Leeds Insanity

Hi Its Chasmal here following up on Tonys piece on Leeds Council and Rebecca Charlwoods campaign to slash the number of clubs in the City and deny about 300 people a way of making a living.

The naivety that is being displayed by the Council is quite frankly beyond belief. It is to me quite obvious that the current Charlwood campaign is designed to remove Red Leopard and Wildcats from their current location in Leeds city centre. The Council aim to achieve this by either forcing them to change locations or by revoking their operating licenses, despite their being not a single infringement of their conditions of trading.

Lets look at this....

If the Council choose to revoke the SEV licenses, they will be taken to court and this will include a judicial review, which will be expensive because the Council would probably lose.

If a forced move of premises is the method of attack, the Council may well find themselves liabke for the costs associated with the move. Lets have a look at this in more detail and see what the cost centres would be...

Costs associated with settlement of outstanding lease period...

Legal fees for the above,

Cost of locating suitable premises,

Cost of ensuring new premises meet all safety and fire regulations,

Fit out and decoration of new premises,

Costs associated with move to new premises.

A ball park estimate of the above figures places the liability at around £2 million, but don't forget there are two, possibly three venues that may be involved, so lets total it out at around £5 million.

So in other words, Rebecca Charlwood is aiming to commit the Council to a potential liability of £5 million, with the full knowledge that the Council is suffering severe budget cuts, needing save £55 million in the coming year. In an article you can read here, the full extent of the cut backs being contemplated by the Council are as follows....

Eight residential homes and four adult day centres could close, but hey that's alright because lets face it, the security and safety of the elderly is nowhere near as important as getting those awful clubs away from the Town Hall.

A grant for school uniforms could be scrapped and nursery fees may rise, but still remember that education standards are meaningless when considered against the evil of lapdancing clubs.

More than 300 public service jobs will also be shed, but maybe that's not so bad because the Council can provide some kind of job training scheme similar to the one that Rachel Reeves suggested for unemployed lap dancers and club staff. Oh sorry they can't because they have no money.

Apparently Council leader, Keith Wakefield, said “painful decisions” had to be made in order to “protect front line services”, but he didn't mention anything about 'painful decisions' being made in order to protect the intellectual vanity of Rebecca Charlwood.

“What we have actually found by slight (sic) of hand, smoke and mirrors, is that our grant cut has meant we have had to find £55m. That makes it one of the worst settlements in the country – except for Bristol, the worst settlement out of the core cities. It’s still very much the northern cities taking the hit.”

Well I think I can safely say that club owners in Leeds have that the Council are dab hands at sleight of hand and smoke and mirrors themselves as they contemplate reserving about £5 million to close some clubs.

But at least the Council can get the cash they need by charging the public more for services. Apparently some of their ideas include.....

* Increasing Council house rents, garage rents and service charges by 5.9 per cent;

* Increasing children’s nursery fees by £2 per day;

* Increasing sport charges by approximately 4 per cent;

* Increasing bereavement charges by 7.5 per cent, although hardship grants will be available.

* Increasing parking charges for motorists up until 8pm

* Increasing the cost of residential car parking permits.

* Starting to charge for previously free adult social care services and free annual city events, such as the Party in the Park.

* Scrapping some free home-to-school/college travel from September, which would save £2.8m, or about half what the Council will need to relieve 300 people of their income.

So if you have an elderly relative whose care home has just closed, or you have a child without a school uniform or used to work for the Council and now find yourself jobless, please remember that Rebecca Charlwood not did nothing to help, but she in fact made things worse.

Is it just me or have Leeds Council taken leave of their senses?

Is it just me or are Leeds Council about to demonstrate that they are not fit for purpose?

You Can Be Rachel Reeves Intern.....

Rachel Reeves and Becca Charlwood are  interviewed this month in Red Magazine, largely its seems to tell the world how great each other are. The interview has some priceless material, especially when the interviewer asks them about their campaign against the 'vast'  number of clubs in Leeds. Becca admits that they want to close some clubs and move the rest to somewhere more appropriate and by this they must regret that Leeds isn't on the coast.

