Melon Farmers Original Version

Hall of Shame


I don't believe in censorship…BUT…


How many times have you heard our politicians begin a censorial statement with the phrase "I don't believe in censorship BUT ..."?

Well I have decided to start keeping track of all those who don't believe in it but nevertheless have imposed it with relish.

Feel free to nominate additional entries to the list. I am sure there are plenty more deserving cases out there.
Please email webmaster@melonfarmers.com


Natural Born Censors

Peter Ainsworth
Tory Shadow Culture Secretary said that the BBFC appeared to be 'losing its grip' when it passed Baise-Moi with cuts and then issued a press release regretting the necessity to cut it. Ainsworth responded: This is just crazy. To pass a film like this on the one hand and then apologise on the other makes no sense at all.
David Alton
The illiberal Liberal who has spent so long campaigning against all things liberal. He is still at it in the Lords as we speak (albeit as a crossbencher). Most infamous for the Alton Amendment to the Criminal Justice Bill that would have removed all 15 and 18 videos from the home market. He suggested the award of the certificate "not suitable for home viewing". Even Michael Howard had to step in moderate this amendment on realisation that such films as Schindler's List would be banned. Unfortunately the compromise entailed even stricter censorship of UK videos with a new shopping list of new criteria of harm for the BBFC to consider. Another key sponsor of this amendment was Tony Blair .

Continued his work with a failed attempt to amend the Crime & Disorder Bill to enable organisations to appeal against BBFC certificates. The rub was that these organisations would be hand picked by the Home Office so as to achieve the result that Alton desires.

Janet Anderson
As films minister at the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, she has called for the banning of Eros TV.  She said: Hard-core pornography is not acceptable in this country.

Although she feels fit to pass moral judgement over those that enjoy porn she does not exactly occupy the high moral ground herself. She has apparently been involved with fellow MP Jim Dowd and has been instrumental in the break up of his previous 23 year long relationship.

As shadow women's minister Mrs Anderson outraged MPs at the Labour Party conference two years ago when she said: Under Labour women will become more promiscuous.

Shiona Baird
Green Party MSP for North East Scotland, exaggerated somewhat about an Edinburgh showing of Deep Throat : This documentary of a film which is widely held to have no cultural or artistic merit is no more than an attempt to legitimise pornography and condone the abuse and degradation of women.
Steve Bassam
Lord Bassam of Brighton

A shameful JackBoots Straw stooge at the Home Office who is happy to to echo JackBoots' sentiments when it comes to the legalisation of adult consensual hardcore. Brings shame to the good liberal name of Brighton.

Tony Blair
Key supporter of David Alton's repressive amendment to the Criminal Justice Bill. He displays incredibly bad taste by actually listening to the advice of the disgraced arch-moralist of the Daily Mail, Paul Johnson

In a speech titled:  Our Nation's Future - Social Exclusion, Tony Blair said: It is not for the State to tell people that they cannot choose a different lifestyle, for example in issues to do with sexuality. Just a few days earlier his Government had announced a law to imprison viewers of extreme, but staged, pornography for up to 3 years!

David Blunkett
Labour Home Secretary on the subject of allowing evidence obtained under torture to be used in British courts: Let me make it clear, we unreservedly condemn the use of torture and have worked hard with our international partners to eradicate this practice. BUT ... it would be irresponsible not to take appropriate account of any information that could help protect national security and public safety.
Virginia Bottomley
Issued the proscription order for the satellite porn channels Rendez-Vous and Satisfaction Club Television. Clearly done for votes as she waited nearly a year until the Tory party conference before acting.
Julien Brazier
One of the most vocal of the current unholy cross party alliance of parliamentary censors. He is a key spokesman of "The Conservative Family Campaign" who seem to believe that our freedom of choice should be limited to Teletubbies or the Wombles.

His reactionary stance of calling for mandatory prison for dangerous drivers ended abruptly after an unfortunate fatal accident in Italy.

Graham Bright
The sponsor of the Private Members Bill that became the Video Recordings Act of 1984 sanctioning state censorship of every video released in the UK.
Gordon Brown

Labour prime minister from 2007.

Gordon Brown spoke at the press conference to launch the Byron Review into protecting children from games and videos:

"I am not interested in censorship at all... BUT ...I think we do need rules governing some aspects of the internet and videos where children are involved and the whole purpose of this review would be to draw on the advice of all sources so that we can look at this in a sensible way".

Extending the scope of his attack on knife culture, Brown said that the makers and sellers of violent video and computer games must shoulder some responsibility:

"No one wants censorship or an interfering state... BUT ... the industry has a responsibility to society and needs to exercise that."

Karen Buck
Labour MP for Regents Park and Kensington North. Sponsor of the motion to force phone companies to bar numbers found on cards in phone boxes. We are not trying to make London like Disneyland and pretend that prostitution does not exist, but this is now a serious issue.

(How about just allowing the girls to advertise in legal publications?)

John Bull
Leading light in the Westminster Council decision to ban Crash from its local cinemas
Andy Burnham

Labour Culture Secretary

27th December 2008: On Free Speech on the Internet

Burnham said: If you look back at the people who created the internet they talked very deliberately about creating a space that Governments couldn’t reach. I think we are having to revisit that stuff seriously now. It’s true across the board in terms of content, harmful content, and copyright. Libel is [also] an emerging issue.

There is content that should just not be available to be viewed. That is my view. Absolutely categorical. This is not a campaign against free speech, far from it; [...BUT...] it is simply there is a wider public interest at stake when it involves harm to other people. We have got to get better at defining where the public interest lies and being clear about it.

Burnham admits that his plans may be interpreted by some as heavy-handed ...BUT... says the new standards drive is utterly crucial .

George W Bush
President of the United States of Warmongers.

Speaking about American TV regulation:

...make sure you protect the capacity of people to speak freely in our society, BUT... be willing to, if things go too far, call them to account.

We are a great society because we are a free society, BUT... on the other hand, it is very important for there to be limits.

David Cameron
Prospective Tory leader who blames the world's ills on computer games saying they are fuelling the rise in anti-social behaviour.

He said he would build a ‘comprehensive anti-crime policy’ that would ‘not only strengthen the criminal justice system, but re-civilise our society’.

Vernon Coaker

Home Office minister pushing through one of the most repressive censorship laws proposed for the UK for a long time. The Dangerous Pictures Act will see people locked up for 3 years merely for viewing pictures of staged violent porn.

Was particularly noted for a shameful distortion of the truth when claiming on a BBC programme that the majority of respondents supported the Government extreme porn proposals.

Graham Chapman
Leader of Nottingham Council.  Seems to let his own views override the justification required by law and got duely criticised by the relvant ombudsman.
Lorna Cohen
Leeds licensing committee chairman.

She denied that she and members of her committee were interfering in people's freedom of choice ... But Bride of Chucky would not necessarily be seen in Leeds.

What I don't like about this Chucky business is that they are using a toy and turning it into a little monster. I find the whole thing very depressing, The real question is why these type of films have to be made. Have they got no morals, or is making money the only thing they are interested in? Distributors are "exploitative, They deliberately create a market. I don't believe that people are so sick in their minds that there is a market. I think somebody has to make a stand and say 'What do you think you are doing?' Cohen said she could not understand why people made movies like Bride of Chucky or how they attracted audiences. Instead she cited Schindler's List as an example of a "good" film and said movies should contain a good story, social message and should contribute to society "in a meaningful way". Although she had not yet seen the film, she dismissed Bride of Chucky , which stars Oscar nominee Jennifer Tilly, as "crap". What does this kind of film prove? We have created a sick society and we are just pandering to that sick society, she added.

Iain Coleman
Hammersmith and Fulham MP who worked unsuccessfully along side John Humphrys to rid their area of Secrets table dancing club.

In trying to get support for his campaign he wrote: I am concerned about the effective lack of control of establishments such as these which use sexual behaviour to enhance their trade.

I have since heard that in the early 80s, Iain Coleman used to work in the Ann Summers chain of shops. In fact his father, Ron Coleman, was a part owner at this time. Iain Coleman then used to admirably participate in local radio programmes, eg on LBC, in strenuous defence of the sex industry!

Jim Coleman

Glasgow Deputy Council leader on the subject of lap dancing in Glasgow:

This council has taken a stand against the proliferation of such venues in the belief that they exploit and demean women and hamper our bid to promote gender equality.

And later on the same topic:

When will they get the message? This kind of entertainment is not welcome in Glasgow. It is against the council's policies on equality, violence against women and prostitution. The message is quite clear - the people of Glasgow do not want this. We're not going to go down the route of Edinburgh and the likes and allow the city to be taken over by these sleazy venues.

  But...

15th February 2009. From theherald.co.uk

A councillor expected to face an inquiry over claims he helped award a £1m public contract to a firm in which he holds a directorship will face further accusations that he failed to declare his connection.

Jim Coleman, deputy leader of Glasgow City Council, will also be the subject of complaints to Scotland's public sector watchdog that on at least one other previous occasion he failed to declare his directorship of the Wise Group during a council meeting he was chairing and where the company benefited.

The incident, in March 2008, saw the Wise Group named as a partner of the council in a recycling project. Another councillor, Martha Wardrop of the Greens, declared an interest and left the meeting as she had connections with another organisation involved in the discussions, official records show.

John Cryer
Hornchurch MP joined the nutter opposition to an application to open a sex shop in Hornchurch This is the last thing the area needs. After losing a vital public service in the former post office, we now have someone wanting to replace selling stamps and processing pensions to peddling porn magazines and sleaze.
Claire Curtis-Thomas
Claire Curtis-Thomas Crosby Labour MP

Proposed a Bill to establish an Office for the Regulation of the Sale and Display of Sexually Explicit Material of which she somehow includes lads mags
Chris Demetriou
Pastor at the head of the fundamentalist Cornerstone Ministries group of churches based in Esher,joined other fundamentalist religious groups in the campaign against the video release of Crash. See also Yusuf Islam
Fergus Ewing
Scottish Nationalist MSP seems to relish in the persecution of kerb crawlers: It seems to me the punter is going to escape scot free again and again and that's not what we want. He said he planned to table an amendment to shift the emphasis of the Bill to make it an offence to buy or attempt to buy sex.
James Ferman
As director of the BBFC for 23 years, James Ferman did well to stay out of the Hall of Shame for a long time. Unfortunately in the last few weeks of office his place of shame was clinched by a statement in a Radio 4 documentary:

When I came to the Board my goal was more freedom for adults and more protection for children. I've come round to thinking we need more freedom for children and less for adults

Mark Fisher
Labour Minster for the Arts who supports censorship to protect human dignity
Phil Gallie
Holier than thou Scottish Tory MP who believes that all group sex should be made illegal.

I do not propose or foresee some kind of snooper force lurking behind bedroom doors but I do feel strongly that Parliament should not condone such activities through legislation.

Laurence Godfrey
Setting dangerous legal precedents by continually suing the messengers ie ISP's for the alleged libels by internet users. I don't wish to challenge anyone's right to freedom of speech but I have a right to damages if I'm damaged by their exercise of their right to free speech.
Paul Goggins
Wythenshawe, Labour MP & Under Secretary of State, spoke about the 15 rated video game, Silent Hill: and "deplored" the company's tactics in trying to boost sales in a morbid way. He will ask Home Secretary Jackboots Straw what action he could take to prevent or restrict sales.

Later on he put his name to a repressive measure to criminalise the possession of violent pornography (even when consensual and staged)

The measure was introduced with the statement that it was to limit extreme pornography. By extreme” we mean material which is violent and abusive, featuring activities which are illegal in themselves and where, in some cases, participants may have been the victims of criminal offences. BUT... reading further into the paper they will in fact criminalise those owning videos with consensual staged violence as in many horror films with a sexy theme. Just because real violence may be a little hard for the persecutors to prove.

Christine Grahame
Scottish Parliament shadow Social Justice Minister.

Commenting on a report that one in five young men and one in ten women thought that violence against women was acceptable pointed the finger of blame at the media and entertainment industries. She said: The violence of pornography is there for all to access whether on the bus, the video, the magazine, the web.

It is here young men and women are subjected to the influences that make them devalue each other’s sexuality, contaminating respect for each other as people and cannot be detached from violence in all its forms against women.

Stephen Green
Leader of Christian Voice, aggressive nutters who have allowed threats and intimidation to be speak louder than tolerance and compassion. Hopefully this is down to Stephen Green, rather than Christianity as a whole

Christian Voice published the addresses of BBC officers who they believed were connected with the showing of Jerry Springer: The Opera leading to threats of violence. Since then they have pressured charities into not accepting much need money from donors they don't agree with and have decided to target their aggression on pregnant women attending abortion centres. Green said: The taking of innocent blood brings judgment on our land and cries to Heaven for vengeance. Green is also homophobic saying: Homosexuality is a pathology, an emotional or psychological disorder. It is a very sad thing but it is something you can get over.

