'parasitic' and 'losers' hardly indicates rational detachment, but intensely subjective loathing - not uinlike feral grouphate.
"Respectable, hard-working people pay dearly to support, sustain and subsidise the feckless lifestyles of such people."
Had a run in with the Revenue recently? Write to your MP.
"I feel compassion for the victims; disdain for the outbreak of hysterical sentimentality over their deaths; and contempt for the underclass and for the liberal elite who encourage their social deviance."
Paul, in my part of the country there are families who are now in the third generation of welfare dependency. That this is a social evil is a given; but they had no example shown to them.
It is not merely coldhearted but it is callous to say you feel contempt for people whose only real crimes are to have been born and not to be like you.
I find the use of the term underclass offensive.
Martin
1. Cameron has nothing to do with me or my views, so why introduce him?
2. Many views involve contempt and disdain, but that does make those views identical with each other. Ergo, my views are not identical with those of the group-haters you refer to, even if both involve contempt and disdain.
3. I was not questioning the truth of the incidents you related, just their relevance. I can counter your anecdotes with anecdotes of my own, but what concerns me is the general principles at stake.
4. Surely, you can see that taking a “walk on the wild side” is not the same as living an anti-social underclass lifestyle.
5 The next stop in this sort of rant is to talk about phrenology and brain volumes. No, it isn’t. You are making a psychological association and confusing it with a logical or empirical one. Or you are just trying to smear me.
6. Had a run in with the Revenue recently? No; but I am genuinely concerned by the cost of welfare dependency, and (like Melanie Phillips) regard the welfare state as part of the problem of poverty and social deviance, not part of the solution.
7. … they had no example shown to them. This is deeply patronizing to the socially disadvantaged. Plenty of people who grow up in appalling circumstances make a success of their lives. These girls could have done otherwise, and they were responsible for their choices.
8. it is callous to say you feel contempt for people whose only real crimes are to have been born and not to be like you. Being born and not being like me are not the things I hold against them, nor are they crimes. Their social deviance, their drug addiction, their law-breaking, their parasitism and their welfare-dependency are what I hold against them.
I find the use of the term underclass offensive. Really? That's tough, because it occurs quite a lot on Laban's blog, and Charles Murray has made it an widely accepted term.
We need a term to describe those in poverty as a result of their indolence or inability to work (and refusal to remedy said inability). Working class, apart from being a Marxoid derivation, is the very opposite of the truth when applied to such characters.
paul ilc -> whilst i agree with the general thrust of your arguments, you have to stand back and wonder WHY did Ipswich council ALLOW the development of a "redlight" district , and the associated rise in crack/heroin abuse in their town.
were the police underfunded? or incompetent?
why weren't the police clamping down HARD on this sort of thing? there are big questions coming out of this affair that the MSM are just not asking right now.
You are right, ghost of jt, about the big(ger) questions. Why didn't the Suffolk police clamp down hard on the streetwalking? I am guessing, but I'd say political correctness, a social services-led approach to prostitution (and drugs) and government target-driven policing.
Ipswich, btw, is hardly typical of Suffolk, as many seem to think. It's a port for one thing, and a former indutrial town for another. Prostitution has always existed there, as in Felixstowe and Harwich.
Paul -
1.To illustrate that mawkishness is now pervasive; if our leaders were less mawkish, perhaps their restraint would filter down.
2. "Many views involve contempt and disdain, but that does make those views identical with each other. Ergo, my views are not identical with those of the group-haters you refer to, even if both involve contempt and disdain"
The views might not be identical - the reactions they produce amongst the holders are most certainly similar.
That's the point, and I stand by it.
3. "I was not questioning the truth of the incidents you related, just their relevance. I can counter your anecdotes with anecdotes of my own, but what concerns me is the general principles at stake."
As it does me. My anecdote was related as a counterpoint to your reference to the 'ordo amoris' of St. Augustine. You claimed the underclass are incapable of love - that is not true.
4. "Surely, you can see that taking a “walk on the wild side” is not the same as living an anti-social underclass lifestyle."
In the context to which it was referred, the life of St. Augustine, no -
From Wikipedia -
"As a youth Augustine lived a hedonistic lifestyle for a time, and in Carthage, he developed a relationship with a young woman who would be his concubine for over fifteen years. During this period he had a son, Adeodatus, with the young woman...
Augustine's mother had followed him to Milan and he allowed her to arrange a society marriage, for which he abandoned his concubine (however he had to wait two years until his fiancée came of age; he promptly took up in the meantime with another woman). It was during this period Augustine of Hippo uttered his famous prayer, "Grant me chastity and continence, but not yet" [da mihi castitatem et continentiam, sed noli modo] (Conf., VIII. vii (17))."