"Becky came to me and we brainstormed ideas". Said Rachel, essentially telling the world that this entire campaign was Beccas' idea and nothing that happens from now on is her fault. It gets better when Rachel tells the readership in a totally unpatronising way that she "has been in politics a bit longer" than Becca, or in other words, 'Becca doesn't know what she's doing'

Becca tells us that Rachel had got a brilliant sense of humour, something that we all knew from when she said that Leeds Council could implement a 750 person re-training programme for all of those that were going to lose their jobs when the Leeds clubs closed down. Mind you their Petition quite hilarious as well (its on 90 signatures).

That said the greatest evidence of Rachels sense of humour is the fact that you can enter a competition, the first prize being an essentially unpaid internship with Rachel Reeves. I say essentially unpaid because the lucky winner will get their 'reasonable' travel expenses paid and some money for a lunchtime sandwich. I find it wonderful that the Labour Party are condemning the Work Programme (which is a steaming pile of shit) and at the same time one of their MP's  is pulling the same stroke, but of course its different because the intern is getting some money for their lunch.

I can see what its going to be like for the intern now, because lets face it, most of their time is going to spent on undercover field trips to Red Leopard and Wildcats in a vain effort to dig up some dirt as ammunition for their silly campaign.

Just hope the poor sod can claim expenses for it....

Rachel Reeves wins Designer Feminist of the Year Award

Well as you can see we are back from our summer holidays and just look at what's been going on while we were away - Empress Rachel has won the Designer Feminist of the Year award for her work to close every lap dancing club in Leeds. It's well deserved and a good recognition for her work to destroy 7 businesses and make over 750 people redundant.

As you know, Rachel kicked off her campaign to enforce poverty and unemployment on people whose employers are in the wrong location by launching a petition, so lets go back to that and see how well she is doing. As you can see below, Rachel started her campaign on June 25th......

......below you can see a frame grab taken today (1st August 2012) and as you can see the Empresses petition has run out of steam at 72 signatures and no one has bothered to add their signature since 24th July.

This is all rather amusing because we decided to run a petition as well, although we were a little more choosy
than Rachel in terms of who we allowed to sign. Specifically, we requested that only those people who were either resident of Leeds or who would be affected by the closure of the clubs should sign the petition. Lets see how we fared. We started on July 20th .......

and as of today, we stand at 80 signatures and we will get more.

As you can see it took Reeves and her friends 38 days to reach 72 signatures, while we hit 80 in just over 10 days, which if nothing demonstrates a depth of feeling from those whose futures are being threatened by the Empress.

Now you would imagine that someone must have raised the issue of job losses with Rachel and someone did write to her. Happily we have been given her reply, names suitably redacted of course.

Its a great letter where by saying she wants to see clubs moved away from 'places of worship', the Empress reveals how her religious beliefs inform her policy views and also confirms what we always thought, that her campaign is based on moral values, which have no place in licensing issues...

Rachel also reveals her dislike of Wildcats and Red Leopard and makes nebulous comments about club proliferation and the 'effect this has on the city centre', but fails to qualify what the effect actually is. However, Rachel saves the best bit until last, when she does a wonderful job of being concerned about job losses.

".....I do understand your concerns regarding potential job losses and this is something I do not want to see happen to individuals...."

The Empress then goes onto explain that her campaign is really about where the clubs are and how many there are, which to me at least implies that she wants to see less of them in Leeds, which will lead to job losses, something that two sentences earlier she swore was something she didn't want to see happen.

At this point it becomes clear that she understands the potential consequences of her actions, has no real argument to support them and hopes that by saying she doesn't want to see job losses, that it makes it alright.

This is becoming a lengthy article, but I feel we should maybe clear the decks of Reeves stuff and look at the Tweets, something that is always good fun....

Rachel has not been getting it all her own way on Twitter and when someone asks about the potential effects of their being no clubs in Leeds, Rachel swerves it and admits that she wants to implement a cultural change in in the city, something that I guess can only be achieved if every club is closed down. And exactly what does she mean by 'changing culture'?

Alistair McDowall makes an interesting point about women being able to stand of their own two feet, which would enrage the Empress, given that she was parachuted into Leeds by an all women shortlist. That said McDowalls comment can be ignored by a snotty comment about lap dancing club proliferation. I like the fact that she clearly cannot cope with being challenged....

Alexandra Folkie makes a Dackist comment about banning the entire industry and Rachel publicly states that she thinks this is possible in Leeds and also admits that she as an MP is trying to interfere with council business, which MPs are not allowed to do. The best bit is when she says she would like to see some clubs of the 7 clubs closed, despite in her letter saying that she didn't want to see anyone lose their job.