David Hallam
Labour MEP who reckons: Sex and violence on television should be regulated by the Government to protect children, the 9PM watershed should be scrapped and all programmes should be checked for content. Many children watched TV unsupervised and ministers had a duty to protect 'TV orphans'.
Earl of Halsbury
Hereditary peer who introduced A house of Lords amendment to the Obscene Publications Act that defines all depictions of sex as obscene and enables the imprisonment of anyone vaguely connected to the distribution chain. Clearly his hatred of porn over shadows his sense of justice, tolerance and civilisation.
David Hanson

Injustice minister pushing through one of the most repressive censorship laws proposed for the UK for a long time. The Dangerous Pictures Act will see people locked up for 3 years merely for viewing pictures of staged violent porn.

Harriet Harman
Labour solicitor general.

Wants to blame customers for the problem of sex trafficking. The problem is surely caused by the Government themselves as they refuse to allow a legal framework in which the business can be run properly. Harman is also guilty of the usual political bollox of casually linking adult prostitution with serious crimes related to child prostitution.

Rev Malcolm Hathaway
Is leading an evangelical group in their campaign to get the recent cinema re-release of The Exorcist stopped.

The group set up a team of counselors to help people who feel they have been adversely affected by what they have seen on the screen. Hathaway said that The Exorcist was evil: of course society's senses are dulled by horror and violence nowadays but The Exorcist is something different; the devil and the demonic are very real and have a very real affect on people, particularly young people who often cannot cope with their feelings afterwards. We will be there for those people.

Hathaway even wrote to his local cinema in Salisbury asking it not to show the film but said that his request was ignored. It's going to be shown - there's nothing we can do about that but I will be placing adverts in the local paper warning people not to see the film and offering help to viewers who are disturbed by what they feel.

Hugh Henry
Labour MSP  said about the idea of a topless barber shop: I'm glad to see the back of Bongheads but I'm outraged to see a sleazy attempt to exploit the drugs culture replaced by an attempt to exploit women.
Patricia Hewitt
Labour Trade and Industry Secretary only to happy to join the blame bandwagon against Manhunt, a computer game caught up in the aftermath of  the trial of a teenage murderer: As a mother myself I share her (Mrs Pakeerah’s) anxiety about the violent computer games that too many teenagers are exposed to. We all need to do more — manufacturers, retailers, parents and schools — to protect our young people from immersing themselves in images of extreme violence.”
Geoff Hoon

October 2208: Enemy of Liberty

Plans to create a database monstrosity of mobile phone and internet records were defended last night by the Transport Secretary, Geoff Hoon, who said critics of the scheme were giving a licence to terrorists to kill.

Speaking on the BBC's Question Time programme, Hoon admitted he was prepared to go quite a long way in undermining civil liberties to stop people being killed, and added the biggest civil liberty of all is not to be killed by a terrorist .

Angela Hooper
Chairman of Westminster's Planning and Licensing Committee

These explicit videos are extremely dangerous, with evidence that hard-core material of this kind can lead to sex crimes. We are determined to close down the unlicensed premises and so stem the flow of income to those who sell them.

I agree that it can lead to crimes... Abuse of Human Rights, Corruption and Intolerance. Trouble is, it is the likes of Westminster Council that become the criminals, not the viewers.

Gerald Howarth
MP & chairman of the Lords and Commons Family and Child Protection Group, said: People will be asklng themselves why we bother with censorship if they let through this type of stuff (Romance) . It just sounds like pure pornography. I'm very worried about the insidious and coarsening effect this sort of material is having on society - and ultimately, reguardless of it's '18' certificate, children will see the film 'Small wonder that 12-year-old girls become pregnant when films like this are openly available.
Lady Elspeth Howe
Chairman of the Broadcasting Standards Commission , the monitoring taste & decency on TV.

Particularly noteworthy for statements suggesting that sex is only acceptable if you pay for it.

Kim Howells
Labour Culture Minister

Laid into rap music, violent videos and Violent computer games: I look at some of the video games my kids play, I look at some of the movies they and their friends think are wonderful and I see no humanity there at all, nothing that tries to highlight, and underpin, the finer virtues that are in people and in society.

Beverley Hughes
Labour Child Protection Minister

From www.mediaguardian.co.uk

Beverley Hughes: minister of the unspeakable

Name: Beverley Hughes
Age: 51
Current job: child protection minister
Next job: editor of the Daily Mail
not to be confused with: Tessa Jowell, Mary Whitehouse

Banana skin: Ms Hughes went out in front of the nation's TV cameras and radio microphones all guns blazing to denounce the Brass Eye special on the media and society's treatment of paedophilia. She called the programme "unspeakably sick". Her comments fuelled fears that the government was acting as "state censor". Unfortunately, Ms Hughes had to admit, when asked, that she hadn't actually watched the show.

Result 1: Ms Hughes's comments fuelled fears that the government wanted to act as "state censor" and was meddling in regulatory affairs. Tessa Jowell was forced to backtrack in an attempt to allay aforementioned fears.

Result 2: Ms Hughes rocketed from home office obscurity to the pages of every national newspaper overnight.

The Sun's leader said: The reaction to the programme could not have been scripted better by the show's creators. Home office junior minister Beverley Hughes deserves a severe reprimand for going on BBC Radio 4's influential Today programme to attack a show she hadn't even seen .

Outcome: A spectacular own goal which perfectly encapsulated the point Brass Eye's Chris Morris was trying to make.

Simon Hughes
As soon as he was promoted to the LibDems role of Home Affairs spokesman he took up the soundbite bollox of Howard, Straw, Widdecombe etc

On the subject of porn liberalisation for 16 year olds he said there was a clear link between pornography and violence that had to be addressed. In a typical holier than thou attitude he continued:  It is clearly the case that people's behaviour doesn't settle until they are in their 20s and therefore we would not want to leap speedily.

John Humphrys
BBC news reader who feels that the Secrets strip club brings down the tone of his west London neighbourhood. He has been siding with the equally shameful Hammersmith and Fulham Council to try and get the club shut down. He is joined in his mean minded crusade by local MP Iain Coleman He remarked when Secrets opened:

What sort of people will it attract? The dirty mac brigade? Yuppies? I don't want my area defiled by that bunch of prats.

(I am afraid that Hammersmith already suffers from some obnoxious residents, the customers for Secrets can only enhance the area).

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath

Government Minister in the Lords pushing through one of the most repressive censorship laws proposed for the UK for a long time. The Dangerous Pictures Act will see people locked up for 3 years merely for viewing pictures of staged violent porn.

Yusuf Islam
A coalition of Christian and Muslim fundamentalists who campaign to get video stores not to stock Crash. The group, which includes Yusuf Islam, the former singer Cat Stevens, believes it can call on the support of up to 105,000 members across both faiths who will boycott any store that puts Crash on its shelves. The film should have been banned from the start, the coalition believes, because of its perverse depiction of human sexuality woven into the violent imagery of road carnage. See also Chris Demetriou
Cathy Jamieson
Scottish Executive Minister for Injustice put her name to a repressive measure to criminalise the possession of violent pornography (even when consensual and staged)

The measure was introduced with the statement that it was to limit extreme pornography. By extreme” we mean material which is violent and abusive, featuring activities which are illegal in themselves and where, in some cases, participants may have been the victims of criminal offences. BUT... reading further into the paper they will in fact criminalise those owning videos with consensual staged violence as in many horror films with a sexy theme. Just because real violence may be a little hard for the persecutors to prove.

Paul Johnson
Daily Mail film critic always on hand to campaign for the banning of just about anything.

After the Arkansas massacre he re-iterated a stock article blaming all society ills on sex and violence in the media. he concluded; I myself would like the presentation of extreme violence for its own sake on TV to be made a criminal offence. I would also support a revision of obscenity laws to discourage editors from printing explicit details of sexuality in newspapers and magazines which children are likely to read. It may be that Daily Mail readers have other ideas. (An admission of being extreme even in the eyes of Daily Mail readers?)

He has recently been found to have been cheating on his wife for 12 twelve years. As one of the most outspoken censorial writers for the Daily Mail I had to laugh, particularly as he had described his own sin of sexual promiscuity (prior to being caught of course) as crying to heaven for vengeance. Being of a Christian bent he liked to be punished for his sins, his lover stated that Paul loved to be spanked and it was a big feature of our relationship. I had to tell him he was a very naughty boy.

Now the really alarming thing is that Tony Blair has been using Johnson as an adviser on family values and Christian ethics. We have no chance of civilised regulation if our leaders have been seriously listening to the tripe that the Daily Mail pedals.

It was also interesting to note that that story was unearthed some months ago by Murdoch's New of the World but they decided to sit on it perhaps because they too wanted a good relationship with Blair and didn't want to embarrass him. In fact it was thanks to the Daily Express that the story finally got revealed.

Dave Johnston
Police (ACPO) spokesman on sexual crime

He said on the subject of criminalising the possession of violent pornography (including consensual and staged material): We are not trying to criminalise more people, BUT... we are trying to reduce the supply and demand.

I am sure that all those innocent people that will be banged up will agree that it is better to be merely decreasing supply and demand rather than being locked up as a criminal

Stefan Kasprzyk

Islington Councillor commenting on a lap dancing proposal in 2007

Not so Liberal Dem councillor Stefan Kasprzyk accepted that pole dancing was perfectly legal, ...BUT... added: I just fear this sort of establishment might give out the wrong signals. For example, what sort of individuals will this sort of club encourage?

He accepted that the Tavern had the reputation for being one of the best-run venues in the borough. It has a nightclub where there is very little trouble, he said: And I have every sympathy with the Tavern needing to bring in customers and compete in the world of 24-hour licensing... BUT ...perhaps, they need to think again about this proposal.

Gerald Kaufman
Labour ex minister who frequently write pro-censorship articles. A recent column for the Mail On Sunday advocates fines for 'filth' on the BBC.
David Lepper
Brighton MP for Labour. One of the main campaigners for the one of the most repressive censorship laws proposed for the UK for a long time. The Dangerous Pictures Act will see people locked up for 3 years merely for viewing pictures of staged violent porn.
Liz Longhurst
Campaigner for the one of the most repressive censorship laws proposed for the UK for a long time. The Dangerous Pictures Act will see people locked up for 3 years merely for viewing pictures of staged violent porn.

She feels that a law imprisoning otherwise innocent people just for viewing staged sexual violence is a fitting legacy for the death of her daughter

Peter Luff
Mid Worcestershire MP whinging about  Jerry Springer, The Opera: I do not believe in censorship, and I will defend robustly the right of a theatre to put on a play that some find offensive.  BUT to show it on television where there is a danger children could see it is irresponsible. 
Fiona Mactaggart
Labour Home Office minister said that it was wrong to regard those involved in prostitution as sex workers. She said tough measures were needed to tackle the markets for prostitution. I'm not tolerant of the view that prostitution is the oldest profession in the world and there's nothing we can do to reduce it. Prostitution blights communities. 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.

Previously in her career she was the chairperson of Liberty. This must make for a classic: I believe in Liberty BUT ...not for sex workers

I don't think most men who use prostitutes think of themselves as child abusers, but they are, she told The Observer. It could change things if we changed the view of prostitution from "it's the oldest profession" to "this is the most common form of child abuse".

Theresa May
Conservative Shadow Culture Secretary.

Joined a Daily Mail bandwagon to publish BBFC examiners names accused of a lack of transparency over the decision to award War of the Worlds a 12A certificate. She clearly has not done any research whatsoever. In reality the BBFC are happy to discuss their decisions in detail with anyone interested enough to enquire.
Frank McAveety
Scottish Culture Minister who supports the ludicrously unproportionate penalty of losing a driving licence for the non crime of kerb crawling.
Chris McGimpsey
Ulster Unionist Councillor in Belfast refused licenses to sex shops saying that they would have led to the setting up of virtually a red light district in the area . The areas of Gresham Street and North Queen Street in the city centre were designated as unsuitable for such shops, as people lived nearby and children could use neighbouring stores. (This is the weakest effort I have ever heard to cover up a gross abuse of power).
Andrew McIntosh
Labour Broadcasting Minister Andrew at the Department of Censorship, Media and Shite.

He has proved himself to be a human rights abuser by banning the satellite channel Extasi TV without justifying his reasons or even explaining anything about why he considered the channel to be worthy of censorship and a ban.

Malcolm McLean
Glasgow council's licensing applications sub-committee convener, said the decision to reject a sex shop licence application was in the best interests of its citizens. He said: This was not a hard decision to make. We have always said that the appropriate number of these kind of shops for Glasgow is zero.
Margaret Moran
Labour MP, chairman of the all-party committee investigating domestic violence

Spoke out against the selling of softcore mags in tube station newsagents. I'm not against people reading these magazines, and I'm not calling for censorship, I accept that they are readily available in most newsagents. But why should fare-paying customers have to put up with them when they travel on the Tube? (A classic and shameful: I don't believe in censorship... but ...)

David Nettleton
Independent St Edmundsbury borough councillor said about a sex shop licence awarded to a man with a 9 year old conviction: I am not trying to stamp out sex in the town, BUT we should support the local constabulary and the fact my colleagues have overridden them is absolutely disgusting.
Mike Penning
Conserative MP for Hemel Hempstead

Joined a Daily Mail bandwagon to publish BBFC examiners names accused of a lack of transparency over the decision to award War of the Worlds a 12A certificate. She clearly has not done any research whatsoever. In reality the BBFC are happy to discuss their decisions in detail with anyone interested enough to enquire.

