Bloody Tories! Talked out a Private Members’ Bill in Parliament to lower the voting age to 16. This practise of talking out a Bill and not allowing a vote has got to go. If you’re against something – then make you can and vote against it. But the practice of just talking and talking until time runs out means you can block something – without the names of you and your colleagues appearing in black and white as having voted against.

Just once or twice trying to keep talking to keep a measure at bay can be a heroic attempt to argue your corner – and such cases are usually heavily publicised so there’s nothing sneaky about that – but the sort of talking out of bills we had today just shows how awful Parliament’s rules are – once again.

But to the point – the Tories and the Government were against the Bill. The Bill was Julie Morgan’s Private Members’ Bill (Labour) and although a lot of people support this – it is very, very difficult to get enough MPs to such a debate on a Friday to make it go through. No – not because MPs are slacking off, but because MPs generally have a heavy workload of commitments in their constituencies and so – particularly if their seat is some way from London – on a Friday they head off to them for a weekend of work there.

I made brilliant points (I thought!) and the Tories made specious ones – their key argument (a rubbish one in my view) being that if you lower it to 16 why not 14? Bleeding obvious – 16 begins the journey to adulthood which is full on in law by 18. We are simply debating what comes where on that scale. If you can legally marry and have a child (and sex and lots of other things) then in my view 16 is OK for voting. Tories kept saying but alcohol and cigarettes are 18. Yes – but when did anyone (at least in this country) die from voting? Clearly Tories don’t believe competence to vote begins at 16. Anyway – this one will come back again and again until one day…

As a footnote: to give credit where credit’s due, normally MPs have to bob up and down after each speaker in order to get called themselves in a debate, but when I explained to the Speaker’s office that my back was still playing up and giving pain, I was able to get to speak without having to bob up and down. So thank you!

Woke up this morning pretty much unable to move. Back out. Onset of old age perhaps! Had to cancel all arrangements and go to osteopath. Tapped away at computer a bit during day, but hoping will be able to move around again properly tomorrow.

Attended a briefing on tackling the demand for prostitution. The Government is looking at some form of legislation to curb demand for prostitution as opposed to the more traditional emphasis on the supply-side of the equation.

Not going to go into all the complexities of the discussion – as this is not an easy one to get right – but the MP from Ipswich (Chris Mole) where five women were murdered came to tell us of his experience.

Since the murders, the social services, police and other authorities and agencies have all been working together to eradicate street prostitution. They have brought about a reduction from thirty prostitutes on the street to none.

So – as I pointed out to Vernon Coker (Government minister) – maybe legislation isn’t the key; maybe the thrust of the Government’s action should be on support, training, housing and drug rehab exit strategies to get girls off the street and out of prostitution altogether.

The meeting was pretty discursive and Vera Baird, Barbara Follett and Vernon were all seemingly happy to have this wide-ranging discussion.

They did seem to be advancing, however, the view that legislation was the answer in as much as it was an equalities issue and that there could be no equality as long as men could still buy women.

Well – in ideological terms – yes of course. But in my view that has to come about mostly through cultural change – and legislation is at best only part of the route to changing culture – especially in a world where we still have 140,000 women waiting to bring cases about Equal Pay to the tribunal and there is such disparity on women’s pay. We have even had the Equal Pay Act for forty years – and still have issues with unequal pay.

Legislation just won’t deliver a magic wand solution. So legislate with caution was my message. It is more important to get the support in there and give people routes out of prostitution. I am pleased they are looking into it from the male demand perspective – about time! And of course – the volume of trafficking from Eastern Europe brings an whole other level of activity to bear.

Anyway – helpful discussion and much thinking to be done. The world’s oldest profession ain’t easy to tackle…