Joe D Goldberg supports Rachels efforts in Leeds by stating they banned clubs in Haringey. Here Joe is being somewhat less that open and honest, because although they did ban clubs in Haringey, it was an easy process because there weren't any to begin with.

Nick Birch has never been inside a lapdancing club in his life, but nonetheless wants them banned and even with his display of ignorance, Rachel invites him to sign the petition.

There is a real problem with this tweet. The Leeds West Labour Party has voted for a cap in the number of venues.....so what? The city is run by the council, it is not run by Leeds West Labour Party and it is most certainly not run by Rachel Reeves.

The entire campaign is bullshit. An MP cannot interfere with council business and furthermore, once an SEV is granted, it cannot be taken away unless its terms are violated by the club in question. All that is happening here is that Rachel is using a group of useful idiots in attempt to gain cheap publicity.

So that wraps it up for today. Return tomorrow where we will start on Rania Khan again....

Mr Bum Face Supports Rachel Reeves

I am very lucky in that I have a number of people, all members of this site that keep an eye out for stuff and Alan S pointed out that Rachel Reeves anti-lapdancing petition had managed to secure the support of 40 people. I popped over to the site today to check it out and there are now a hefty 41 people that are the Empresses' camp, that said we can see that she has been joined by a very special signatory......

Yes, Mr Bum Face has weighed in on the side of the prohibitionists. Apart from the lack of response, the appearance of Mr Bum Face is the best thing about Rebecca Charlwoods' Rachel fronted campaign to impose her dubious morality on Leeds.

Mr Bum Face (or Bum to his friends) is known to have strong reservations about the whole lap dancing scene and is said to have close links to the local Labour Party. Others say that Mr Bum Face is one other that Ed Milliband himself.....

Speaking of Rachel Reeves, TonyN sent me a great link where Rachel Reeves points out the social cost of long term unemployment....

Rachel is of course correct in that Britain will pay a very heavy economic and social price for years of slow growth and high long term unemployment. But the failure of her lapdance club closure plan (actually Rebecca Charlwoods plan) will at least make things better for the 750 people on Leeds whose jobs were threatened and I suppose are still being threatened now.......by Rachel Reeves.

I really wonder exactly how stupid she thinks we are. Fresh from a campaign to make 750 redundant, the Empress is writing about how Tory policies are going to devastate the country, yet keeps quiet about her plan to inflict social chaos on Leeds. So actually she says the right things, but clearly doesn't believe a word of it

Rachel also seems to fail to understand that as an MP she cannot be seen to interfere the activities of a local council, but if there is some publicity generating profile for her, I imagine nothing else matters....

Empress Rachel - "We Will Get There In Leeds".....

or How I Learned to Stop Respecting Democracy If It Gets In My Way And Started Loving My Own Opinions Even More......

Empress Rachel and her supporters have been very busy bees in Leeds with their plan to try and force the Council to overturn the decision of the Licensing Committee to grant 7 lap dancing clubs the SEV Licenses they needed to carry on trading. Lets look at the Tweets.....

First off we have Rebecca Charlwood hubby Andy making the grand announcement that they are not taking what happened lying down and he breathlessly announces the grand petition. This is acknowedged by 'Bollinger Bolshevik' or Lisa Saunders as she is known to her friends. Lisa is very interesting, given that she made allegations about being assaulted outside Wildcats at 7.30 one morning, which is amazing given that the place closes at 5.00am. Anyway, Rachel gives thanks and hugs....

Roberta Blackman-Woods worked immensely hard to ensure the SEV legislation was pushed through parliament and in many respects was its architect. Object and the Fawcett Society certainly helped, but Roberta shouldered most of the weight. What she fails to understand though is that Councils are using the legislation in the manner that it was designed, its just that Roberta doesn't like the outcomes. This is quite an important comment, because here we have an MP implying that the legislation was not designed to give local residents more say, it was in fact designed to close clubs down, nothing more, nothing less.

The SEV Licensing process is a hearing, not a hung jury and that elected public servants are making comments like this in public is disturbing but also fantastic because we can use it against them later....

Rachel reassures Roberta that all is not lost and that 'we will get there in Leeds!'. 

No you won't.