Esther Rantzen
Television broadcaster who said:

Pornography has no joy, no art. It deliberately excludes tenderness, and objectifies women. It is blatantly manipulative, designed to produce the most primitive of responses. There is a myth that making pornography is harmless fun. Maybe some women are tough enough to take part without being scarred by the experience, but many are badly hurt. It’s not just coincidence that most women I have met who were involved with pornography were abused as children, as a result their bodies were no longer their own private property; their personal boundaries had already been transgressed. Some had reached the point where they loathed their own bodies and wanted to punish themselves. There is no way these women enjoyed the experience of making pornography, or regarded it as ‘fun’.

Barbara Roche
As Minister for Industry she announced that the Government is keeping an open mind on the possible need for future regulation of the Internet BUT it is keen to encourage further progress of the removal of illegal and harmful/offensive material.

She has also been instrumental in the Labour idea to extend the IWF to cover the remit of of libel and copyright issues.

Always willing to support nutter causes she commented on a local club applying to introduce nude table dancing. Roche said: I have spoken to lots of residents in the sheltered housing accommodation next door to the club, and everyone there is absolutely against it. I don't think it will be a nice place for women to walk past at night. I think it would make people feel less secure. Also, the club is right opposite the Civic Centre - what kind of advert is that for the borough?

Martin Salter
Reading MP for Labour. One of the main campaigners for the one of the most repressive censorship laws proposed for the UK for a long time. The Dangerous Pictures Act will see people locked up for 3 years merely for viewing pictures of staged violent porn.
Andrew Selous
Nutter Conservative MP (South-West Bedfordshire) tried to incite the Government to sack the BBC over the broadcast of Jerry Springer the Opera : What account she [Estelle Morris] will take of standards of public decency in programmes screened by the BBC as part of her decision on whether to renew the BBC charter
Clare Short
Labour Ex-Cabinet Minister

Famously campaigned against topless pictures in newspapers and in particular against the Sun's Page 3 girls.

However she proved that she has a decent side by coming out against Tony Blair's unjust and unjustified war against Iraq.

Chris Smith
A particularly hypocritical entry into the Hall of Shame. On one hand he rightfully expects tolerance for those that enjoy the minority sexual preference of being gay but on the other, he refuses to tolerate the minority sexual preference of those that like to watch porn.

As minister for Culture, Media and Sport he issued a proscription order on the satellite porn channel Eurotica/Rendez-Vous. Heroically the channel are fighting this in the High Court and may even take the decision through the European Courts.

He later compounded his brand of New Labour Socialism by also moving against another satellite porn channel Eros TV

Ironically, he has previously received the 1989 Freedom of Information Campaign Award.

Elaine Smith
Labour member of the Scottish Parliament  led calls for an inquiry into the "big business" of pornography: I think that since studies do exist showing the harmful effects they should signal to us the precautionary principle and they should be doing further research into it. I don't think we can ignore it any longer.
Jack Straw
Has made an immediate impact by using his jackboots to stamp down hard on James Ferman's modest attempts to liberalise the guidelines for sex videos. This relaxation was a practical attempt to try and find a compromise between what the punter wants and what the law allows. Failure to find such a compromise is creating a very strong black market in completely uncensored material but Jack only seems to care about winning the vote of Daily Mail readers.

Straw has further wound up the BBFC by imposing his choice of president (the Home Secretary was given the power to do this in Video recordings Act of 1984). He selected Andreas Whittam Smith who believes that nothing of higher rating than PG should be allowed in the home.

A consensus of opinion appears to suggest that Jack Straw had the last word in the debate with James Ferman by giving Ferman the push. David Alton best summarises this; I feel the hand of Jack Straw at work. He believes sex and violence in films should be reduced. Ferman would never go along with that. I suspect the only people who will regret Mr Ferman's decision to retire will be the makers of violent films.

"The purpose of the Home Office is: to build a safe, just and tolerant society in which the rights and responsibilities of individuals, families and communities are properly balanced. (I presume this means that society must be tolerant of appalling censorship and shall accept zero rights for the individual, none for the family and even less for the community. Fairs fair).

On the subject of the internet he has declared that his intention that it cannot exist in an anarchistic free speech environment

In 2008 he became Injustice Minister pushing through one of the most repressive censorship laws proposed for the UK for a long time. The Dangerous Pictures Act will see people locked up for 3 years merely for viewing pictures of staged violent porn.

Gisela Stuart
Labour MP for Edgbaston in Birmingham who is proposing extreme measures to deal with kerb crawling.

She said: A man who can afford a car and to pay a prostitute for sex can afford the fine. Cash penalties are no deterrent . Losing their car will be a major deterrent. It could mean that the man loses his job .

She says she is opposed to the "naming and shaming" policy : We saw from the case of the former Director of Public Prosecutions, Alan Green, who was caught kerb-crawling that innocent members of the family suffer. He lost his job, his career was ruined. But his wife killed herself. (But these are exactly the sort of consequences that she is envisaging will happen as a result of her measure)

Christopher Tookey
Daily Mail film critic and a true But head; Freedom of artistic expression is a great good, but not the only good - or the only freedom. None of the great defenders of free speech in the past 300 years would have imagined that in the 20th century their arguments would be used to enable the spread of paedophilia and child pornography (Neither would they imagine that their arguments would be used to enable such repressive rags as the Daily Mail but hey! shit happens)

When the Daily Mail lost their campaign to get Crash banned they turned their attention to the individual censors at the BBFC and particularly James Ferman. Tookey chipped in with articles under the headlines Does anything appall this man? and Time to sack this feeble censor.

He was the subject of a an episode of the Channel 4 series about critics; Critical Condition. He was shown to be the critical equivalent of an ambulance chaser cruising the festival circuit in search of a sniff of controversially that would appeal to the Daily Mail.

Thani Ulaga-Nathan   Hackney Licensing Committee Spokesperson

Gave a predictably bollox statement regarding the legal action against a Shoreditch strip pub. Thani Ulaga-Nathan said Children walk past these premises everyday. Other ordinary members of the public would be offended if unwittingly or otherwise confronted with striptease acts. (Why is that intolerant campaigners for a miserable life try to justify their nastiness by so unconvincingly bringing children into the equation. The height of offense to a child passing by was a blackboard with the words "erotic dancers" on. Children simply aren't allowed in the pub to see anything else).

  Thanks to James, May 2008: Not Possible

It should be clearly stated there in my opinion that it is not possible to see inside a 'strip pub' from the outside because of the boarding or non see through windows which are in place. This is fact and applies to all people, not just children.

Keith Vaz

Labour MP for Leicester East. Nutter mentality furnishes him with little vocabulary beyond "ban it". Became C hairman of the Commons home affairs committee

  November 2008: Nutter Bali Hoo

A flash animation in which players operate a suicide bomber and try to kill as many men, women and children as possible has provoked nutter outrage.

A senior Labour MP said Kaboom: The Suicide Bombing Game, which is freely available to all age groups on the internet, devalues human life and should be banned.

Players move a terrorist of Arab appearance along a busy street to get as close as possible to the most civilians. They then click their mouse and the bomber opens his coat to reveal grenades strapped to his body before exploding in a shower of bloody limbs.

The more men, women and children are injured, the more points the player receives.

Keith Vaz, chairman of the Commons home affairs select committee, said the game contained an unnecessary level of violence and offended relatives of those killed by suicide bombers.

He also said he was deeply concerned that vulnerable users under the age of 18 are able to play the game.

  Bully

He asked Commons leader Geoff Hoon: Do you share my concern at the decision of Rockstar to publish a new game called Bully in which players use their on-screen persona to kick and punch other schoolchildren? Will you ask the prime minister to refer this video to the British Board of Film Classification? If they don't make any changes will the government use its powers to ban this video?

In 2008 he said he would be summoning the BBFC to its hearings on knife crime in October: The BBFC should realise there are scenes of gratuitous violence in The Dark Knight to which I would certainly not take my 11-year-old daughter. It should be a 15 classification.

Alexander Walker
Evening Standard film critic who declared that Crash contained some of the most perverted acts of sexual deviance I have ever seen in mainstream cinema. A tad exaggerated maybe?
Sandra White
SNP SMP for Glasgow on the cross-party group on violence against women and children. She said she was "disgusted" by the plans ato open a topless barber shop and vowed to picket the shop: I am appalled by this shop, it's degrading to women and is part of this laddish culture treating women as playthings. This objectifying is one reason why violence against women is going up. I and other campaigners will picket the shop every day to shame men who go there.

Later speaking about the conclusions of a task force set up by the Scottish Executive she said: I welcome the steps that this group has taken. Anything that helps stops the sex industry, I am in favour of. But what they also need to do is change the law, so lap-dancing clubs are licensed as sex shops. It would give councils the power to refuse licences and not allow clubs to open in the first place. That's the crunch issue.

Anne Widdecombe
A former Conservative Home Office minister and long-standing opponent of screen violence quoted; I feel strongly about the feebleness of the censorship in this country. Promised to take David Alton 's amendment to the Crime and Disorder Bill to the Commons if the Lords had accepted it.

Also known for targeting a family planning clinic that gave advice to youngsters under the age of consent as it undermines the role of parents. I have always made it clear that saying No is what we should be teaching young people. Unrealistic or what?

On the subject of the explicit mainstream film Nine Songs : I t seems to me that the British Board of Film Classification has thwarted the will of Parliament and disregarded its own guidelines . It is not the board's role to allow pornography to enter the mainstream. This is something that David Blunkett should take a look at.

Baroness Young
Currently collaborating with David Alton to table an amendment to the Crime & Disorder Bill to enable certain organisations to appeal against BBFC decisions. Of course this amendment ensures a one-sided right of appeal by only allowing appeals on grounds that the video work might incite viewers to antisocial behaviour, crime or disorder.

She also led the Lords in their overturning of the large democratic majority in favour of lowering the homosexual age of consent to 16.

 

Bit Part Censors

Deidre Alden
Birmingham councillor who ineveitably whinged at sex related art exhibition. Supported by the ever censorial NSPCC.
Wendy Alexander
Paisley North MSP 

Said of a new lap dancing venue: I think the decent, law-abiding folk of Paisley won't want to bother with this sort of late-night pursuit. It is not what the town centre needs.

George Allan
Islington Liberal Democrat Councillor and executive member for public protection, said: The recent prosecution [for selling unclassified videos] is another success for Islington Council's trading standards team, who are fighting a battle against retailers selling unclassified videos in the borough. We want to make it very clear that retailers must not sell unclassified videos. We will continue to prosecute those who break the law.

These videos were not obscene nor were they sold to children. This is a non-crime and only shits crow about the unnecessary punishment of one's fellow man

Dave Allen
Liverpool campaigner against the theatre tour of Jerry Springer: The Opera.

He enlightened us with his view of his fellow man: We do not think any decent-minded person would want to watch this show.

Bryan Appleyard
Pro-censorship writer for the Sunday Times
Lord Ashbourne
Sponsored David Alton's Amendment to the Crime & Disorder Bill. Supported Halsbury's noxious 1999 Obscenity Bill
Phil Attridge
Edinburgh licensing leader said on th esubject of imposing licensing control on adult entertainment: It's something we've been asking for years now. We're not trying to ban anything and we're not moralising, BUT... we just want to ensure there are not too many of these places in the one area and that they're not opening up next to schools and churches.
Jezz Baker
Portsmouth Conservative councillor Jezz Baker who was on the committee that voted against a sex shop application said, This is a crazy decision. I am very concerned that youngsters will have access to hard-core pornographic filth.

So is this an even handed argument about the location of the application or is it the view of a councillor believing that his opinion overrules the law.

Tony Banks
Labour MP. Speaking on Richard and Judy on Channel 4 about violent videogames he said that these videogames were as bad as child pornography
Steve Bassam
Lord Bassam of Brighton, now a Labour Home Office minister

He ably summed up New Labour's views on Liberty: Although the Government supported freedom of expression it was more important to protect the public.

Roy Beggs

Ulster Unionist councillor in Larne

  News October 2009: Flaunting Flesh

Roy Beggs — who proposed the anti-adult business motion in Larne — said it was about time to show that it's a sin to flaunt flesh. Adam and Eve covered up after the Garden of Eden, so I think these businesses are completely inappropriate, the former east Antrim MP told Sunday Life. I wanted council to let them know that if they approached us they would not be treated favourably.

John Beyer
National Viewers and Listeners Association general secretary always ready to give an obnoxious sound-bite to the Daily Mail. His response to the resignation of Ferman is typical; Without any question he has presided over a worsening situation. Films such as Lolita, Crash and Kissed ought never to be released because of the unhealthy, immoral and destructive lifestyle they portray.

Reported Joan Bakewell's Taboo to the police because it aired a little of the poem that Mary Whitehouse got prosecuted for blasphemy 30 years ago.

