Job Centre Ban Strip Ads
So, Job Centres have banned listings for strip clubs and lap dancing clubs. They claim this to stop exploitation of young people, but we know different. This is one of the invented, scandalous slurs on the industry that is trotted out whenever they want to score points against the industry, there has never been a proof of venues employing under age performers. Just another repression along with the banning or taxi livery from venues. The most interesting part of the BBC article was that there are 30,000 lap dancers in the UK, enough for fair treatment surely? Does the UK government want to criminalise all these people?
The industry is worth £2 billion and can we really see the new government keeping up the repression on the industry which seems to be going from strength to strength? In view of the cuts all across the civil service and public services I personally think they could channelled their energies into something more useful: schools, hospitals and law and order rather than having digs at a legal and long established industry which has risen in the last 20 years to become established in every town in the country.
I am not suggesting that the strip industry will single handedly save the UK from the recession but spending our money to repress it can hardly offer good value for a country facing a double dip recession. We can see from history that when times get tough the people in charge usually opt for a back to basics (remember that?) policy picking out a few targets (lap dancing, cheap alcohol, drugs etc) and make all the right noises about them whether they are really the problem or not. If you think of the 80s you think of the Tories war on football hooliganism, is the strip industry really to be compared to that?