Rachel trumpets her campaign again and the reverie of her supporters is broken by Tom Forth who asks if DR Teela Sanders is involved in her campaign. Well, to some she extent she is, its just that she's on the other side.

So, even if a Licensing Committee does its job correctly, the story is not over. I think we can see now that the entire SEV farce was never about the acknowledgement of local opinions or the views of the general public. It was designed as platform for bigoted extremists to impose their views on the rest of us. I find it incredible that a group of democratically appointed public servants and their groupies should invest time in trying to overturn a decision made by the same democratic process. The conclusion is clear, anyone behaving in such a manner is a disgrace to the whole electoral system, especially when they abuse it the pursuit of a personal moral agenda.

To conclude we have a Tweet from Rachel about the tragic closure of the Childrens Heart Unit in Leeds. On this matter she is correct, I just cannot help but think that if she had been less worried about what she imagines goes on in lap dancing clubs and focussed on saving childrens lives, the outcome for the Heart Unit could have been different.

That said, long time Rachel pal and Rebecca Charlwood hubby, Andy thinks the closure is cool. Look at what he has written and bear in mind please that he is apparently 'an employment relations lecturer'. Still, the next time Andy, Becks and Rachel get together for a curry, maybe they can discuss Andys views on overworked and exhausted surgeons and his apparent knowledge of paediatric cardiac interventions, 

If there are any voters in Leeds that are reading this posting, when it comes to vote, please remember what Andy, hubby of Rebecca Charlwood had to say about the closure of Leeds Heart Unit, because according to Andy, the surgeons aren't really as good as they could be.........

Designer Feminist of the Year - Voting Analysis

Its been just over a week since we announced our competition and although we only have 14 votes, a pattern is clearly emerging.....

The Muffia have polled no votes at all. Now if only they had done that stripper event in Hackney, things might have been different and I must admit I had high hopes for them. Sadly it seems that all that running round London flashing their pube wigs was all for nothing....

Cllr Rania Kahn has also underperformed with only 1 vote and I must admit I am shocked, but bear in mind she hasn't said or done anything about persecuting strippers for a long while now. In fact in a recent blog posting she reveals that she believes that she should become a ninja....

Things become a little more interesting when we move onto the real heavyweights of the designer feminist world....

Anna Van Heeswijk is struggling with 3 votes and you may be shocked, but I think this is indicative of the fact that Object has been a bit rudderless for 6 months now. I think it is becoming increasingly clear that the future of feminism lies with a new kind of activist as embodied by.....

Rachel Reeves MP currently in second place with 4 votes and at one point she was neck and neck with Charlie Dacke, but I think that Rachel saw the voting spread and decided to act. We announced the competition prize on July 2nd, then on July 3rd apparently by coincidence Rachel announced her latest project, a petition to pressure Leeds Council to close every lap dancing club in Leeds or at least get them moved somewhere else. Its clear that Rachel saw the prize and it galvanised her into action. The problem is that so far her latest move hasn't paid off....

Charlie Dacke is a legend and is currently leading with 6 votes. By playing it cool and keeping quiet she is building up a lead that Rachel Reeves will find hard to overturn. Time will tell, but I have a feeling that Rachel Reeves will be making an effort to put Charlie Dacke under pressure, especially now as I gather that Charlie Dackes dad will be the one making a presentation to Portsmouth Council regarding the proposed Nil Policy in Portsmouth.

Rachel Reeves... "So proud to be recognised for my designer feminism"....

Empress Rachel Strikes Back - With A Petition....

Well, we have been wondering exactly what Empress Rachel was planning, let's face it we all knew she wasn't going to give up quite so easily. That said it appears she has adopted the easy way out and elected to make some disapproving comments on her website (or someone has written them for her) and set up a public petition.

"..........All eight of the city's MPs, plus local councillors and religious leaders campaigned to reduce the number of clubs in the City Centre and signed a joint letter to Leeds City Council prior to the licensing hearings asking that the number of clubs in the city be reduced - and asking that where they did exist they should not be located on or be visible from main thoroughfares, shopping streets or community spaces or near civic buildings or places of worship..........".

I just love the emphasis on the number of MPs, councillors and religious leaders that tried to tell Leeds Council how to think and their shock that they were ignored. I mean how could the ordinary little people of Leeds Council Licensing Committee ignore people as virtuous and wise as Rachel and Rebecca and Andy....