He suggested that R18 hardcore should be included in the list of extreme pornography of which mere possession would lead to a year 3 year jail sentence. The amount of misery inflicted on people, their families and society in general would be incalculable. This sadistic wish for the infliction of so much pain on society is surely one of the worst cases of 'extreme pornography' that has been reported to date. Does he also call for concentration camps to house all the people that he wants imprisoned?

Dr. Esmond Birnie
Ulster Unionist MLA for South Belfast

[Typical bollox from someone with so little respect for human rights. His presumed solution of a ban would hardly seem proportionate to the problem]

He said on the subject of hardcore being shown in Northern Ireland hotels: The Hotel seems to take the view that what is watched in a room is purely a matter for each guest. Sadly, however, this is not the case. The availability of such material could have some impact on the staff who have to work in the Hotel and move around the rooms.

Graham Brady
MP who said about a sex shop application that : it would make the market quarter a "no-go area for families".
Stephen Bramley
Home Office legal adviser has been attributed with the idea that having lost the capability to prosecute porn under obscenity law then the notion of harm to children could be used instead.
Viscount Brentford
When talking during the Lords Obscenity Bill he argued that pornography leads directly to serial killing:
  1. Addiction to pornography
  2. Escalation to harder material
  3. Desensitisation of the individual who can no longer tell right from wrong
  4. Need to act out fantasies on real women

He illustrated this process by using the American serial killer Ted Bundy as an example.

(I think I must still be in stage 2 as I can still tell right from wrong: The plonker Viscount Brentford is most definitely wrong!).

He also supported David Alton's Amendment to the Crime & Disorder Bill

In supporting the Earl of Halsbury's 1999 Obscenity Bill he came up with the following:

It is important to tackle the subject of obscenity one way or another to try to restrict it so that it is possible to stop the ever-increasing wave of obscenity which is hitting us from every direction. If our civilisation is to survive, we need to tackle the subject and curtail it so that we do not become one of the most depraved and corrupt nations in the world, which is the direction in which we are moving.

Garry Brown
Newport Councillor Garry Brown campaigning against a Rockbitch gig said: I think we should all get together - the council, the magistrates, the police - and stop this .
Hugh Brown
From the Church of Scotland's Board of Social Responsibility, said that while he did not believe in total censorship, there are boundaries of decency which we think film producers have a moral duty not to cross and it appears that these film may be crossing those boundaries.
Tom Buchanan
Omagh councillor who said he was horrified to learn that a sex shop would open its doors in an area of town which is frequented by children. I will not rest until it is closed. It is absolute filth and there is no place for it in this town.
Allison Bucknell
Conservative councillor for Lyneham, Wiltshire.

She was looking to use asbos to stop a villager from running a satirical website about her village. She said: An Asbo is being looked at against Mr Hawkin. He's causing a lot of damage to the community. An abuse of power or what.

John Butterfill
MP for Bournemouth, West

It is entirely desirable for us to have a system whereby the law can be enforced across the Community, and we can work together to prevent drug smuggling, the dissemination of pornography and other awful things;

Viscount Caldecote
Accused everyone who likes porn as being depraved.

From a letter to the Times: For its policy (The Video Appeals Committee) is not to worry about the harmful effects of widening the spread of pornography amongst even a small minority of children, but rather to pander to the depraved wishes of some adults.

Chris Cullum
Haverhill Town Councillor objecting to the theatre presentation of Puppetry of the Penis:

I am not against all this sort of thing, BUT... there was controversy a couple of years ago when we had the issue of lap dancers and strippers appearing at Rush Nightclub. Objections were raised on the town council and I just don't think it is appropriate we should be hosting this in a small town like Haverhill. I know we are trying to get Haverhill on the map, BUT ... is this really necessary? If we are having this are we going to get lap dancers and strippers next? I don't see how you can allow one and refuse the others.

Menzies Campbell
Deputy leader of the Liberal Democrats blaming a tragic murder on Marilyn Manson

With material of this kind freely available it is surely time to introduce a system of uniform classification for all electronic media, The evidence in the trial should be a powerful incentive. It may be difficult to establish a direct link between material of this kind and violent behaviour but we surely have to take a precautionary approach.
Charlie_grrl   Nominated by James, May 2008: Misandrist

Charlie_grrl's website is definitely worthy of mention in terms of their censorship of comments deemed to be misogynist. Misandrist comments, however on this site are rife.

  Nominated by the Moron Farmers

Feminist who dubbed the Melon Farmers as Moron Famers after including the organisation, Eaves, in the Nutter Watch section over their complaints about a sitcom set in a brothel.

Charlie_grrl said: Firstly, who would know more about the damage a sitcom about prostitution could do, Eaves or MelonFarmers? I think the answer is pretty clear, and MelonFarmers do not even attempt to argue against Eaves’ views. And secondly, what sort of a website that is interested in preventing censorship would refer to a group that has done amazing work for the most powerless and silenced women as a ‘women’s nutter group’, simply because that group took a stance that website disagreed with?

Melon Farmers replied: Surely I recognise the good work in setting up a refuge. However the wish to imprison people just for viewing softcore porn is more than ample justification for considering Eaves to be a nutter organisation.

One of the responses to the Government consultation on extreme pornography was: Response from Women's National Commission. This was endorsed by Eaves and includes the following:

Lilith believe that the list of restricted pornographic material [with a penalty of 3 years in prison for simple possession] should be expanded from the proposed list to also include:

  • Any material which has scenes of sexual violence, not just those which are deemed to be showing ‘serious’ sexual violence
  • Any material which shows women’s bodies being abused in any way
  • Any material which is hostile to women by showing them in passive roles in sexual activity or being dominated
  • Any material which features naked women for the sole purpose of sexual gratification (and therefore not, for example, for educational or anatomical purposes
Ronnie Convery
Catholic Church spokesnutter  speaker on the subject of providing handicapped people with porn

It is irresponsible for any public body to be facilitating access to pornography. It degrades women and it degrades those who use it. [Well it certainly degrades the Church and it's spokesnutter]

Ross Cranston
MP for Dudley.

Sent a formal objection about the first Dudley table dancing club to the council after receiving several complaints from constituents: I also have a personal objectio . I just don't think it is appropriate for Dudley. It is not in keeping with the way we want the town to develop. We don't need this in an area that is being regenerated.

Lord Campbell of Croy
Seems to want all computer games involving car crime to be banned.

He asked in the House of Lords: whether the Government propose to modify the system of classification under which the computer game Grand Theft Auto, which allegedly involves thefts of cars and driving at excessive speeds to evade police cars, has been granted an 18 certificate.

Menzies Campbell

Ex-not-so-Liberal Democrat leader

  News October 2009: Naturally Inclined Censor

Ranted about lads' mags on a parliamentary committee:

Sir Menzies said his natural inclination was against censorship ...BUT... it is unacceptable such material could be displayed at the eye level of a six-year-old: The photographs and headlines on the front cover are pretty lurid. The present code does not seem to be working and so it needs to be tightened up considerably.

Lord Cope of Berkeley
Supported the Earl of Halsbury's 1999 Obscenity Bill
Claire Curtis-Thomas
Crosby MP feels so strongly about the Sport that she is urging parents to boycott WH Smith as part of her campaign to get the newsagent to recognise it as pornography.

And where there is censor one often has to scratch around a little to find the nutter roots. She has been banging on about RE at a local St Luke's Church: Under a curriculum currently being drawn up, RE lessons could include the teaching of atheism and agnosticism, alongside Christianity. All of us who know God, know that our children run the risk of being led away from the truth. It is so sad to see our nation turning further and further away from God. Our culture is based on Christianity. To teach the opposite to that is to undermine an understanding of who we are as a nation. The more we turn away from God the more our society degenerates, where will we be in 20 years time, there will be consequences to pay. These things creep so subtly into our society, let's together stand up for our beliefs and do something about it.

Jim Devine

Labour MP Jim Devine has generated an Early Day Motion on 17.11.2008.

Foul Language On Television

That this House deplores the level of foul language on television; and congratulates the Daily Mirror's campaign to stop this abuse.

Lord Dholakia
Sponsored David Alton's Amendment to the Crime & Disorder Bill
Anne Diamond

TV presenter

Joined the Daily Mail ban everything for the sake of the children brigade. She called for the ban of the 15 rated Resident Evil 4: This game shouldn't be sold, even to adults. It wallows in violence for violence's sake.

Dilek Dogus

Haringey councillor

  4th April 2009: Crouch End Lap dancing

A heated debate erupted at a full Haringey council meeting. Councillor Dilek Dogus (Labour) said: These clubs are a danger to women who live and work around them and additional research has even linked them to sex trafficking.

Drugs arrive, particularly cocaine, and these are shared with the dancers. Then there are the extras where the line between prostitution and dancing begins to blur."

She cited central London's Tottenham Court Road as an example, where rape cases leaped by 50 per cent after a new club was opened, adding that rape was three times more likely to happen in areas surrounding these venues.

Iain Duncan-Smith

One time Tory leader of the opposition

Joined the 2008 nutter onslaught against The Dark Knight after seeing it with his 15-year-old daughter.

Describing it as "relentlessly violent" in a letter to a newspaper, he wrote: I was astonished that the board could have seen fit to allow anyone under the age of 15 to watch the film.

Keith Farr
Councillor for Forton ward, Gosport, said about a sex shop licence application: It worries me that there is a sex shop almost opposite a park where children play.
Lynne Featherstone

Lynne Featherstone, MP for Hornsey and Wood Green.

  March 2009: Crotchety

met anti lap dancing protesters on Saturday to offer her backing: It is a free country and people should be allowed to do whatever they like, so long as it doesn't harm others. ...BUT... this particular case - because of where it is in a busy high street, with teenagers and mothers and vulnerable people nearby - is not a suitable location.

Joe Fitzpatrick
Tameside councillor with damning views on sex shops:  The only place for a sex shop was in hell.
Anna Ford

A classic I don't believe in censorship but...

But without arguing for censorship, which I do not, have we got lost in our new-found liberalism? Are we afraid to speak out, to condemn things we won't tolerate?

Michael Foster
MP for Hastings who campaigns to ban the computer game Bully on the basis of the title and certainly before anyone has received a public copy
Reverend Bruce Gardner
Minister at Banchory-Devenick in Aberdeenshire

Gardner is opposed to particular scenes in Jerry Springer: The Opera where God and Jesus Christ appear as guests on the Jerry Springer show. He claims this is an attack on the Christian community, who, he says, are being "singled out" in the same way as Jews were in Nazi Germany, and is calling for the scenes to be removed: It is disgraceful that a demonstration of contempt for things regarded as holy by many is being defended on the grounds that 'free speech' will be denied unless one section of the population is allowed to be attacked. While not wishing to exaggerate unduly, this is how the Jews were singled out in Nazi Germany, first for ridicule, then contempt, then persecution.

Rev Viv Gasteen
Reverend of the Central Methodist Church, in Warwick Road, Coventry said: What is the world coming to when we need one of these [sex] shops in Coventry? It is totally unnecessary.
Marlyn Glen
Scottish MSP who supported Elaine Smiths inquiry into the supposed harm caused by porn.
Rev Andy Glover
Chairman of Churches Together in Chester. In a biblical and shameful statement about a new lap dancing venue said: There is a saying in the Bible that everything is permissible, BUT... not everything is beneficial. For the girls and men involved it is quite degrading, but is this really beneficial for the city of Chester?
Peter Hain
The Welsh Secretary said that he found the location of a sex shop next to his constituency office "unacceptable".
Bryan Hall
Councillor for Wickham Market who campaigned on behalf of a sex shop ban and couldn't even support a compromise to make the business a mail order operation only.
David Hanson
Labour MP for Delyn

Keen support for the persecution of those simply viewing extreme porn images: Violent pornographic images are grossly offensive to the vast majority of people and could encourage violent attacks. The sorts of images being considered for this ban would not be allowed in films or even sold in licensed shops, so they should be available online either. In some cases those featured may be the victims of criminal acts.

At the moment, many of these appalling sites are hosted from abroad so it is difficult for the police to prosecute those who distribute the images, something that is already an offence. So I think this new law would make it easier for North Wales Police to take action against those who access this material.

Catherine Harper
Rent-a-quote campaigner with Scottish Women Against Pornography. On the subject of providing porn to the handicapped she said: I'm appalled that people with learning difficulties are to be encouraged to access pornography. It has links with violence against women and children, including rape and sexual abuse.'
Colin Hart
Director of the Christian Institute, said: Younger and younger children are being confronted with violent and sexual images they would not have been a generation ago. Television appears to be out of control.
Isaac Hayes
US soul singer who previously voiced Chef in South Park ,

He quit saying that the satirical cartoon television show has overstepped the mark with its ridiculing of religion. There is a place in this world for satire, but there is a time when satire ends and intolerance and bigotry towards religious beliefs of others begins, said Hayes, an outspoken Scientologist who has voiced the character of the school cook in the series since 1997. Religious beliefs are sacred to people, and at all times should be respected and honoured. As a civil rights activist of the past 40 years, I cannot support a show that disrespects those beliefs and practices.

