So I write a letter to my MP...

[directhex]

erm, is that an "open letter" or something you fired off by mail? you seem to be addressing him a fair bit

[Saracen]

Me?

It's a forum post. The addressing of parts of it to him are, if you like, a literary device to make it clear to the reader (of this forum) who many of the points are aimed at, and in the very unlikely event that he reads this, it'll make it clear to him. That is, I'm addressing our members with the post, but the points are aimed at Mr Clelland.

No, I haven't mailed him. He's not my MP and he'd be quite justified in ignoring such spurious non-constituent communications. Besides, if he can't handle criticism from his constituent, he's not likely to bother about it from a non-constituent.

[G4Z]

Lets hope he does read it, your reasoning is flawless.

[GoNz0]

i doubt he has the basic intelligence to sign up to hexus, he would probably have to pay someone to decipher the anti spam question on sign up, more than likely that would result in the hexus website being siezed and taken offline during the police investigation of the breech of his human rights for not being able to type Id10t as the spam answer.

[Noxvayl]

Excellent post as usual Sarcen... ripped that idiot to shreds with flare and flamboyance

[finlay666]

Celland: Well I am afraid that is when the geordie came out in me and I told him what he could do with his vote.

What

A


Berk


That really peeved me off, saying that basically all people who live on the river Tyne are agressive bullies. I take huge offense to that, mind from a Neanderthal (David: if you are reading this I mean idiot) I wouldn't expect much else really, I doubt he even had the cognitive capacity to write the letter himself and probably dictated it to one of his lackies.

I would like to think that as an MP they are elected to represent their constiuents, and one persons views should be seen as that. One may be representing the majority, but not the whole of the area, and may infact be the minority, he is just following party policy pretty much like the rest of the Labour MPs. Yes they should be able to state their opinion, but it should be done in a professional manner, as he does not just represent himself, he represents himself, his party, his constituency and to an extent politicians in general.

I feel that to basically say that someone opposed to the extreme pornography aswell is a bit of a jump from one extreme to another. IIRC Child pornography is already illegal so these new laws would not affect it. As for the rest of it, no one is forced to watch it, and aslong as it involves consenting adult(s) and does not break other laws such as GBH etc. I think it should be available. I think child porn is hugely wrong, however I feel there should be nothing stopping an adult going into a shop and buying an S&M film. The new laws may stop this.


oh, and:
David Clelland M.P.
19 Ravensworth Road
Dunston
Gateshead
NE11 9AB
Tel: 0191 420 0300
Fax: 0191 420 0301

Just incase anyone locally feels the need to write to him with their opinion

[G4Z]

The Geordie gonna come out of ya?

hehe

[GoNz0]

"must not read this thread when drunk and ring the number above"

mods please ban me from here between 10pm and 7am

[finlay666]

The Geordie gonna come out of ya?

hehe

I'd be more worried if the geordie came in him......

Seriously, way to go are tar 2 million + people with one brushstroke, it's stupid *bleeping* comments like that that help people from the north east get viewed in a bad light.

[Saracen]

......

I feel that to basically say that someone opposed to the extreme pornography aswell is a bit of a jump from one extreme to another. IIRC Child pornography is already illegal so these new laws would not affect it......

Just to clarify, in case you didn't read my opus post earlier, the Bill that contains the extreme porn provisions does indeed contain amendments to the provisions in child porn.

The Bill itself, therefore, does affect those. But G4Z didn't comment to Mr Clelland on or object to the whole bill, just those extreme porn provisions, which are separate sections to the child porn amendments. Mr Clelland seems to have conflated the child porn issue himself. And I wonder why? Perhaps because he thinks (probably rightly) that if you mention child porn, people get emotional and won't actually bother to look as far as to see either whether his constituent mentioned child porn (he didn't) or whether the issues he did raise included the child porn provisions (and they don't).

It therefore seems, to me, to be a devious politician's trick, and a cheap stunt in debating circles. It's the strawman argument, and bears a remarkable resemblance to a salesman's bait-and-switch technique, or a magician's diversionary technique. Any trained illusionist could explain that a large part of the illusion is to get people looking either at the wrong place, or the right place but at the wrong time .... or even at the right place at the right time but to set things up so that they don't believe what they saw.

Either Mr Clelland genuinely misunderstood the points raised, or the whole child porn thing is a straw man diversion, used to move the focus of public and media attention away from where it rightly belongs .... his arrogant and intemperate letter, from a public servant to someone he is supposed to work for. I know which I'm inclined to think it is, seeing as the child porn assertion came out of nowhere .... from Mr Clelland. Shameful.

[finlay666]

Just to clarify, in case you didn't read my opus post earlier, the Bill that contains the extreme porn provisions does indeed contain amendments to the provisions in child porn.

The Bill itself, therefore, does affect those. But G4Z didn't comment to Mr Clelland on or object to the whole bill, just those extreme porn provisions, which are separate sections to the child porn amendments.