Rachel has vowed to continue campaigning on this issue and commented,

‘I don’t believe that these sexual entertainment venues should be located on our busiest City Centre streets, especially adjacent to civic and religious buildings. Residents, visitors and children should be able to journey through the City Centre without encountering the sex industry and at the moment that is just not possible.

Don't be spiteful Rachel, you know as well as anyone else that there is no sexual activity in a lap dancing club and you are also aware that what happens goes on inside, out of public view.....

I want Leeds to be seen as a welcoming, family friendly city and I do not feel that the proliferation of these clubs in such prominent locations sends out a positive image of our city to visitors.’

But Rachel, Leeds is a family friendly city, after all it runs the 'BestBarNone' scheme for bars, pubs and clubs that manage their venues so as to ensure everyone has a safe time. You must have heard of the scheme Rachel, Wildcats was a runner up the other year....

Cllr Rebecca Charlwood, who spearheaded the initial campaign said,

We know she was the spearhead.....

'It's particularly disappointing that Leeds City Council did not take action to reduce the number of these clubs as many other cities across the country have done. We have the power to say where they should be and how many of these clubs is appropriate, if you take pride in your city its a common sense policy.'


Rebecca Charlwoods comment above is quite simply marvellous for a number of reasons. First I have to remind Rebecca that she does not have 'the power' to say where anything should go and surely she must know that, although I bet she is disappointed about the fact. Then, best of all, she goes onto to insult the Licensing Committee by implying that they have no pride in the City and lack common sense.

Nice one Rebecca, they'll be queuing up to help you now. But I really do understand your frustration though. After all, people like you, Andy and Rachel are here for our guidance and we really should be listening to you and doing what you say. Maybe its our lack of pride or common sense that's the issue here.

Anyway, Empress Rachel has decided to set up a petition. Lets see how it looks as of today, 5th May at 7.30 in the evening...

So we have 36 signatures, almost one for every copy and paste objection that the Council received about the clubs in the Licensing hearings. Lets look a little further.....

I take a strong view about things like this and really don't see why people from 'ostria', Portsmouth, LLanelli, Sheffield, Cheltenham and 'Dungeon' should be voting on what essentially is a matter that concerns Leeds. I also think that anyone who cannot be bothered to even leave a name should really count either. So how many does that leave us with ......I think its about 14 people.

This petition will achieve nothing but Rachel hopes it looks good so in that way its much like what she does in her day job....

Designer Feminist of the Year

I thought that if other blogs could have a proper competition, then so could I. I wondered what the theme could be and then I remembered the various people that we have encountered over the last 6 months who seem to spend their waking hours trying too close down strip clubs....

So it gives me great pleasure to announce the StrippingTheIllusion 'Designer Feminist of the Year Competition'. To makes things a bit more straightforward, I did the nominations although I will happily add new ones if anyone cares to make a suggestion. Nonetheless, these are the competitors......

Anna Van Heeswijk - The original designer feminist, now CEO of Object. You can all about them here and here.

Rania Khan - Tower Hamlets Councillor and general loather of the strip club scene. Read about her here.

Charlie Dacke - Someone who campaigns against clubs in Portsmouth such as Wiggle and Elegance as you can read about here and here.

Rachel Reeves - MP for Leeds who failed in her bid to get 7 clubs in Leeds closed. Read about her here....

The Muffia - Rad fem street theatre duo who you can read about here.

You will see the poll on the right hand margin of this blog and the competition will close on July 31st, at which point the winner will be announced. I can't imagine the winner will want to come to a prize giving, but it might be fun to invite them.

Postscript: The font is nearly invisible, but I have just spent 10 minutes trying to make it more legible and I have to say I failed. So I am afraid you are going to have to look closely and you can just about see whose button to push. Actually you can highlight it with your mouse....

Newspaper In 'Positive Article About Lap Dancers' Shock.

I actually cannot remember the last time I read an article in the media that approached the subject of lap dancing clubs in a positive manner. In fact I am not sure there has ever been one....until now. The Yorkshire Evening Post story - 'Lapdancers Reveal their Naked Ambition' is a well thought out piece, written in the aftermath of the Objects total failure to secure the closure of seven clubs in Leeds.