Matt Stone, co-creator of South Park , said: This is 100 per cent having to do with his faith of Scientology. He has no problem - and he's cashed plenty of cheques - with our show making fun of Christians. We never heard a peep out of Isaac in any way until we did Scientology. He wants a different standard for religions other than his own and, to me, that is where intolerance and bigotry begin .

Norman Hazell
Holier than thou Wakefield councillor who spouted the following bollox about a prospective lap dancing club:

It's an absolute disgrace. They may well have it in Leeds and Bradford – I would say to them 'let them have it there if they want it' because we certainly don't want it here. We have got to try to preserve the Christian ethos in the city. There are enough people coming into Wakefield for the clubs – people who see the need for lap dancing are not the sort of people we want to see coming into the city centre.

Hugh Henry
Paisley South MSP

On the subject of a new lap dancing venue: The opening of this club is a sad day for Paisley. There is no place in this town for so-called entertainment which demeans and degrades women.

Cardinal Basil Hume
Speaking at the 1999 LIFE annual conference

Society should end it's obsession with sex, eliminate pornography and put sexual intimacy in it's proper place, marriage.

Mahroof Hussain
Local councillor in Rotherham. Objecting to a sex shop, said: There are lot of people who are unhappy about this. It is just the wrong place - it is on a main road and will be there for everyone to see.

As if the mere sight of a sex shop is enough to justify his repression of his fellow man

Stewart Jackson

Peterborough's MP

Called on the city council to reclassify the rating given to The Dark Knight .

Stewart Jackson has written to the council's chief executive Gillian Beasley, expressing concerns over the 12A rating given to the film, which has attracted nutter controversy because of its violent content and dark themes.

In his letter, Jackson reminded her that the council can use its discretion under current legislation to reclassify the rating given by the BBFC. He said: I am not a spoilsport and I have seen this film ...BUT... I sincerely believe that it is not suitable for children. The violence is gratuitous and the dark themes inappropriate for children's viewing.

David Johnson
Head of communications for Liverpool Diocese, said: We have grave concerns about the place of hardcore sex shops in a civilised society. It does not bode well for Liverpool when it is talking about being a city of culture, to be encouraging this kind of development. [The Melon Farmers have grave concerns about the place of intolerance in a civilised society]
Peter Johnson
Stockport's Plaza Theatre box office manager whinging about a nearby sex shop: It’s not for the Plaza to be for or against sex shops, [BUT...] we just believe the location is not right. Hundreds of children walk past every day.
Tessa Jowell

Labour Minister

August 2008: No Coco

Tess Jowell supported the nutters of West Norwood against a strip pub, she wrote:

I share fully the widely held views in West Norwood of the potentially very serious consequences to the local community should this licence application be approved. As your local Member of Parliament I have written to Lambeth Council's Licensing Department outlining local residents’ strong objections to this license application.

I hope that this totally inappropriate license application is turned down.

Rev Tom Kant
Minister at the Laigh Kirk branded a topless barber shop as 'sordid' and degrading to men and women. There is no place for this shop in Paisley ,
Frank Keegan

Cheshire councillor

 June 2009: Re lap dancing in Wilmslow

It is quite appalling to have this in the centre of Wilmslow, which is a family town. It is totally inappropriate. The proprietors say it will cater for a more mature customer - by that I take it they mean dirty old men. Maybe there will be a run on macs in the local shops. Hopefully, it will go bust, it won't attract customers and will wither on the vine.

Jane Kennedy
Labour Works & Pensions Minister & MP for Wavertree

She complained of Liverpool's tolerance zone idea: Prostitution is normally part of organised criminal activity, which also involves people-trafficking, drug dealing, counterfeiting goods, smuggling and money-laundering.

(Yes but that's because bollox politicians like Kennedy criminalise it)

Ken King
York councillor on the subject of lap dancing licence applications: I don't have a problem in principle with these establishments, ...although... I do sometimes feel sorry for those people who feel they need to go to them.

Seven would be too many. That would seem a lot for a place the size of York. I just can't imagine there would be the clientele within the city to make that many viable. I can only imagine that people would come in from outside.
Joanne Kingsland
Human rights abuser on Gateshead council who sets her personal dislike of sex shops above the rights of those she represents.
David Lammy

August 2008: Another Nutter MP

The latest Batman movie has put Tottenham MP David Lammy in a flap after he condemned the film for its "disturbing" content.

The Tottenham MP wrote to the BBFC claiming The Dark Knight' s depiction of knife violence and brutality is too much for a film classified as only 12A. He said: Many Tottenham parents will take their children to see the new Batman film only to learn that the cumulative effect of the violence in this film is very disturbing. The film goes far beyond the superhero or fantasy film tradition.

Lammy has demanded the BBFC be made accountable to parents, adding that it is "unacceptable" to expose young children to graphic scenes. But he did call the film accomplished and very enjoyable.

Trish Law

Independent AM for Blaenau Gwent.

  November 2008: Call That Upholding Freedom of Speech?

Trish Law has written to the Assembly’s Presiding Officer, Lord Dafydd Elis-Thomas to complain about the planned reading of Patrick Jones’ atheist poems in the Assembly :

I uphold freedom of speech [...BUT...] I cannot condone the reading of blasphemous, obscene and perverted poems in the National Assembly. We are still a Christian country, yet one that acknowledges and readily accepts other religious beliefs and values. So while we would not tolerate other religions and religious leaders being insulted through verse or deed neither should we expect Christ and Christianity to be subjected to a tirade of anti-Christian rhetoric and profanity.

I implore you to put a stop to this reading on December 11 in the name of decency and humanity.

Robert Light
Kirklees Council Conservative Leader.

Said he thinks there has to be a point when the number of lap dancing clubs must be limited. I believe it is very important clubs like this one need to be approved only after a lot of thought and a moral judgement. As a father I ask myself would I want my children walking past these places and asking questions? We have a duty to protect their innocence and lap dancing clubs and other shops that are already in town centres don't make it easy.

He seems to think that his moral judgement is somehow better than those that want to visit or work in a lap dancing clubs

Granville Lord
Burnley Councillor who said he considered it to be totally degrading to the community to have sex shops in the town. It is disgusting to the people of Burnley. I don't feel there is any room for them in this town, there is always mail order e-mail or the Internet for anyone who wants it, he added.
Jo Lovelock
Reading Councillor  objected to the transfer of a sex shop licence. She said: If there was an opportunity to remove this establishment, which is near to a primary school, it would be desirable. The council and police are working hard with local people to overcome the seedy image of Oxford Road and fewer sex shops would help towards that objective.
Shahid Malik

MP for Dewsbury

  News September 2009: Forbidden Enjoyment of Life

Nutter MP Shahid Malik has launched a petition against the lapdancing venue Forbidden.

The Forbidden nightclub on Bradford Road was granted permission earlier this month to offer lapdancing, pole dancing and private dancing in booths.

The Dewsbury MP this week started a petition against the club, claiming it could make Dewsbury a magnet for the sex industry . After having campaigned vigorously to regenerate the town centre the prospect of having a lap dancing club would be a tragic set back which would damage the image of Dewsbury. We do not want to cultivate an image of a seedy town but rather a family-oriented town. If this is allowed to develop then Dewsbury could become a magnet for the sex industry, which would be a disaster.

Father Francis Martin
Moral theologian for Liverpool's Catholic Archdiocese, said he was disappointed about the granting of a sex shop license: Pornography degrades both those who make it and those who use it, and corrupts men's attitudes towards women. [Religion degrades both those who preach it and those abuse it, and corrupts men's attitudes towards tolerance of their fellow men]
Paddy McGowan
Omagh councillor who has displayed arrogance beyond belief on the subject of a local sex shop. He rejected any notion that he was being narrow-minded: I do not think it is me who has the problem. The people with the problem are those who frequent shops like that.
R Meads
Anti-Smuggling Manager at HM Thieves & Excise.

Sent the following bullying letter to someone being caught importing adult consensual porn for the 3rd time. Of course Customs continually refuse to justify why they consider such porn obscene in the first place:

You were recently sent a "Notice of Seizure" form C&E 41 in respect of an importation of DVD's. This notice warns of the possibilty of criminal proceedings being instituted against importers of indecent and obscene material.

After careful consideration it has been decided under the provisions of the law available to the customs and excise to confine our action in this instance to seizure of the goods involved. You are warned however that similar leniency may not be extended to you if you are again reported for an offence of this nature.

It should be understood that in the event of a conviction in future for an offence under the customs and excise acts, details of this seizure may be given to the court.

Andrew Mitchell

Tory MP for Sutton Coldfield

  November 2008: Re Lap Dancing at Flint's

In a letter to residents: I am quite clear that Mere Green and Sutton Coldfield are not appropriate locations for this sort of activity.

Chris Mole

Labour MP for Ipswich

  November 2008: Nutter Mole

A nutter Labour MP has urged the BBC to dismiss Top Gear host Jeremy Clarkson over a joke he made on the motoring show.

And while TV censor Ofcom has said the remark was not a breach of the broadcasting code, Ipswich MP Chris Mole claimed it was a dismissible offence.

Mole was 'offended' by the possible reference to the murders committed by Steve Wright in Suffolk and has written a strongly-worded letter to the BBC's director general Mark Thompson:

The murders in my constituency in 2006 were horrific and the community has spent a lot of time pulling together to respond constructively to such dreadful events, he wrote.

For Mr Clarkson to make light of murder in any circumstance must be a dismissible offence. To do so with complete disregard for the families of the murdered women should make this a matter on which I would expect you to take immediate action.

Dave Nellis
Coventry councillor in the "social alliance". There always has to be a nutter when it comes to a sex shop licence application.

Gosford street is an old street, with a number of historic timber framed buildings on it, and some old weavers' top-shops. It's also an absolute dumped, lined with fast food joints, pubs, restaurants, & 2nd hand shops. There's also a lot of derelict shops and odd little industrial units along it. Nellist complained that a sex shop would bring the street down! [One of his fellow socialist alliance councillors works for the Cyrenians, and their HQ is on this street, complete with boarded up windows -- looks very nice!].

Elizabeth Newson
Produced a report after the Jamie Bolger killing that is cited by many as evidence against violent videos. In this report she said: Many of us hold our liberal ideals of freedom of expression dear, BUT ... now begin to feel that we were naive in our failure to predict the extent of damaging material and its all too free availability to children.
Lord Northbourne

 

In supporting the Earl of Halsbury's 1999 Obscenity Bill he came up with the following to try and suggest that exposure to pornography produces an enhanced interest in deviant sexuality

The process is referred to as "escalation". It results from the concept of normalisation--that is, the more you read about these things happening, the more you begin to believe that they may not be so awful after all and to say, Lots of other people are doing them, so why shouldn't I?. One thus becomes desensitised

Stephen Ogden
Altrincham ward councillor wrote to a child protesting about a sex shop: I wrote to Georgia-May today on this matter. I share her sentiments.

And the child's views that he was supporting in a letter to the council : If we let these people have their way and get their filthy shop then we let something terrible happen. This shop will attract paedophiles, perverts and rapists. As well as the fact that the crime rate may rise, we will be letting children in the community get contaminated. Altrincham will become an alleyway of crime with strange people hanging around when children are walking home from school as it is a direct route from Loreto Grammar School which I attend. I do hope you take my points seriously and help me crush the people who are giving Altrincham a bad name.

Mike Olley
Birmingham Councillor who whinged about humorous posters for lap dancing clubs: We allowed clubs self regulation, but it is clear some cannot behave in a responsible manner .

Self regulation was clearly not allowed. Lap dancing clubs are regulated to the point of being totally sterile.

Geraldine Ormonde
Human rights abuser on Gateshead council who sets her personal dislike of sex shops above the rights of those she represents.
Abdul Osman
Vice Chair of the Leicester Council Licensing Committe who voted against a special one-off showing of the Last House on the Left. He was in the minority of one in an otherwise heroic effort from Leicester Council.
Albert Owen

MP for Anglesey

28th December 2008: Unwanted

Owen who has his constituency office on the same street as a proposed sex shop site, said: This is the wrong type of development for a popular street like this which has had a lot of investment by traders in the past few years. This shop would negate all the good work that has been done on this street. This is not something that is wanted in this town.

Yinka Oyekan
Baptist minister of Grovelands Christian Fellowship, Reading: ulnerable youngsters need protection and we certainly don't need more sexual liberalism in our town. The problem with sex shops is that, by definition, they offer various materials of an adult content. That attracts men, and some women, we might not want in the area.
Ricky Panter

Archdeacon of Liverpool whinged about a hair care advert alluding to Christianity

Panter said: It seemed to me the advertisement crossed a line. I felt very uncomfortable with it. It was targeting the Lord’s Prayer and I felt it was taking the mick. This is not about censorship or about being prudish ...[BUT]... It is simply about every individual’s right to signal when they think a line has been crossed.

Anne Parry
Mayor of Llandudno expressed outrage at proposals for an adult store on Llandudno's main street: We don't want that sort of thing in Llandudno. We are a Victorian town, what would our ancestors think? The Victorians had good standards and principles.

