Anna Arrowsmith, also known as Anna Span, is the new Liberal Democrat candidate for Gravesham in Kent.

She is also the auteur of hundreds of female-friendly porn films. Her neighbours in Tunbridge Wells may or may not be disgusted to learn that some of these, including Be My Toyboy, were shot in the front room.

Last year she won a battle with the British Board of Film Classification to be allowed to show a scene of female ejaculation.

She said that campaign was idealistic. It was about saying to the censors that you can't tell the women of this country what their bodies can or cannot do.

How seriously will the voters take Ms Arrowsmith, 38, on the election trail? She wants to be respected for her business and campaigning record but knows that her career will present a problem for some. There will be some people who will never like porn, she says. People approach sex in different ways. For some people it is only an emotional act. For others it is a variety of different acts. Some people will never accept that. They are probably the same people who never had a one-night stand. There will be some people who are conservative and very anti-porn. I think on the whole these days people are far more liberal.

What about the Liberals? Aren't some of them going to be affronted by a pornographer in their midst? I don't think so. On the whole they are a sexually liberated bunch.

Fed up with seeing porn films that focused on women pleasuring men she has carved a niche making films in which a third of shots show the woman, a third the man and a third the couple together. She says that the films she makes are humorous and that there is no airbrushing. Nearly half her customers are women, she says: Women definitely need this. She laughs at the idea that for all her talk of being a feminist she is really in pornography for the money. For years she made very little. Now, I do OK — nice house in Tunbridge Wells. No way am I the millionaire I thought I would be.

In her Tory-Labour marginal a Lib Dem victory is a long shot, but she is determined to become an MP eventually.

The owner of a lap dancing club who was arrested following a raid on his Huddersfield nightspot has now been stripped of his licence.

Kirklees Council's licensing committee has revoked the premises licence for La Salsa following concerns raised by police.

Sgt John McFadzean, of Huddersfield South Neighbourhood Policing Team, was part of the raid. He said: I'm pleased the council has endorsed the actions of the police.

The Beast Market club was raided last month after undercover special constables were allegedly offered sexual favours by dancers.

They had been sent to investigate allegations some of the girls working there were performing naked and breaking the rules that ban physical contact with customers.

While police were in the club, they also discovered a 16-year-old Romanian girl working as a dancer.

London mayor Boris Johnson has urged shoppers to challenge newsagents who allow their windows to become advertising boards for prostitutes.

Johnson said people did not realise calling cards offering massage services were often directly linked to organised crime and violence.

Speaking on International Women's Day at London Bridge, he said members of the public should play their part: I think this is one of those areas where the public can have a huge influence.

Launching his strategy for tackling violence against women, Johnson said he wanted more work to be done to reduce the demand for prostitutes. He said this could be achieved through the better use of existing laws and licensing regulations, publicity campaigns and education for school pupils.

But Sarah Walker from the International Prostitutes Collective criticised the mayor's plans, saying: It's outrageous that Boris Johnson is using International Woman's Day to attack prostitutes. Banning women from putting cards in windows will drive them out of premises on to the streets, which is 10 times worse. Whatever policies are put place, we have to prioritise woman's safety.

Senior Labour figures in Scotland were shocked last week to learn that the city council leader had a drug problem and had been warned by police that he was in danger of being blackmailed by suppliers.

Even politicians who considered themselves to be close friends of Purcell said that they had no idea about his problems.

Purcell resigned as a councillor on Friday, spelling the end of his high-flying political career, as speculation about the extent of his problems continued to mount. He had hoped that by quitting as leader earlier in the week he could take time out to recover and make a comeback in several months. However, as revelations continued to emerge about his lifestyle that strategy had to be abandoned.

It emerged yesterday that officers from the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforecement Agency visited him at his office in the city chambers last May to warn that he could be open to blackmail. The agency told him that it was aware of a dealer claiming to have evidence of drug use which could end his career.

Fellow moralist, Jim Coleman, will remain the acting leader of Scotland's biggest local authority until an annual general meeting is held in May.

Call to Review Purcell's Decisions

Based on article from thescotsman.scotsman.com

Glasgow City Council have refused to review any decisions made by its former leader Steven Purcell following revelations about drugs abuse.

Calls were made for decisions at the council to be looked at again. The demands by the GMB union and SNP opponents came just after the former council leader quit as a councillor and reportedly fled to Australia to recuperate.

Comment: Perhaps to time to review Glasgow Council's Moralising campaigns

Perhaps campaigns such as End Prostitution Now

From their website www.endprostitutionnow.org

End Prostitution Now is a campaign led by Glasgow City Council which aims to raise awareness of the harm caused through prostitution and put the focus on the buyers of sex - the DEMAND - who have in the past been invisible from public debate.