The writer, Rod McPhee decided to do what seems to be beyond the wit of people such as Rachel Reeves, Bernard Atha and Fawcett Society member Rebecca Charlwood and actually meet some of the people that work in the clubs, in this case Wildcats.

"........A lap dancer at Wildcats on The Headrow can rake in anything up to £2,000 a week – the most any of the four women we spoke to earned was the equivalent of £60,000 a year......"
Yes I am sure this is correct and that's one good reason why everyone campaigned so hard to keep the clubs open. As I demonstrated in a recent posting, employment opportunities with anything near the same income level are non-existent in Leeds.

What was nice to see was the dancers were portrayed with humanity. The truth of the matter is that they are ordinary people just like us with career ambitions that include in the case of the girls interviewed, aspirations such as nursing, journalism and even health and safety inspection.

What was particularly interesting were the comments attached to the article. Almost all were very supportive, but still there were some that I found irritating.....

This is one of the irritating ones. Hard to know what issues Steven91 is reflecting here, apart from the fact that he can't cope with women who earn more than he does. I don't imagine they put 'lapdancer'on their CVs either, but the only reasons for that is the swarm of bigoted twats that seem keep popping up everywhere.....

Ronald Jeremy responds to Steve with maybe more tact than I.......

Sarah Covell makes a valid point about prostitution, but I really wish she had not expressed it in the same content as her comment about the clubs. But otherwise its a great comment from a sensible person.

Steven91 is soon back on the case and displaying his inability to understand or accept other peoples arguments. I say this because he makes the same point as he made before and adds an insult along with it. Steven91 really should invest his energy in making his own life better, as opposed to hoping that other peoples lives are damaged by the same ignorance and prejudice that he so willingly flaunts.

Steven91, you should written 'legalised prostitution', when you fail to write and phrase correctly you look like an arse, which actually you do when you make comments that you cannot support.

  
TonyN tries to reason with Steven91, but quite frankly his time and words are wasted.

So overall a great article and some great comments. We will of course be back here again next year, because Rachel Reeves and the gang aren't going to give up, but I anticipate some peace in Leeds for the time being.

Moralist Olympics in Leeds - The Empress Strikes Back?

Rachel Reeves, or Empress Rachel as we will now call her, spent much of the weekend Tweeting her disappointment that Leeds Council Licensing Committee didn't share her views that every club in the City be closed at the probable loss of 750 jobs.

Below we can see her reaction to the news....

By 'much more needed' we can assume she means 'closed down'. Mike Parks believes that its all about revenue and asks everyone to remember the time he was a JP. Nonetheless, Empress Rachel is down, but not out and states that the total failure she and her gang experienced is only the beginning. She plans to bring in more people from London to tell Leeds Council how to run the City.

Dave Simpson bemoans how bad Leeds is getting with 'shop boards up' just like it was in the early nineties. Kind of weird comment, given that if Empress Rachel had got her way, there would have been 7 more sets of boarded up premises, two of which would have been opposite the Town Hall, which would have looked great for visitors to the Council. The Empress points out that the current state of Leeds is more reminiscent of the 1980s recession, which given that she was born in 1979 either means she has a great memory or saw some pictures of it somewhere.

Chris Matheson, 'Trade unionist. Evertonian. Labour supporter. Tory despiser. Racism hater', demonstrates his commitment to the economic well-being of the people by saying all clubs should be banned because they are 'revolting' and reassures us that he is 'no prude'. I suggest Chris pops into 'Wildcats' and talks to the dancers about their job and explains why it is revolting. He won't do this of course, because its easier to grandstand on Twitter than find things out for himself.

Empress Rachel congratulates Rebbeca Charlwood for her excellent campaigning and Rebbeca responds with a lovely 'huge thx'. I would love to work for Rachel, because I would get a bonus no matter happened, even if my campaign was flawed to begin with and ended in almost total failure...

Now we see the outline the Empress Reeves plan for vengeance. She is going to write a motion for the Labour branches, because lets face it they can't do it for themselves and she is going to get Neil Walshaw to take it 'to Headingley'. Neil is plainly thrilled about this idea and asks her for a reminder e-mail to undertake this critical task. As a reward Neil gets a lovely e-kiss. So sweet....

I have saved the best Tweet until last though....