Quoting that the Victorians had good standards hardly counts as a justification for human rights abuse.
Ann Pearston
Founded the Dunblane Snowdrop Campaign in March 1996, said she was horrified at some of the graphic images in Club a Seal internet game. She said: I really question the benefits of the internet with children. Parents are not going to be able to stop the manufacturers of these games, so people in the industry must club together with the Government to try and regulate the web.
Angela Perkins

Chair of the National Board of Catholic Women

On the subject of lads' mags: Whilst freedom of speech and expression are rightly defended foundations of our society... [ BUT ]. .. it is frankly disgusting that these liberties can be exploited to the extent where children have free access to such degrading explicit material.

Prince Philip
The Internet is a fantastic development... but it is difficult to estimate the harm that it can do when it is exploited by peddlers of pornography and other crooks. I suggest that the greatest challenge before us is to find ways of combining high-quality technical training with a proper grounding in ethics and morality (Too true, if Prince Philip had a proper grounding in ethics he wouldn't be trying deny his own subjects their sexual pleasures)
Rev Dr William Philip
From Glasgow's St George's Tron, said on the subject of a lap dancing licence application: We have objected in the past to a similar application elsewhere in the city centre. We will also object to this - not because it's on our doorstep but because this is not the kind of thing we should have in this city.
Peter Pike
Burnley MP who sided with Mediawatch-UK to  call for MTV's stunt show Jackass to be banned
David Puttnam
Film producer (and ex-Hollywood film producer)

Puttnam blamed Hollywood films for fuelling a culture of bullying in British schools. He said films that featured violence and aggression devoid of human consequences were leading to the growth of bullying in the playground, with children imitating what they saw on the big and small screens. He added that films were dumbing down and failing to address real moral problems.

Valerie Riches
Spokesperson for Family and Youth Concern accused the BBFC of being incapable of differentiating between what is corrupt and healthy.

Later commented on the subject of the subject of the Playboy Channel on hotel TV: B&Bs and small hotels are mainly used by families, particularly those with young children. To have them exposed to this kind of gross material is distressing and disturbing.

Jim Rodgers
Ulster Unionist who said about an appeal court ruling that Belfast Council were abusing human rights in their blanket ban on sex shops:  a deeply worrying precedent had been set. The human rights excuse is being used left, right and centre. It is absolutely horrendous. Human rights has gone mad. I'm all for human rights being protected BUT.. I don't think this ruling is in the best interests of the city.
John Rogers

Neath and Port Talbot councillor

  Feb 2009: Nursing Intolerance

Whinged at sexy nurses uniforms in sex shop window display:

John Rogers and Anthony Taylor wrote: They (the residents) believe some of the items that have been featured have been of an offensive nature and unsuitable for passers-by on a main road. Of particular concern was a display that included nurse uniforms, which generated complaints from local nurses who felt they were being subjected to an unfair and degrading image of their profession.

Jim Ryan
Bickenhill councillor whose ward covers the National Exhibition Centre

It shows the depth of nutterdom when they object to trade shows with no public access. Just the knowledge that business people are talking about adult products is enough to get them foaming at the mouth.

He said: The NEC must be desperate to have to agree to an exhibition like this. I understood that the NEC was a premier national and international centre and I do not see why they would scrape the barrel with an event like this. It saddens me that the NEC feels it can agree to hold this. I think it's sending out the wrong signals to the region and the rest of the country that the NEC is having to rely on the porn industry for business. It detracts from the quality we expect from the NEC.

Mohammed Sabir,
Peterborough councillor who selectively represents Central Ward

A table-dancing club is not something we should encourage – Peterborough is not that kind of city. It isn't right for us. We already have enough ordinary clubs and people are more into going out with families than this sort of thing.   He also worried that the club could attract sex maniacs. Sounds like a throwback to Mary Whitehouse speak of the 60s

Sir Iqbal Sacranie
Head of the Muslim Council of Britain, said same-sex relationships risked damaging the very foundations of society. He said that homosexuality spread disease and was immoral.

A man at the forefront of the book-burning mob who threatened Rushdie’s life, when Sacranie declared: Death, I think, is too easy for him. For this part in incitement to murder, Sacranie was awarded not the stiff custodial sentence one might expect, but a knighthood.

Sir Iqbal said civil partnerships were "harmful" and not acceptable: This is harmful. It does not augur well in building the very foundations of society - stability, family relationships. And it is something we would certainly not in any form encourage the community to be involved in .

Speaking on BBC Radio Four's PM programme, Sir Iqbal underlined the importance of tolerance... BUT... asked if homosexuality itself was harmful to society he said: What is not acceptable, there is a good reason for it. Each of our faiths tell us that it is harmful and I think, if you look into the scientific evidence that has been available in terms of the forms of various other illnesses and diseases that are there, surely it points out that where homosexuality is practised there is a greater concern in that area.

Joyce Sanders
Derbyshire County Council's cabinet member for community services who totally exaggerated the seriousness of  a sale of legal R18 material to adults.: If pornography is sold from car boot sales there is no control over who can buy it which means it can get into the hands of children. This is a serious case and we will continue to scour Derbyshire for similar practices and prosecute where we find pornographic material being sold in this way.
Phil Shaddock
Liberal Democrat Portsmouth Councillor

Snitched on a fellow councillor for the ludicrous crime of downloading internet porn. It is not even as if the supposed offence was committed at work or on work time. The only vague suggestion of improprietory was that the councillor had used a lap-top on permanent loan from the council.

Hamdy Shahein
Newsagent who campaigned against pre-packaged wholesale magazines that contained porn.

Hamdy Shahein was shamefully quoted in the Guardian: I believe in freedom of choice, and my choice is not to sell this material [... BUT ... he organised a petition  with the desire outcome to stop all newsagents and other high street stores from selling selling pornography. that shows he certainly DOES NOT believe in freedom of choice]

Lorna Shiels
Edinburgh Labour councillor who was appointed to a Scottish Executive taskforce which will explore Scotland's lapdancing clubs and sex shops said about a possible Deep Throat screening: I don't see any reason why the Cameo should be showing it. There can't be any artistic or cultural reason for screening this. But of course she did not mention any justification for denying us our right to watch adult entertainment purely for sexual pleasure.
Joan Skinner
Campaigner with Scottish Women Against Pornography: Although we are opposed to censorship, we urge the Parliament to take a lead in changing attitudes to pornography in Scotland. It can do that by introducing legislation that effectively addresses the issue of pornography and by developing a strategy for raising throughout the country public awareness of the harm that pornography does.
Rev Martin Smyth
Belfast MP who spewed bollox about a local lap dancing club:

There are so many reasons for refusing this application and none that I can think of for allowing it. The people who run it should never have got the licence in the first place because it is just not the sort of thing people in south Belfast want

Lord Stallard
Sponsored David Alton's Amendment to the Crime & Disorder Bill
Christine Stewart
As a spokesperson of the Home Office who wrote to the BBFC that:

the most that can be said is that video works containing more or less comparable material to that in Makin' Whoopee! are likely not to be considered obscene by the Video Appeals Committe. It does not automatically follow from this, that all material which is likely not to be found obscene by the VAC is automatically suitable for classification.

This is blantantly a perversion of the law. The law states that R18 videos should only be limited by the law of the land and if it ain't obscene then it ain't legal to ban it.

Anthony Taylor

Neath and Port Talbot councillor

  Feb 2009: Nursing Intolerance

Whinged at sexy nurses uniforms in sex shop window display:

John Rogers and Anthony Taylor wrote: They (the residents) believe some of the items that have been featured have been of an offensive nature and unsuitable for passers-by on a main road. Of particular concern was a display that included nurse uniforms, which generated complaints from local nurses who felt they were being subjected to an unfair and degrading image of their profession.

Lord Tenby
Supported David Alton's Amendment to the Crime & Disorder Bill
Maggie Throup

Conservative prospective parliamentary candidate for Solihull

  October 2009: Whingeing at Solihull lap dancing club

Maggie Throup said she felt the club was totally inappropriate for the area. She said: Solihull is a family town. If the owner says this will bring in more business then I'm not sure it's the kind of business we would want. I think this shows the whole mess of the licensing and entertainment laws that have allowed something like this into a town like Solihull.

Stephen Venner
The Bishop of Dover on the subject of computer games and in particular Manhunt: Anybody playing these games is allowing some of the worst parts of their personality to come to the fore.  I cannot see any justification for allowing these games to be on sale at all.  It treats other human beings as objects simply to be despatched with, which is the worst sort of abuse imaginable.  We are in a society where human rights and freedom seem to be the end of all we seek, and in any civilsed society there must be limits to the extent that people can degrade themselves and others
Andrew Vessey
The vicar of St Mary's, in Swansea

  August 2009: Whinging at lap dancing at the Fantasy Lounge

The vicar of St Mary's, in Swansea, Andrew Vessey, challenged the council to show it had standards and said the club would be an inappropriate use of space and of the female body: What people do with their own money and time is up to them ...BUT... when it's clearly open to the public in a city centre that has already got quite enough venues, there is a concern by those of us who have standards and ideals that this is inappropriate. It's an inappropriate use of space and inappropriate use of the female body.

He said the club would be degrading and was purely about making money: Many of them are not doing this for fun, but because they have to for money. I think there comes a point where the public needs to be protected from people. It's simply about making money. There must be a point where we say enough is enough.

People who seem to be dependent on that kind of stimulus have got plenty of outlets already. We have a fine city and we have some great traditions here, by way of enterprise and creativity. Do we want Swansea to be synonymous as a place to watch lap dancing? There's already a plethora of nightclubs in Swansea. There must come a point where public concerns about standards have to be listened to.

Carol Vorderman
TV presenter who said she wanted to become a TV regulator and become a moral campaigner against sex and violence. She continued: There is a real backlash in this country against sex and violence. People have had enough. They're fed up with pushy young girls who want to take their tops off.

She has also revealed to She Magazine that I'm going to have a chair just like this when I'm a Governor of the BBC. I'd make a good Governor, don't you think? (What a nightmare)

Presented a very substandard TV news report reiterating the standard conflation that "all porn is child porn". Vorderman claimed that as businesses had been able to stop the spread of the "love bug" virus, it would equally be possible to censor the internet, and the only thing lacking was the will to do it. The usual Daily Mail-style catch-all generalisation and swingeing remedy

Keith Wakefield
Leader of Labour Group on Leeds Council on the subject of a table dancing licence:

I find it disgraceful and disrespectful that this type of club should be considered within yards of such a poignant memorial, especially when the proposals include Sunday opening. Lap-dancing clubs tend to attract a certain level of clientele and I am sure that members of the public walking along The Headrow do not want to see or hear people stumbling in and out of this place at unsociable hours.

 John Walsh
Astley Bridge councillor on the subject of a sex shop application: I don't believe there's a right location for this kind of thing, but this is definitely the wrong one.
Nigel Waterson
Eastbourne MP  said about a sex shop application: I share residents' concerns as this will be bang in the middle of the town centre. It is the last thing we want. I will be writing to the council to express my concerns. If we have to have these sort of shops in Eastbourne I would rather they were tucked away in a back street somewhere instead of being in the middle of the town centre. It is not good for the town's image.'
Steve Webb
Lib Dem spokesman on work and pensions, was the only Lib Dem MP to express reservations about the new liberal policy I am concerned about the widening availability of pornography to younger people. More pornography demeans us all.

And on the subject of civil servants caught downloading porn: Any public servant who accesses porn sites at work should lose their job. There has to be a zero tolerance approach.

Ian Westwood
Deputy chairman of the Police Federation, said recently: We are not in the business of censorship. But we do have real concerns about the glamorisation of violence and crime in games. (so all the police raids in support of censorhip must be figments of the victim's imagination then)
Sandra White
MSP, who has fought to stop several sex establishments opening in Scotland. After the rejection of a sex shop in Glasgow she said the decision reflected public opinion. She added: I am absolutely delighted the council has taken this stance.

She has also raised a motion in the Scottish Parliament calling for a ban on topless barber shops. This is a massage parlour by any other name, she said.

Tony Wilds
The archdeacon of Plymouth who shamefully spouted off about Jerry Springer: The Opera

He said that he was in favour of the principle of free speech... BUT. .. he  argues that Springer takes undue liberties according to this standard. The abusive portrayal of figures held by Christians to be [dear] should be recognised by all people of goodwill as unfair and unacceptable ...

Reverend Geoffrey Willetts
West Street Baptist Church: Crewe already has one sex shop and we don't believe it needs any more. We also object on moral grounds, although we know the council cannot reject the application on that. Ladies are made in the image of God and they're not things or items, they need to be valued as more than that. We also believe it's awfully sad when people want to make money out of people's weaknesses . (Lets hope that that Willetts isn't made in the image of God, I would hate to think that God was a bitter individual who would deny sexual pleasure to others)
David Winskill
Crouch End councillor

  Feb 2009:

Whinging at lap dancing at the Music Palace

Moral crusader David Winskill (Not so Liberal Democrat) said: The overwhelming response is hostile and local councillors will be offering any support we can to see off this totally inappropriate application. This is not a moral crusade...[ BUT ]... This is about a development that is totally inappropriate in a residential area where there is a school around the corner.