5."No, it isn’t. You are making a psychological association and confusing it with a logical or empirical one. Or you are just trying to smear me."
a. Neither, just taking your arguments to their logical conclusion.
b. You're doing a good enough job of that without my help, matey.
6. "No; but I am genuinely concerned by the cost of welfare dependency, and (like Melanie Phillips) regard the welfare state as part of the problem of poverty and social deviance, not part of the solution."
Well, we're all singing from the same hymnsheet then - though I for one feel no need to refer to recipients of benefit as parasites. Perhaps that's a consequence of once having been in receipt of Jobseekers Allowance of £104 per fortnight after 200 unsuccessful job applications.
Shoot, another unverifiable anecdote...
7."This is deeply patronizing to the socially disadvantaged. Plenty of people who grow up in appalling circumstances make a success of their lives. These girls could have done otherwise, and they were responsible for their choices. "
I'll say that's about 30% correct. Yes, free will is an absolute - however if it's an absolute for young smack-addicted Englishwomen who whore themselves to buy their fix then it's also an absolute for, say, the Cree Indians.
Now, the Cree Indians and the British underclass have one defining charcteristic in common - their ancestors were both the victims of a culturicide. With the Cree, it was through conquest - with the British underclass it was through a double-pronged attack, first on their social values and then an economic attack on their prospects through deindustrialisation which has continued into the era of offshoring and mass immigration. It is not at all unreasonable to assume that in years to come Glasgow's giant peripheral housing schemes will become precisely like Indian reservations - pockets of people whose culture has been smashed, leaving them with no active role to play and who rely on welfare to survive.
Now, what would give your argument weight is numbers. Have the numbers of those who 'grow up in appalling circumstances' who manage to move out of poverty higher, lower or at the same level as they were 40 years ago? My instinct is to say lower, very much lower, for the reasons I've mentioned above combined with the abomination of comprehensive schooling and the welfare state's massive expansion over the same period.
If you have any data to contradict me I'd be more than happy to see it.
8."Being born and not being like me are not the things I hold against them, nor are they crimes. Their social deviance, their drug addiction, their law-breaking, their parasitism and their welfare-dependency are what I hold against them."
Na, Paul, I think you just don't like people.
Martin
I'm not surprised you had to make 200 job applications: you evidently cannot reason or think very well, and you stray off topic (Cameron, Cree indians).
Life is short, and most of your points are hardly worth responding to, so I will make just 4 points here:
1. I never claimed that the underclass are incapable of love, though I expressed scepticism about whether junkie whores were capable of giving or receiving love. Sentimentality is the enemy of, and a substitute for, true feeling.
2. Neither, just taking your arguments to their logical conclusion. You clearly don't know what 'logical' or 'conclusion' means. There is no way, according to the laws of logic, that you can get from
P1 'X believes that the murdered prostitutes were underclass by birth or association – losers, low-lifes, criminally-inclined, drug-addicted, parasitic and almost certainly welfare-dependent'
to
P2 'X believes that phrenology and brain volumes are relevant to the prostitutes' behaviour'.
P1 and P2 are logically independent of each other, and P1 does not imply or entail P2, so P2 is not "the logical conclusion" of P1.
3."...what would give your argument weight is numbers." But it's not an argument about numbers. You asserted that the underclass behave as they do because "they had no example shown to them". That is, you were asserting
P3 All underclass behaviour is a result of not having an example shown to them.
To refute P3, it is only necessary to show that there is at least one instance of someone raising themselves from the underclass without having an example shown to them.
4. You conclude that I do not like people. I grant you that I do not like the underclass, at least en masse.(Who does?) But, given that you have a regular 'Foreign Criminal of the Day' slot on your blog, I could just as easily make the same accusation about you.
Paul,
"I'm not surprised you had to make 200 job applications: you evidently cannot reason or think very well, and you stray off topic (Cameron, Cree indians)."
That's a scummy, dirty comment; for all you know I might have been recovering from leukaemia at the time.
I wasn't, by the way.
Find another head to stamp on. Both references were made in direct answer to points you had made.
"I never claimed that the underclass are incapable of love, though I expressed scepticism about whether junkie whores were capable of giving or receiving love. Sentimentality is the enemy of, and a substitute for, true feeling."
Well no, that's not quite what you said.
You wrote,
"Vulnerable and pathetic, as they undoubtedly were, I doubt these girls were either truly "loved" by their underclass families or "capable of love" because addicts are utterly self-centred."