But Glasgow Council seem to be denying that they are running it.

There are no references to this campaign in the most recent annual Company report of the Glasgow Community and Safety Services Limited Company. And even stranger when Glasgow City Council were approached under the Freedom of Information Act (Scotland 2002) they replied:

The Council is treating your request as a request under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002.

On inspecting our records, it would appear that Glasgow City Council does not hold the information which you have requested. Neither does anyone else hold it on our behalf. Accordingly we are unable to comply with your request.

I can confirm that Glasgow City Council does not run political campaigns.

Plans to run lap-dancing nights at an Oxford bar have received backing from readers on the Oxford Mail's website oxfordmail.co.uk.

Members of St Ebbe's Church are leading the fight against the application by neighbours Thirst Lodge. However, most commentators on our website believe the bar should be allowed to have lapdancers.

Pierre My said: Reading the story there are all the usual ridiculous unsubstantiated reasons why they don't want it. I was just waiting for somebody to scream 'Think of the children'.

Nightshift said: Next to St Ebbe's Church is a supermarket. Ironically, the beers, wines and spirits section is the closest to the church building. It sells alcohol at vastly reduced prices and greater volume than The Lodge. Of the two businesses closest to the church, which is the most likely to increase cases of domestic violence, violence against women, unwanted pregnancy, parents buying alcohol for children and admissions to A&E departments? In fact how many strip club-related admissions are there to A&E departments in Oxford?

LadyPenelope agreed: I don't see the problem with a lapdancing club. No one is forcing those girls to dance. It's just people trying to make a living paid by people who are somewhat sad enough to cough up cash for that sort of thing.

Only one reader posted a comment opposing the lap dancing.

Any One said: I'm sure you know, if you think about it, that how some young women end up in jobs such as lapdancing does indeed involve covert force. There are usually many factors that are not always immediately obvious, like men controlling these young women.

An estimated two hundred people gathered in Bonn Square to protest against lap dancing at Thirst Lodge.

Members of St. Ebbe's Church, local residents, students and leaders of the local Muslim community came together to protest against the establishment of Thirst Lodge as a sex encounter venue.

Kat Wall, OUSU's Women's Officer, told Cherwell, We've come together with various different groups from across the community to say that we don't want lap dancing to take place here. The main reason for this protest is, basically, we're very concerned about the harms that will be put on many members of the community.

Oxford City Council leader, Bob Price, urged the public to sign a petition against the Lodge's plans to host lap dancing. He said, We're very opposed to this application because it runs entirely counter to our image of what the city centre should be about, and as many speakers this afternoon have said, it would certainly raise the possibility of more crime and violence and attacks on women in this area.

An online petition campaigning against lap dancing at Thirst Lodge on the grounds of the prevention of crime and disorder and the prevention of public nuisance has over 1000 signatures.

A lap-dancing club has been barred from opening off Holborn Circus because there are already too many in the area.

Plans to open a new 300-capacity gentleman's club called Blue Diamond with a 4.30am late licence have been thrown out.

Almost 100 irate nutters and businesses had objected to the plans claiming it would debase the reputation of Hatton Garden.

Numerous other lap-dancing and strip joints operate within a 500-metre radius - including neighbouring club Secrets as well as The Griffin, in Clerkenwell Road, and the Chatterbox and Venus nightspots in Farringdon Road.

Blue Diamond, off Holborn Circus, is the latest venture from For Your Eyes Only (FYEO), which opened Europe's biggest lap dancing venue in City Road in 2008.

It would have featured 30 private booths with customers paying £20 a time to have a fully naked female dancer gyrate for their pleasure for three minutes.

FYEO insists it operates a strict code of conduct that bans full body contact between customers and dancers and ensures private booths being are not fully curtained-off.

But Camden Council threw out the plans citing the cumulative effect of yet strip club opening and its impact on the quality of life of residents with nearby schools and churches.

The truth is that what actually happens during moralistic periods is virtually the same as what goes on in more liberal times; what differs is the lack of openness about people's behaviour and the hidden nature of any harmful consequences. In moralistic periods, sin, crime and vice get pushed so far under the carpet that moralisers, believing (rather as children do) that what they cannot see does not exist, feel great self-satisfaction. The honesty of more liberal times, and the fact that everyone can then see harm when it occurs, affronts the moralisers; and they hasten to force it back into darkness.

This is exactly what is happening now. The most obvious example is the profoundly mistaken proposal to further criminalise the sex trade in Scotland, by making the purchase of sexual services a crime. Already in England it is a crime for anyone to buy the services of a person trafficked into sex work, whether or not the client knows that the individual is a victim of coercion.

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