Mike Parks (he used to be a JP) raises the possibility of an 'Inspector that looks into licensing matters' that maybe, just maybe can overturn democratic decisions that ambitious MPs don't like. Best of all, maybe the Empress and Becca can attend Licensing Meetings and make sure the locals do the right thing. The Empress thinks this is a brilliant idea and states that she will pursue the idea with a vengeance.

This has to be the most frightening thing of all, because Members of Parliament can in no way interfere with the business of a local council, so I have to ask why Rachel doesn't know this. Maybe she just plans to sit and give the Committee disapproving looks and tut whenever she hears something off message. Maybe she plans to attend by video conference, if so, future Leeds Council Licensing Committee meetings may look like this.....

I mean this is not a photo of a Leeds Council Licensing Committee meeting, but you get my drift. Empress Rachel can be anywhere in the world and project her disapproval at the committee members. You can see above that she is trying to influence the bald chap on the left. If he doesn't start agreeing, maybe he can be zapped with something....

So my message to every club owner in Leeds is that as Sun Tzu said, you plan for your enemies capacity, not their intention. This isn't over and as those that sat in on 'Wildcats' Licensing Hearing know, certain people are prepared to say and do almost anything....

Moralist Olympics in Leeds - Purple Door and Deep Blue

Yesterday two clubs had to face the Licensing Committee, Purple Door and Deep Blue. This article will look at the objections raised against Purple Door first. Essentially, the objections were identical to those submitted against Liberte on during Mondays hearing. The numbers are as follows....

Overall 32 objections were received, Rachel Reeves of course had pride of place with her letter being marked as Number One. Bernard Athas e-mail regretting that he couldn't make moral judgements appeared again as well. After that it was the same as usual from Cllr Christine MacNiven, Lisa Mulherin and Kamilla Maqsgood.

The same three kinds of template letters used against 'Liberte' also appeared again and accounted for 23 objections. The remaining entries were again identical to those submitted to the 'Liberte' hearing. I do however have some observations to make...

It has been proposed that a 'welfare pack' a raft of measures be adopted to help ensure the safety and well being of dancers in Leeds clubs. This of course is totally unacceptable to Object, who justify their view that the dancers welfare is best served by making them jobless, by rolling out a quote from their tired 'Lapdancer Testimonials' portfolio.

I hate it when Object lie by trying too convince us that they care about dancers.

Furthermore, it seems that the Object Leeds have decided to try and be really clever and use Teela Sanders own research against the industry. As you can see above, Object have copied and pasted an article from the Yorkshire Post, itself culled from Dr Sanders. I am not sure what point they are making by doing this, apart from seeming to support the view that pole dancing skills are in decline and bemoaning the money that hard working dancers can make.

The best original comment is below....

One group of objectors decided that they would justify their view that womens right to equality is best achieved by making 500 of them jobless, by framing the club scene as a modern day equivalent to the 'Black and White Minstrel Show'. It is of course an idiotic comparison, because if Leeds Council closed a club where 'black people put on shows for whites', the council itself would be justifiably accused of being racist and there are clubs where 'gay individuals' dance for the straight community. Many straight females use gay venues to socialise in so I fail to see the comparison. It is essentially an intellectually half baked attempt to make a point, but quiet frankly, apart from our amusement it has little or no value.

I wonder if the writer would be happier of the customers were 'half-naked' as well.

I also want to make the point that I hate it when people of colour are referred to as being 'black', as I find it racist.

So that was the opposition to Purple Door, essentially the same group of cynical politicians and moralists as yesterday...

Lets look at the next hearing, which was considering the application of Deep Blue.

The count stands at 32 objections. Reeves, Atha, MacNiven, Maqsgood and Mulherin submitted the same letters as they did for the last two clubs and the template letter count stands at 20. The rest of the objections were of course the same as on the last hearings.

Was there anything interesting? Well kind of....

Here the writer admits that ordinary night clubs can be 'very intimidating', a fact that anyone that has walked past one knows. But hang on...I thought it was just the lap dancing clubs that caused problems? Clearly not. I also have to let the writer know that 'there is this kind of lap dancing bar there' now and trust me you be a lot safer passing it that any normal night club. In fact I am amazed that the writer clearly hasn't even noticed Deep Blue and I also wonder if they objected to the venue when it was a normal nightclub and 'very intimidating'.

Above we have another example of an objector getting vicarious thrills by implying the dancers are prostitutes, an accusation they make without any supporting evidence.