Mike Winstanley

Wigan Conservative councillor

  July 2009:

Whinging at Fetish Rocks show

Councillor Mike Winstanley, Conservative group opposition leader on Wigan Council, said: I am, quite frankly, shocked. They talk about this being an example of cultural diversity but as far as I am concerned this is nothing more than pornography. I don't think this is appropriate. We should be looking to attract families into Wigan, not weirdos.

Reverend Peter Wood
Of Newport's Summerhill Baptist Church campaigning a Rockbitch gig said: This is a challenge to the values of the whole of Western society. It's important we don't just dismiss these people and their views as a joke - it's actually very dangerous.
Dr Tom Wright
The Bishop of Durham blamed the whole worlds evil on sex:

If we don't keep sex in its proper place perhaps we shouldn't be surprised when it backfires on us. I don't know what sort of a mindset Ian Huntley had but I do know that he grew up in a world so soaked in a free-and-easy sex culture, a pornography culture which says 'sex is there for the taking, everyone wants it really', without any sense of human dignity or of the preciousness of sex.

Reverend Rob Wykes
Crewe Christian Concern. Said a Crewe sex shop would be "wholly inappropriate" on the busy Market Street. He said many families were concerned about the nature of goods planned to be sold in the shop, including restricted-sale pornographic videos. He said: Obviously, this would be in completely the wrong place. On one Saturday we counted that in just 45 minutes more than 450 people walked past the door of the proposed shop, and they included mums with young children. (So passers by is an adequate reason for denying sexual pleasures to his fellow man))
Sally Young
Human rights abuser on Gateshead council who sets her personal dislike of sex shops above the rights of those she represents.
Raja Zarait
Slough Labour councillor

Seemed to let personal religious views arise above the law to properly justify restrictions. A pub was refused permission for striptease claiming it would 'affect the safety of the neighbourhood' This claim seemed to be based on the following statement from Zarait

There is already a lot of noise when people leave the pub using immoral language. Two ladies said men leaving the pub made sexual gestures towards them, and they said they now do not feel safe leaving the house

 

Prudes : I'm not a prude... BUT ...

Maureen Bywater
Petition organiser against Rotherham sex shop said: I'm no prude BUT... dirty old men could be hanging around outside the shop and I have to go past it at least four times a day with my grandchildren. We'd rather have a fruit shop or a chemists shop round here. Anything other than a sex shop.
Anne Dixon

August 2008: Censorial Twats

Anne Dixon made the Daily Mail for taking the publishers of a children's book to task for using the word 'twat'.

She said: I am not a prude. In fact, I am quite broad-minded, ...BUT... this is completely inappropriate for children. 

The book has an attractive cover and is clearly for children. They should not have to be subjected to trash and vulgarity. I did not expect this from a well-respected author and do not want my young niece to have to see this obscene slang.

Marie Fitzpatrick

Mayor of Kilkenny on the licensing of a lap dancing bar in 2008:

It's the beginning of the end for Kilkenny city. I'm very saddened and disappointed by the decision to grant a licence, but it is now out of our hands, said Marie Fitzpatrick, the old prude Mayor of Kilkenny: It's also going to take a lot from the tourist trade that we depend on here, as well as adding fuel to the drinking culture. I also believe the crime rate for assaults on women will go up.

I know people will think I'm being old fashioned, but someone has to stand up for morals. I'm not an old prude, I'm not anti-social and I'm not against alcohol ...[BUT]... It's just the long-term effects for Kilkenny city I'm concerned about,

Terry Follows

Stoke councillor who received complaints from parents concerned about their children seeing a billboard advertising a sex shop.

Councillor Follows said: I'm no prude... BUT ... I've had a number of complaints about it. Do we want that sort of billboard plastered around our city? People have been trying to explain to their children what it means and it can be very awkward.

Viv Gasteen
Coventry Methodist Central Hall minister, lodged an eleventh hour objection to plans to convert the Red bar in the City Arcade in to a pole and lap dancing venue. He  said: I'm not a prude and none of my family are prudes. I have three grown up sons and six grandchildren aged between eight and 23 and so I know what young people enjoy. BUT ... there is a limit.
Susan Hall

Susan Hall, a councillor in the London borough of Harrow.

27th December 2008: Longer Lasting Sex

She complained about the "Longer Lasting Sex" billboards, said they make the Club 18-30 package holiday company adverts look
like nuanced triumphs of understatement. We are no prudes, ...BUT... there is a difference between adverts which are a little risque – like the Wonderbra commercials – and billboards like these which are just crass.

Menna Jones
A student union women's officer prude at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth said about a local club's first topless dancing show. I was shocked by what I saw. Some of the things these dancers were doing were very explicit. I'm not a prude by any means, BUT ... I just wasn't comfortable at all watching that.
Terry Kelly
Ex Mayor of Lowestoft on the subject of a topless bar: I'm not a prude BUT ... I don't think sex shops and lap-dancing clubs are a good idea, and I don't think I would like to see Lowestoft going that way.

I know this is a topless bar but Lowestoft is a family resort, can't we leave the lap-dancing to Yarmouth? Hopefully in Lowestoft we can hold our heads a bit higher than that. I worked in Yarmouth for a long time, but it is seedy and these sort of clubs appeal to those sort of people.
Reverend Mark Sharpe
Former naval chaplain Reverend Mark Sharpe tells why a culture of hardcore pornography drove him from the service.

I’m not a prude, Sharpe said he had no problem visiting a topless bar in Florida... BUT next morning I found hardcore porn on my bed.

Samantha Strudwick
Strudwick said about a Bognor sex shop proposal that the location was completely unsuitable for such a use: I'm no prude and I know there's a place for sex shops in society... BUT... this shop would be on the main route to two primary schools in the town centre.
Michelle White

Bognor councillor objecting to private bathing club: Yes, whether people use these services and the new services is a matter of personal lifestyle choice. Yes, they are behind closed doors... BUT... the protection of the more vulnerable members of society is something we need to seriously consider, and urgently.

Barry Wood

Henley councillor who objected to lap dancing in the town

11th February: Hooray Henley

Wood formed a residents’ action group (RAG) to try to persuade South Oxfordshire District Council to reverse its decision to grant the club an adult entertainment licence.

He said: RAG is definitely not a morality group, nor are we Mary Whitehouse clones ...HOWEVER... we are deadly serious that Henley is not the place for a strip club.

 

Organised Crime : organisations with an attitude problem

American Express
Does not allow consensual adult porn sites to use their cards for payments
Amnesty International
From the BBC

Amnesty International agreed to give their backing to the Liz longhurst campaign, which has seen almost 35,000 people sign a petition against violent internet porn sites.

Amnesty funded the production of 5000 brochures supporting a proposal to imprison otherwise  innocent people merely for looking at staged sexual violence.

Association for Payment Clearing Services
Sandra Quinn, a spokeswoman said: We are not setting ourselves up as moral arbiters. BUT we have to be sure we are doing all we can about preventing the spread of such extreme images.
Association of Teachers and Lecturers
Urged the Government to test the law on internet pornography by prosecuting internet providers whose sites contained illegal material. Why is it that teachers tend to want to punish innocent parties for the perceived crimes of others? "Detention for the whole class until the culprit owns up"
Ayr Council
Shameful Councillors; Alan Murray, Gordon McKenzie and Ian Fitsimmons voted to reject the application for a sex shop licence on some bollox grounds of unsuitable location.

On the otherhand Douglas Campbell and David Duncan voted to approve the licence.

Barnado's
A woman was suspended from work in a charity shop on the grounds that she had applied for a sex shop licence (unsuccessfully). The shameful charity eventually decided to sack the woman. Hopefully Barnado's are being taken to an industrial tribunal for unfair dismissal.  
Boots the Chemist
A Boots spokeswoman said that it was company policy to tip off police if staff thought that a film being developed contained pictures of activity that could be illegal. (And they do frequently, never trust them with your name and address, they are a bunch of no good snitches, ask Julia Summerville).
BBC Radio 2
Speaking of Linda McCartney's Light Comes From Within , a spokesman said: We haven't banned the song, but we don't consider it suitable
Brighton & Hove Council
Pitiful prudes from New Censorial Labour have been picking on some terribly innocuous entertainment
  • The only striptease joint in town has been limited by the council to topless shows.
  • The council banned a beach volleyball event on the grounds it had a sponsor with a page 3 girls on their website
BBFC
Speaking about their idea of extension of their remit to Internet video:

Sue Clark, a spokeswoman for the BBFC said : We don't want to go down the route of cutting and banning things and blocking sites... BUT... a lot of the content that's out there on the internet is not something the majority of people would want to view. [...Which they WILL of course cut and ban...] She cited the example of Terrorists, Killers and Middle East Wackos , a compilation of video clips of actual killings and terrorist attacks. The compilation is banned on video or DVD in the UK because the BBFC believed it to contravene the Obscene Publications Act, but it is freely available on the internet through file-sharing sites.

British Video Association
Their publicity pamphlet openly boasts of regulation: The UK video industry is proud of the standards that it maintains. It is the most regulated video industry in the free world and is subject to more legal and voluntary controls than broadcast television, cable or satellite in this country. (But its attitudes like this that make the word 'free' a lie)
Broadcasting Standards Commission
Supposed monitor of standards of taste and decency who fundamentally believe that sex entertainment is bad. They are supposed to monitor public tastes and yet they ignore the popularity of sex entertainment proved via viewing figures in the millions. The BSC is lucky to have a particularly offensive chairman in the form of Lady Howe .

The inclusion, for its own sake, of erotic material in a free-to-air television service is a step change in the use of sex on British television."  It risks an erosion of standards and could encourage the more frequent use of such material, The BSC ruling states that erotic material should be banished to "pay television" channels (What a noxious attitude, sex is only allowed if you can afford pay TV) ,

Camden Council
Objected to posters from Virgin Cola, took them down and billed the company and suggested that the poster contravened the Obscene Publications Act.

The offending posters feature the sexy cartoon character Rollercola Girl with the message Open your mouth I'm coming tonight .

Cardiff Council
Cardiff council's  licensing and public protection committee rejected a licence for an erotica fair on the grounds that the arena was near schools, several churches, hotels and a Toys R Us store. Perhaps next time the fair should try a more suitable venue well established as a den of iniquity...ie the townhall.
Christian Congress for Traditional Values

A truly shameful bunch of nutters as from their own declaration:

The CCTV believes in the tradition of British tolerance, in non-extreme but robust debate about traditional family values and is opposed to policies of censorship.

BUT... on the subject of 9 Songs, the explicit film by Michael Winterbottom:

Most people in this nation, who respect the value of traditional Christian standards, would have expected sale of this type of pornography to be limited to licensed sex shops, or at the very least for the film to have been drastically cut from its original version. Yet the BBFC has passed 9 Songs without a single cut, so that any 18 year old can see the film at any cinema.

Christian Institute
Bunch of nutters in Newcastle who tried to stop an erotic fair via legal action in the form of a judicial review. Thankfully they were defeated.

They have also been planning to march against a proposed sex shop in Gateshead.

Christian Voice
Aggressive nutters who have allowed threats and intimidation to be speak louder than tolerance and compassion. Hopefully this is down to the organisation's leader, Stephen Green, rather than Christianity as a whole

They published the addresses of BBC officers who they believed were connected with the showing of Jerry Springer: The Opera leading to threats of violence. Since then they have pressured charities into not accepting much need money from donors they don't agree with and have decided to target their aggression on pregnant women attending abortion centres. 

Curry's
Retail chain including Dixon's and PC World rather believed moralistic hype about the computer game Bully and decided to ban it. Of course they were left with egg on their faces when it turns out to mild game with a 15 certificate.

Surely worth boycotting these holier than thou shops who pander to nutters.

Derry Council
In 2005 they put their own prejudices ahead of the law and decided that Derry may have no sex shops. They provide no justification of this policy as is required by the European Convention of Human Rights.
Dublin Airport
In the business class airport lounge at Dublin airport the computer denies access to the melonfarmers site. A 'cyber patrol' sign pops up claiming that the site contains sex/violence.
eBay

For the arbitrary censoring of articles for auction. They don't even accept the official BBFC certificate as a bench mark of what is legal to trade. The define some ethereal bench mark with no attempt to define what it is...shameful

Federation Against Copyright Theft
Pursue the interest of the bully boy multi-media companies well outside of the ideals suggested by their name. They have recently being pursuing disk importers even where there is no doubt that the film makers and artists have got their rightful share of the sales.
Glasgow City Council
Have ridden roughshod over human rights laws and imposed a total ban on table dancing without justification beyond that of agreeing with Andrea Dworkin: The big, brave men who want lap-dancing could use some lap-slicing in its place.
Google
Received from Google reporting on the Melon Farmers

Thank you for your interest in Google AdSense. After reviewing your application, our program specialists have found that the website currently associated with your account does not comply with our policies. Therefore, we're unable to accept you into Google AdSense at this time.

