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Some people appear to be criticising the way Simon has handled the sexuality issue on the basis that what he said a couple of weeks ago was misleading, or perhaps some kind of legalese "technical" answer along the lines of - "Are you gay?" "No, I've had sexual relations with women". Or that he's been avoiding the "B" word ("bisexual"). Many such people are people who should know better, having often struggled themselves with their own sexual identity. Some have not, but would just prefer some kind of "certainty" that they can then celebrate because they understand the label.

I believe that as liberals we should all accept and celebrate that there are a whole range of sexualities and that people self-define. This nineteenth century word invented to describe a pseudo-medical "condition" (and by implication some kind of either illness or moral deficiency) has no place in the twenty-first century liberal's dictionary. Until we reject such categories we will continue to see people hounded till someone pins them down to some neat classification (including those categories we decide label someone a criminal or of criminal intent).

I always remember a constituency dinner where Conrad (Lord Russell to non-Lib Dem readers) explained that a fundamental difference between us and Labour was that we treated every person as an individual where Labour tries to categorise everyone into "manageable" groups. To me, that individuality has *got* to include something as basic to our make-ups as our sexual self-definition.

Now, whether Simon shares that view and whether he was trying to convey some personal self-definition is another matter and I/we obviously don't know. But I just want to say how much I loathe these attempts to categorise people according to some arbitrarily defined labels. My only criticism of Simon if this is the case is his belief that this could be conveyed through our conventionally hide-bound national newspapers!

Jeez - I must read some Foucault...:)

This reported in today's Oxford Mail:

Life Ban For Leys Thug (from thisisoxfordshire)



A violent thug has been banned from setting foot in Blackbird Leys for the rest of his life.

Magistrates slapped an anti-social behaviour order (Asbo) on David Reid, 37, after hearing about 26 convictions for offences including theft, burglary and assault in the past 22 years.

Reid is banned from ever entering Blackbird Leys the first life-time ban for an area of Oxfordshire and will eventually be barred from entering Greater Leys, where he currently lives.

Now, I am sure that this chap has caused a huge amount of misery to other people in his time. And he clearly deserves some kind of punishment and management. But an ASBO? Banishing him from his home area, where his family still lives, for the rest of his life? It's positively mediaeval. What's next for the New Labour Big Brother? Public floggings? Using the perfectly good vegetables thrown out by Tesco for throwing at the prisoner in the local stocks? I appreciate he did not contest the order - though that's probably a reflection of the assistance available to people faced with this non-criminal sanction - but one does wonder whether he'll even understand it.

Even more importantly, does anyone in their right mind believe that the trouble this chap has created will stop because he leaves Greater Leys? No, it will no doubt go with him. That might help Greater Leys, but it's not going to help other areas to have him moved around. So, does he get another ASBO when he causes "sub-criminal" trouble in Northway? Then again in Barton, or wherever he finds himself next? He clearly can't help himself, but whether a series of threats like this is helping him, and therefore those who might have to come into contact with him in future, is extremely doubtful.

So what are the answers? Well, for a start, it was reported also that the magistrate heard that over that 22 year period Reid had picked up convictions carrying 20 years' worth of jail sentences. Has he served them all, in full? It's in cases like this that one is sorely tempted by the Californian idea of "three strikes and you're out" - in other words on the third offense you get life. I don't personally agree with that though, because it has ended up in some very petty criminals incarcerated for life little more than being "naughty boys".

But we have a system of license here. If you do not serve your entire sentence behind bars, which we presume this chap hasn't since he's had time in between sentences to run up 26 convictions, and you're allowed out on "license" it means you can go straight back inside to serve the rest of your original sentence as well as any new sentence for not keeping your nose out of trouble.

So why is a civil order being used here where serving his sentences out might be more appropriate? It is clear he has not been rehabilitated or reformed by his sentences yet, though I do as a good (sic!) Catholic firmly believe in the ability of every individual to be rehabilitated, to show genuine contrition. And this sort of thing clearly diminishes the threat of a civil order intended to curb anti-social but not quite criminal behaviour, or where a criminal conviction would be hard to obtain.

I've long wanted to rail against ASBOs, particularly in Oxford where they are clearly being used as a political tool. Labour's local election leaflets even proudly proclaim that "they" have doled out more ASBOs than any other town in the Thames Valley, as if it's some kind of league table to be proud of. And to hand down the same potential five year sentence to a 37 year old with a twenty year history of criminal offences against which convictions were secured and a bored teenager not getting enough attention at home, at school, not on the correct diet or whatever is just mad.

And I am particularly sad that my good friend, Mick McAndrews, standing for Labour (this time around) in Barton, has allowed his name to go on a leaflet promoting ASBOs, when he himself has realised they are not what is needed in many of the cases he has dealt with. There are some parts of town is which the most decent citizen might be hard pressed not to become terminally depressed and in some cases anti-social as a result. Depressing areas with housing that will never be "decent" except in the fairy tale world of John Prescott's housing team. If Labour were truly ambitious for Oxford they'd be finding ways of dealing with such endemic depression to give their residents some hope for the future. They're not depressing because of the people that are there, I hasten to add, but because homes fit for heroes are no longer even fit. And that responsibility lies firmly at the feet of housing authorities.

I forget the name of the comedienne woman on TV but with Labour in Oxford she was right: "don't abolish ASBOs, they're the only qualification some of these kids will get!" More appropriately, perhaps, "don't abolish ASBOs, it's the only league table a Labour run Oxford can top"!

Over at The 1909 Group, I've got an essay up on the new National Housing and Planning Advisory Unit, and its rather poor prospects for success if it doesn't get to grips with land and monetary reform, rather than just pushing new additional housing on often unwilling communities.