After all, we’ve been recently informed:

“Sex abuse scandals in the Roman Catholic Church are proof that that ‘the Devil is at work inside the Vatican’, according to the Holy See’s chief exorcist.”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article7056689.ece

And the church has been preparing counter-measures:

“A Vatican-backed college is launching a new course for exorcists – Roman Catholic priests who cast out evil spirits from the possessed. Lessons at the prestigious Athenaeum Pontificium Regina Apostolorum will include the history of Satanism and its context in the Bible.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4272689.stm

Rape stats as reported in 2007:

- About 80% of rapes never reported
- One-third those reported not recorded by police
- A fifth of those recorded reaches trial
- Half those tried result in conviction
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/6314445.stm

And if Loughton didn’t actually say outright that underage mothers should be prosecuted, he didn’t suggest anything else and DID seem to imply that the lack of prosecutions wasn’t a good thing.

Same old, same old.

Some highlights:

- 27% of UK 15 year olds have been drunk 20 or more times compared to 12% in Germany, 6% in Holland and 3% in France
- 44% of UK teenagers are frequently involved in fights compared to 28% in Germany.
- 35% of UK 15 year olds have used Cannabis in the last 12 months, compared to 27% in France, 22% in Holland and 18% in Germany.
- 40% of English fifteen year old girls have had sexual intercourse, compared to 29% in Sweden, 24% in Canada, 20% in Holland, 18% in France and 14% on Spain.
- 15% of English girls fail to use contraception.
- A 2007 UNICEF child welfare study placed Britain bottom of a league table of 21 industrialised countries.
- Between 2003 and 2006 violent crime committed by UK under 18s rose 37%
- Marriage rates in Britain are at a 146 year low.
- Class sizes in Britain are among the highest of 20 Western countries.
- British children start school earlier and take more exams than other European countries.

” . . the UK has the highest percentage of teenage pregnancies in Western Europe – and is second only to the United States, according to figures compiled by the World Health Organisation. . .

“The teenage pregnancy rate in Holland is only one-fifth as high as that of the UK – only five births per 1,000 teenagers compared to the UK’s 27. Its abortion rate per teenage head of the population is also one of the lowest in Europe.”
http://www.independent.co.uk/extras/big-question/the-big-question-why-are-teenage-pregnancy-rates-so-high-and-what-can-be-done-about-it-1623828.html

Do all those other countries in west Europe have low teen pregnancy rates because of their official policies to actively prosecute teenage mums or because of other reasons? Could the high teen pregnancy rate in Britain be linked with this?

“The survey of 35 countries found the UK had the third-highest number of 15 and 16-year-olds with an alcohol problem.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/lawandorder/5054380/Britains-chronic-teenage-binge-drinking-problem-highlighted-by-European-poll.html

And this?

“Sweden has the highest incidence of reported rapes in Europe – twice as many as ‘runner up’ the UK, a new study shows. In Sweden, 46 incidents of rape are reported per 100,000 residents. This figure is double as many as in the UK which reports 23 cases, and four times that of the other Nordic countries, Germany and France.
http://www.thelocal.se/19102/20090427/

He is the Tory with shadow ministerial responsibility for the area he is talking about. So I am assuming he is speaking for the Conservative Party as a whole.

I particularly enjoyed this: “Where are the consequences of breaking the law and having irresponsible underage sex? There aren’t any” – surely pregnancy is one possible consequence, by his own admission…

Also interesting that underage single mums get several mentions, but the boys who impregnated them don’t get one.

But he is obviously an idiot.

11 – in the UK we don’t have an offence called ‘statutory rape’, we have the offence of ‘unlawful sexual intercourse’ and if you look at the guidelines for prosecutors, available online here – http://www.cps.gov.uk/legal/s_to_u/sexual_offences_unlawful_sexual_intercourse/ – you will notice that we don’t go in for prosecuting children for having sex with children a few months younger than themselves. Judgments have to be made by prosecutors as to whether the prosecution is in the public interest – and it may well not be in the cases that you suggest would be prosecuted (but in my view would be unlikely).

This has led to so-called “Romeo and Juliet laws” in some jurisdictions which remove or cut down criminal penalties based on relative age (Texas, for instance, has one – as does Finland). Admittedly, these are often unfair – they often only cover heterosexuality, like the old British consent law (16 for male-female consent, 18 for male-male consent).

This statement just shows that hidden behind Cameron’s goofy Blair-like populism (Guinness from a can while watching darts on Sky+ anyone?) is the same old Section 28 attitude with some liberal airbrushing.

You know what’ll help remedy that though? A nice prison sentence and a criminal record.