We did not approve your application for the reasons listed below:

  • Inappropriate language -
  • Adult content

Further detail:

Inappropriate language: We've found that your website contains content that isn't in compliance with our program policies. We don't allow websites with excessive profanity or potentially offensive content to participate in Google AdSense. Please review our policies (www.google.com/adsense/policies) for a complete list of site content not allowed on web pages.

Adult content: Currently, only AdWords ads that we classify as family-safe are available through the AdSense program. We've found your site to be predominantly adult or mature in nature. Therefore, we're unable to display relevant ads on your site. Please review our policies (www.google.com/adsense/policies) for a complete list

Hammersmith & Fulham Council
Currently wasting a ridiculous amount of tax payer's money trying to shield the customers at a table dancing club, Secrets, from seeing the girls' genitalia. This appears to be the direct result of a few well known influential residents such as John Humphrys feeling that the club brings down the tone of the neighbourhood. Of course this shameful council immediately sides with the whingers and give the club and their patrons no say in the matter. And just what is wrong with a bit of nudity anyway? It is a pretty mean minded low life that wants to unnecessarily deprive one's fellow humans of sexual pleasure.
Internet Vigilantes
A bunch of nutters who seek to impose their views of morality on their fellow man. They operate mainly by in haranging mail order sales of R18 videos.
Liberty

Their half hearted response to the Government consultation on the possession of extreme pornography will surely be used by the Government to support their repressive proposal.

Loughton Library
Thanks to John

I thought that I might mention that trying to visit your website from Loughton Library in Essex, I got the message on their computer that your website has been banned with the message "Sex site-not allowed to view" or some such wording. This will probably show up on the Debden Library, Essex computers as well.

Maggies Centres

The cancer charity Maggie’s Centres aim to help to establish a nationwide network of units for cancer patients and their families.

However they are very picky as to who they accept money from and certainly wouldn't accept money from Melon Farmers. In particular they refused to accept £3000 from a charity performance of Jerry Springer — The Opera due to pressure from the nutters of Christian Voice

Movement for Christian Democracy
From their own site...I thought Christianity preached against lies.

One of the major campaigning successes of the Movement for Christian Democracy has been its work to bring about reform of the BBFC. The MCD does not believe in censorship as a way forward, ... but as an organosation committed to accountability, democracy and non-violence, has had a particular interest in this area.

MTV
Nominated by Col

I would like to nominate MTV for your hall of shame - as well as routinely bleeping out every swear word & even words like "bullshit", "tits", "dick" etc etc etc from music video lyrics, also bleep out all disparaging references to commercial products, eg. In Eminem's "I'm Slim Shady" the reference to Burger King is deleted,

National Viewers and Listeners Association
A shadow of their former selves ever since Mary Whitehouse has ceased to be an active player. John Beyer is gamely trying to continue with the noxious soundbite about film censorship or internet porn.

Now known as Mediawatch-UK

NCH Action for Children
Children's charity who are calling for more internet regulation and boast of  a zero tolerance approach towards anything that is not child friendly. They seem to act as advisers to the Government on children's issues.

On the subject of the Home Office consultation on the possession of extreme pornography:

All of the material under discussion is clearly of a type that children and young people should be protected from anyway, whether it is on the internet or elsewhere. Hitherto CHIS (including NCH) has campaigned for better and stronger filtering technologies to keep material of this type away from devices which children and young people use. By making this material illegal it is therefore likely to give everyone involved in online publishing a greater incentive to find it and remove it, or provide better filtering products to screen it out, in the same way as they already do with child sex abuse images. In that light we have no hesitation in expressing our support for new legislation of the kind currently under consideration.

Newcastle Under Lyme Licensing Committee
Banned male and female strippers from any audience contact. In addition they have put a time limit on nudity. Of course they deny that they are being killjoys, but that's expected from killjoys.
Norwich City Council
A sex shop in Norwich, wanted the slogan Gifts, goodies & gadgets for yourself, your friends & your lovers emblazoned on the side of a Hackney cab.

Officials from Norwich City Council would only approve the design if the word gadget was removed — fearing it could offend people.
Nottingham Council
The nutters of the city council have a strict "no sex" policy. Last year the council banned nudity in city venues and pledged to fight any expansion of the sex industry. Their decisions have generally been overruled as they have been found dodgy when legally scrutinised
Object   Object logoCampaigners against the enjoyment of life.

In particular, they are leading the 2008 campaign for the criminalisation of customers buying sex and for lap dancing venues to be licensed according to the morals of local councillors

  Nominated by James, May 2008: Shoddy Object

I would like to nominate Object (www.object.org.uk), who are an organisation that clearly do not do their research before wanting to censor.

They are a rather amateurish site producing downloadable documents made with Microsoft Word (you've got to laugh) instead of using Adobe Acrobat (.pdf), like any other self respecting organisation would do.

They couldn't even spell Jenna Jameson correctly (it was spelt Jemma Jameson). Have you ever shopped at Argus (Argos) by the way? Haha. See the last link above.

Ofcom

TV regulators most notable in dreaming up worthless rhetoric

Prior to starting work on their broadcasting code they set out the following ideals

  1. Freedom of expression is an essential human right. It is the right to hold opinions, to receive information and ideas and to impart them.
  2. All regulation in the proposed Code must be prescribed by law and necessary in a democratic society. Unnecessary regulation should not be in this Code. Rules cannot be made at the whim of a regulator.
  3. Regulation should be transparent, accountable, proportionate, consistent and targeted only at cases where action is needed. That is a requirement of the Act but it is also part of the test Ofcom has to apply in restricting freedom of expression.

Then on a whim they have denied our freedom of expression with a totally disproportionate and unnecessary ban of legal adult material...

Orange
Mobile phone company who denies freedom of speech to those adults without a credit card. They refuse to accept the physical presence of an obvious adult as proof of age. Adult content is refused for those who have not got a credit card.
PC World
Never return a PC to computer to PC World, they seem to routinely scan  hard disks looking for dubious content and are more than happy to report their findings to the police. This obnoxious attitude recently had fatal consequences when the victim was driven to suicide.
Consumer Association Of Penang

Nominated by Dan, Aug 2008: A group which calls for a ban on a video game cannot be in favour of consumer rights.

A Malaysian dishonestly tagged consumer rights organisation called for a ban on Grand Theft Auto when it was blamed by a murderous Thai robber for his murder of a taxi driver.

The Porn Detectives

It seems that The Melon Farmers have been labelled as misogynists by nutters on a site called The Porn Detectives.

But I wouldn't take too much offence, as the term seems to apply widely to all who don't believe in their rather extremist views. Surely the vast majority of the civilised world.

Reading The Porn Detectives site led to an illuminating page: Reclaim The Night: The Feminist Vengeance of Sparkle*Matrix, Bea and Charliegrrl

The 'Dead Men Don't Rape' stickering and the ensuing discussion suggest that saying they hate men, is something of an understatement.

Private Shops
I am still smarting from being mislead into buying softcore magazines, misleading dressed as hardcore, about 30 years ago. I have never bought anything from a Private Shop since.

Things have surely improved since about 2000 when shop sales of hardcore were legalised. However where legislation gets in the way, Private Shops surely toe the required line but at the same time don't admit this to their customers.

The latest wheeze was reported by BigAndrew on the The Melon Farmers' Forum on 1st Nov 2005

I called into the Private Shop in Bristol Saturday to see what sort of prices the R18 films were. Whilst in there, there was a rather irate man stating he had tried ordering DVD`s through mail order (as he didn`t want to be seen going into a shop). All they did was send him a voucher to collect them from the shop. They explained they aren`t allowed to send them by post but said this could be changing soon. By the way, £40 for a DVD, what a rip off.

Royal and Sun Alliance
The Royal and Sun Alliance insurance company sacked 10 of its employees after they were caught distributing an email that showed cartoon character Bart Simpson flashing at his naked sister Lisa. (Wow that really sounds like a serious sackable offence)
Sainsbury's
Supermarket Sainsbury's  bowed to pressure from a tiny fringe Christian nutters group by withdrawing copies of a DVD of Jerry Springer: The Opera from stores around the UK because of "customer" concerns about the content of the musical. Sainsbury has admitted it received just 10 complaints.
Scottish Executive
Organised a consultation about proposed legislation to criminalise the possession of extreme pornography. They accepted responses by email but their filter deemed some of the words used in bona fide responses to be inappropriate. These responses were not found until after the completion of the analysis.

On discovering the error the Scottish Executive refused to rework the analysis and couldn't even be arsed to apologise to those who's views were ignored.

This refusal to reconsider the analysis should lead to sacking for gross incompetence in their responsibility to maintain democracy in Scotland.

Suffolk Coast Council
Adopted a policy which states that all applications will be required to show the location of the establishment in relation to facilities used by vulnerable adults – for example, health centres, sheltered accomodation or mental health institutions. (Outrageously patronising! I am sure that users of health centres do not appreciate being treated as weak minded and vulnerable)
Tesco
The British supermarket has recentlyissued guidelines governing taste and decency which have been sent to major distributors.   An executive said: But it has been made clear that the onus is on publishers to ensure the content is appropriate, Circulation departments won't put up a fight because we need the sales.

Tesco insisted of 15mins of additional cuts to a softcore 18 certificated video as passed by the BBFC

tinternet Cafe
Oxford Road
Great Yarmouth
Thanks to Shaun:

Melon Farmers is blocked at tinternet cafe with the statement: This site has been blocked because it contains matters related to sex

I asked the person in attendance, to unblock it, as there was no explicit pictures on it, and she refused. I then demanded my money back, and said I would not pay for censored internet access. This was grudgingly given.

I suggested that the attendant looks at the MF site, to see that there was no pornography there, but she refused to do so, saying "I don't want to look at it thank you!"....

To go from "tinternet" to a  more friendly and honest cyber cafe, walk back towards the sea front and turn right, and it is about 100 yards on your right.

Tower Hamlets Trading Standards
Recently took it upon themselves to go and play raiding parties at a pub venue where table dancing was evolving into lap dancing. All sorts of stupid rules governing strip joints now seem to be coming in on the back of this action.

Why is it that any form of sex entertainment is assumed to be totally illegal in the UK?...because it is regulated by arbitrarily worded laws and enforced by jumped-up civil servants playing at being policemen.

Truly Everything
Internet Lounges
Hardly on honest self description for an internet cafe as they filter out both the Melon Farmers and the abridged, cleaned up version, at Censor Watch
UK Protection of Children Online
Another bunch of nutters who hide behind 'child' banner but probably only seek to impose their views of morality on their fellow man. They join the Internet Vigilantes in haranging mail order sales of R18 videos.
Vidshop
Dutch based adult DVD shop that failed to live up to the promises it makes about its affiliate scheme. The company never paid several thousand pounds owing to the Melon Farmers.

But the Melon Farmers are not the only ones to have had problems with this company. From Kevin:

I have also had problems with vidshop.

I paid my money (£69.00) by credit card to vidshop for dvds at least 8 months ago, and they said they would forward them to me when in stock.

I have continually gone on their web site to see they are in stock, and all I get is the automated response, I have also written to them.

Any idea how to get my money back, or where I can complain to.

Wal-mart
Wal-Mart banned Sheryl Crow's second album because on it she sings about gun control and mentions Wal-Mart by name: Watch out sister, watch out brother, watch our children while they kill each other with a gun they bought at Wal-mart discount stores
Watford Council
Fuct by FACT. A Watford Movie Mart had been raided late in 1998 by the obnoxious FACT looking for region 1 DVD sellers. Watford council have succumbed to police pressure and have now banned all further events. Typically British bad attitude from Watford Council, have a little bother so totally close down the event, we wouldn't want people enjoying themselves now would we?
Westminster Council
Westminster council said when installing Orewellian streetmicrophones said that they would not be used to snoop, BUT... would allow its inspectors to take prompt action against anti-social behaviour.
Woolworths
Woolworths bowed to pressure from a tiny fringe Christian nutters group by withdrawing copies of a DVD of Jerry Springer: The Opera from stores around the UK because of "customer" concerns about the content of the musical.

Woolworths said it does not wish to act as censor BUT ... it was responding to "numerous complaints" by customers

World Online
The ISP World Online have recently removed *all* of their binaries newsgroups on their Usenet feed. A spokesperson for World Online gave a classic shameful explanation

The decision to remove binaries from the news server was a decision based on the very large number of families using our service, where parents do not want children (or even themselves) to see relentless porn images.

We are not just talking about child pornography, but the whole range of material that is available. We do have an obligation to restrict 'top shelf' material if parents, and our users, have asked us to do so.

The news groups are so full of porn it is hard to use them for what they really were for. If users want to see porn then they can do so simply by visiting the huge number of web sites available. And those that give their credit cards over, simply help to further the trade, but have not put any censorship on sites. But at least you know what you are doing when you go to these sites.

I hate censorship of any kind, but sometimes you need to help protect those that need it (ie:children) until they can truly decide for themselves.




 
 

 
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