Sorry I hadn't, purely because I have been on a stupid team building exercise all day and just skimmed through the unread posts

[iranu]

Having finally read page one of this thread from home, rather than at work where I can't see the scan of David Clelland's letter, I now struggle to see what all the fuss is about. I would have written a similarly annoyed letter if confronted by a Daily Mail style rant attacking me personally. Other than the final sentence, which in itself is hardly shocking, the letter is a well-written defense of a very reasonable position and I would argue that it shows less arrogance than the letter to which it replied.

I think that one of the subtleties that is now prevalent, and highlighted with this case, is that, the meaning of correspondence between individuals, whether private or in this case now within the public domain, is determined by those that read the original transcripts and it's important that the individual has access to these and can make their own mind up. Spin is spin no matter the side.

As for your reply then yep maybe we would all do the same but have you considered a real world, commercial equivalent?

You can take offence at anything. However, as I've pointed out before, some occupations warrant the exposure to certain non-niceties and it's upto the individual in that position to take that onboard and act according. I've occasionally read parts of the Daily Mail as I enjoyed a rather good fish supper, however, if I found myself on the barb of a pointed attack, as an MP, I would feel duty bound to give a reasonable relply regardless of how I view the individual constituent as construed via their correspondence. Argue the point not the delivery method or the messenger. (Yes, sometimes this is difficult but that is what secretaries and your expenses are for).

er it's late sorry the old punctuation is suffering.

[iranu]

i doubt he has the basic intelligence to sign up to hexus, he would probably have to pay someone to decipher the anti spam question on sign up, more than likely that would result in the hexus website being siezed and taken offline during the police investigation of the breech of his human rights for not being able to type Id10t as the spam answer.

There's an anti-spam question to decipher? Thank the FSM's slightly uncontrollable noodly appendage, I managed to negotiate such shenanigans by being the first official person on the interwebs.

[schmunk]

Well, the problem is in interpretation.

For a start, as has been pointed out, there's nothing in there in relation to child porn ....

There is indeed reference to child pornography in the act, but it's s.67, rather than s.62 et seq., and it all still sits within the sub-heading 'Pornography etc'.

But secondly, so much in that legislation is wide open to interpretation, and the risk is that the courts won't interpret it as the legislators intend.

For instance, s6(2) requires it to be "grossly offensive, disgusting or otherwise of an obscene character".

In whose judgement? And by what standards? Who decides .... a porn producer or a modern day Mary Whitehouse? A liberal '60s free-love advocate or a puritanical clergyman? Each of those are likely to have a very different standard about what is either grossly offensive, disgusting or otherwise obscene.

Then, there's the sense of what s.7 means when it says ".... portrays, in an explicit and realistic way ..."

Okay, so if it "portrays" in a "realistic way" a given image, then it's clear that it does not refer to just photographs of actual acts that might fit the given criteria, but ones that simply portray it in a realistic way. It could all be mere play-acting. And if so, is it wrong?

OK, a little challenge for all reading. Redraft the legislation in such a way that it is guaranteed to be effective against all 'illegal' images (I'll let you imagine the limit of this for yourselves, but it needs to include some images), but does not affect any 'legal' images, including any which may be considered marginal cases, and cannot be interpreted otherwise.

Suppose, for example, that in this day and age of gritty, realistic film making, a Hollywood producer makes a film of the style of Silence of the Lambs, but instead of it being about a serial killer, it's about a sexual predator. Would possession of a copy of that film be covered by the quoted sections of this act? It looks like it to me.

See s.63 'Exclusion of classified films, etc.'

But then, para 2 requires that the image be both "extreme" and "pornographic". Again, it begs the question, who defines "pornography"? A Mary Whitehouse fan?

No, a jury of 12 people, whose personal views should generally regulate the decision to a common definition.

If this legislation was about images that DID involve serious physical harm, that might be different ....though perhaps very hard to prove. But by opening it up to things that merely portray it, the scope widens.

But how can you prove it? Say a woman runs to the Police holding a video of her getting violently raped 12 months ago by the 'boyfriend' she has just escaped. There are no bruises on her body; her nose has clearly been broken in the past but is fine now; she walks with a slight limp. There's no evidence, other than her testimony, that the video is 'real'.

[G4Z]

Schmunk, sort it out man!

Well, looks like I will be on the Radio on Monday morning at 20 past 8.

[Saracen]

There is indeed reference to child pornography in the act, but it's s.67, rather than s.62 et seq., and it all still sits within the sub-heading 'Pornography etc'.

Indeed there are, as I pointed out later in the post you quoted. But G4Z referred specifically to the extreme porn provisions, which are a subsection of the Porn section you mention, and had the child porn issue (which are a different section) thrown up in that radio interview as a smokescreen. He didn't refer to either the child porn provisions, or to the whole porn section, or to the bill as a whole .... which is why I quoted again exactly what he had said in his original letter.