You also wrote,
"The murdered prostitutes were underclass by birth or association – losers, low-lifes criminally-inclined, drug-addicted, parasitic and almost certainly welfare-dependent. Respectable, hard-working people pay dearly to support, sustain and subsidise the feckless lifestyles of such people. I feel compassion for the victims; disdain for the outbreak of hysterical sentimentality over their deaths; and contempt for the underclass and for the liberal elite who encourage their social deviance."
I rather sense that you're wriggling now, old chap...
If someone as clearly in the habit of making gross generalisations about other members of the human race as you seem to be starts referring to the underclass as pejoratively as you do, it brings to mind echoes of less enlightened days - those days when discplines such as phrenology were taken seriously.
"3."...what would give your argument weight is numbers." But it's not an argument about numbers. You asserted that the underclass behave as they do because "they had no example shown to them". That is, you were asserting
P3 All underclass behaviour is a result of not having an example shown to them.
To refute P3, it is only necessary to show that there is at least one instance of someone raising themselves from the underclass without having an example shown to them"
Sorry, sorry, sorry, who's twisting whose words?
The importance of numbers to your argument is that they would lend weight to your assertion - that's the imporetance of numbers.
And you fail to provide even one example to back your assertion up.
"You conclude that I do not like people. I grant you that I do not like the underclass, at least en masse.(Who does?) But, given that you have a regular 'Foreign Criminal of the Day' slot on your blog, I could just as easily make the same accusation about you. "
No, I don't think so; and I'm afraid that remark shows up both the emptiness of your so-called logic and your hatred of your fellow man at their most brutal, venal and vicious.
What is the difference between the underclass and the Foreign Criminals of the Day?
One are your fellow citizens, the others not.
One are a group of fellow citizens who, for all their tendencies towards smack-taking, burglary and whoring, have largely been sold down the river by their own countrymen; their values thwarted and their futures sold.
Many of the FCOTD's just come here to commit crimes.
That's the difference between the two.
One largely merits compassion, the others are genuinely worthy of contempt.
Nae chance, laddie.
Martin
1. I write: “… I expressed scepticism about whether junkie whores were capable of giving or receiving love.” You deny I said this, quoting me as saying, “I doubt these girls were either truly "loved" by their underclass families or "capable of love" because addicts are utterly self-centred." Expressing scepticism and doubting are, in this context, the same thing. I thought solicitors were supposed to understand words: you have difficulty understanding basic English.
2. You write: “…,it brings to mind echoes of less enlightened days - those days when disciplines such as phrenology were taken seriously.” So, as I said initially, mere psychological association! There is no logical or empirical connection between my views and phrenology etc. If you can’t see that, then you’ve been educated beyond the level of your intelligence.
3. What is the difference between the underclass and the Foreign Criminals of the Day?
One are your fellow citizens, the others not.
One are a group of fellow citizens who, for all their tendencies towards smack-taking, burglary and whoring, have largely been sold down the river by their own countrymen; their values thwarted and their futures sold.
Many of the FCOTD's just come here to commit crimes.
That's the difference between the two.
One largely merits compassion, the others are genuinely worthy of contempt.
So you are prepared to judge indigenous criminals less harshly, because of some sentimentalised, romanticised vision of their origin in which the rest of us have (in some unspecified sense) “thwarted” their values and “sold” their futures! (Do you, I wonder, believe that immigrants are taking jobs that should rightly belong to Brits?) You seem to identify with the home-grown underclass, and so you take my views of them as a personal affront.
I am an equal opportunity despiser: I despise all criminals, whatever their origins. And I don’t regard the underclass as my fellow citizens, because, as Aristotle observed, if you live outside of civil society, you are either a beast or a god – ie you cease to be fully human. We need, incidentally, to revive the concept of an outlaw: those who persistently break the law should forfeit at least some of its protection. But that’s another issue.
"£I am an equal opportunity despiser: I despise all criminals, whatever their origins. And I don’t regard the underclass as my fellow citizens, because, as Aristotle observed, if you live outside of civil society, you are either a beast or a god – ie you cease to be fully human. "
I rest my case.
Martin reveals his caring, compassionate and sympathetic side:
I have absolutely no sympathy for anyone whose journey has been disrupted by fog at any British airport - none whatsoever....Any caught up in the 'chaos' who consider their Christmas to be in 'tatters' are little better than children.
And any who vent 'anger and frustration' at another human because of an act of God should get 50,000 volts from a taser.
Right in the chest.
They can then reflect on their petulance as they lie writhing and spastic.
http://martinkelly.blogspot.com/
Steady on, Martin, some of those you would have "writhing and spastic" might be underclass Scots...
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