In summary, the objections are quite frankly incredibly weak and any standard nightclub that was faced with them would walk away unscathed. But in this case we must remember that we are talking about lap dancing clubs, that by their nature have to accord to a different set of license conditions, set by bigots and petty minded moralists and that is a whole different ball game...

Postscript: Tomorrows Moralist Olympics will feature the hearings for the clubs that everyone (well 30 people maybe) seem to love to hate - 'Wildcats' and 'Red Leopard'. From what I have heard so far about what occurred, I will have an incredibly entertaining report for you to read.....

Clubs Threatened In Leeds - Rachel Reeves On Unemployment

"And when the single-minded pursuit of short term gain overrides any sense of social responsibility, then it can corrode the context of trust that a well functioning market economy depends on". 

Rachel Reeves, an excerpt from the speech she delivered to the Christian Socialist Movement Tawney Dialogue meeting on 10th May 2012

Rachel Reeves says the words, but does she believe them? I somehow think not because she is currently spearheading a campaign to close every lap dancing club in Leeds, in a vanity campaign that will cost in the region of 500 jobs.

Lets take a look at the employment situation in Leeds and I have a graph that was compiled by Leeds Council....

The above graph may take a minute to interpret as it contains 4 years worth of data all in one range, but we can see that the number of benefit claimants in Leeds stands at around 25,000 people and at the same time as this we remember that Rachel Reeves is campaigning to increase this number by 2% almost overnight.

I undertook some further research into the local employment situation and visited the Reed website, which is searchable by user selected criteria. I decided to do a search for jobs that would provide the potentially unemployed dancers with similar flexibility of hours and something approaching their current earnings. The result is captured below for you to look at and disbelieve....

I made it as open as possible, within a 20 mile radius of Leeds, on a roughly equivalent salary, including permanent, contract, temporary and part-time jobs. As you can see there are 20. Well that will deal with about half of the students employed at Wildcats, assuming of course they are interested in door to door sales or driving a lorry.

Rachel Reeves utter contempt for the people whose jobs and futures she wishes to see broken on the anvil of her personal ambition is an amazing thing to behold. Interviewed recently in the Asian Express Newspaper, she said the following amazing sentence...

"I recognise that people are employed by these clubs, but the council could put something in place to train them for another job".

Rachel insults the staff when she makes the assumption that they actually need training, many are graduates and are more than job ready, the issue facing them is that there are no suitable jobs out there. What is more amazing is how Rachel simply brushes off the 500 job losses on the basis that Leeds Council can wave a magic wand and put into place 500 individual vocational training programmes, that cannot by their nature lead to any guarantee of subsequent employment.

Rachel Reeves knows that the jobs she plans to destroy cannot be replaced in any sensible length of time, she knows this but simply doesn't care. Recently the dancers of Wildcats held a public protest meeting to fight for their futures. Rachel Reeves was nowhere to be seen, probably because she knew that she had no comfort to offer the girls and almost certainly because once again, she doesn't care.

The other thing that strikes me, is Rachels' desire to spend Leeds Councils money. Funding 500 vocational training schemes will cost in the region of £1 million, based upon an average unit cost of £2000 per Flexible Support Fund participant. Of course we forget the cost of unemployment benefit for 500 people and the Housing Benefit that will have to be paid out as well. If we fold in to the equation lost tax revenue from the clubs, we see that Rachel has failed to undertake any analysis of the economic impact of her campaign. Given that between 2000and 2006 she worked as an economist at the Bank Of England and the British Embassy in Washington, this is something I find quite surprising.

You would imagine as a Christian, that Rachel would have at least tried to to engage with those whose futures she is threatening, but to my knowledge she has not even tried. So when Rachel delivered her speech at the Tawney Dialogue of the Christian Socialist Movement, did she understand that a great example of the 'single minded pursuit of short term gain' that 'overrides any sense of social responsibility', could easily be seen as her desire to see every club in Leeds closed? Furthermore, does Rachel understand that the 'context of trust' that will be 'corroded', will be the one that she has with her constituents?

Rachel sees cheap votes in pandering to a mixed group of radical feminists and moral bigots, but nothing is cheap as it seems and in the long term it will cost her her seat in parliament.  The 500 people she wants to see jobless, together with their dependants will see to that at the next general election, because 7016 is not really much of a majority. Not much of a majority at all, actually....