Alistair Thompson: Labour’s moral recession is worse than the economic one

Alistair Thompson was Conservative candidate for West Bromwich East at the general election. He also runs Media Intelligence Partners with business partner Nick Wood, the former press secretary to Conservative leaders William Hague and Iain Duncan Smith.

Reading the papers last week, I came across an article in the Daily Mail that not only perfectly sums up the moral bankruptcy of the Blair/Brown Governments, but also the sheer ludicrousness of much of the State’s spending.

For those who missed the article, the story was about a young disabled man, whose identity was concealed, but who has received money from a Government fund to go to Amsterdam and... wait for it... visit a prostitute!

I could hardly believe my eyes as I read the story. At a time that our country is facing the worst economic climate since the 1930s the last Government set up fund, which we are told is ‘legitimately’ being used to fund sex tourism.

You don’t have to be an expert to know about the problems associated with prostitution, the involvement of organised crime, how many of the prostitutes are trafficked, the high STD infection rates and drug and alcohol addiction rates, so why is he Her Majesty’s Government contributing to this vile industry?

Where was the Gordon Brown’s famous moral compass when this madcap scheme was dreamt up? And why were no restrictions placed on how this money could be used?

Alistair Thompson was Conservative candidate for West Bromwich East at the general election. He also runs Media Intelligence Partners with business partner Nick Wood, the former press secretary to Conservative leaders William Hague and Iain Duncan Smith.

Reading the papers last week, I came across an article in the Daily Mail that not only perfectly sums up the moral bankruptcy of the Blair/Brown Governments, but also the sheer ludicrousness of much of the State’s spending.

For those who missed the article, the story was about a young disabled man, whose identity was concealed, but who has received money from a Government fund to go to Amsterdam and... wait for it... visit a prostitute!

I could hardly believe my eyes as I read the story. At a time that our country is facing the worst economic climate since the 1930s the last Government set up fund, which we are told is ‘legitimately’ being used to fund sex tourism.

You don’t have to be an expert to know about the problems associated with prostitution, the involvement of organised crime, how many of the prostitutes are trafficked, the high STD infection rates and drug and alcohol addiction rates, so why is he Her Majesty’s Government contributing to this vile industry?

Where was the Gordon Brown’s famous moral compass when this madcap scheme was dreamt up? And why were no restrictions placed on how this money could be used?

Alistair Thompson was Conservative candidate for West Bromwich East at the general election. He also runs Media Intelligence Partners with business partner Nick Wood, the former press secretary to Conservative leaders William Hague and Iain Duncan Smith.

Reading the papers last week, I came across an article in the Daily Mail that not only perfectly sums up the moral bankruptcy of the Blair/Brown Governments, but also the sheer ludicrousness of much of the State’s spending.

For those who missed the article, the story was about a young disabled man, whose identity was concealed, but who has received money from a Government fund to go to Amsterdam and... wait for it... visit a prostitute!

I could hardly believe my eyes as I read the story. At a time that our country is facing the worst economic climate since the 1930s the last Government set up fund, which we are told is ‘legitimately’ being used to fund sex tourism.

You don’t have to be an expert to know about the problems associated with prostitution, the involvement of organised crime, how many of the prostitutes are trafficked, the high STD infection rates and drug and alcohol addiction rates, so why is he Her Majesty’s Government contributing to this vile industry?

Where was the Gordon Brown’s famous moral compass when this madcap scheme was dreamt up? And why were no restrictions placed on how this money could be used?

Alistair Thompson was Conservative candidate for West Bromwich East at the general election. He also runs Media Intelligence Partners with business partner Nick Wood, the former press secretary to Conservative leaders William Hague and Iain Duncan Smith.

Reading the papers last week, I came across an article in the Daily Mail that not only perfectly sums up the moral bankruptcy of the Blair/Brown Governments, but also the sheer ludicrousness of much of the State’s spending.

For those who missed the article, the story was about a young disabled man, whose identity was concealed, but who has received money from a Government fund to go to Amsterdam and... wait for it... visit a prostitute!

I could hardly believe my eyes as I read the story. At a time that our country is facing the worst economic climate since the 1930s the last Government set up fund, which we are told is ‘legitimately’ being used to fund sex tourism.

You don’t have to be an expert to know about the problems associated with prostitution, the involvement of organised crime, how many of the prostitutes are trafficked, the high STD infection rates and drug and alcohol addiction rates, so why is he Her Majesty’s Government contributing to this vile industry?

Where was the Gordon Brown’s famous moral compass when this madcap scheme was dreamt up? And why were no restrictions placed on how this money could be used?

There are those who will try to defend this case as isolated, but do not be duped into thinking that this, albeit an extreme case, is in any way unique as thanks to documents released under the Freedom of Information Act, we read a list of other examples of this type of spending.

A brain-damaged man who has ‘sex work’ built into his council care package, the idea being that he will become sexually ‘self reliant’, whatever that means, or the two councils who routinely pay for their ‘clients’ to join internet dating sites.

Do those administering this fund on behalf of the taxpayer, not realise how utterly despicable the way they are spending the money is, on every level?

And don’t be fooled that this is some small and obscure Government fund that does not matter, it is not. The fund, Putting People First is a half billion pound fund coming straight from the Department of Health and administered by local councils.

Putting People First was supposed to support disabled and vulnerable adults who still get an incredibly rough deal. They are more likely to live in poverty, four times more likely to be victims of crime and are more likely to suffer discrimination in its many forms.

Instead of helping the disabled and vulnerable civil servants have turned this £520 million pound fund into a sort of state sponsored pimping.

So how did we end up with our money being used for such an appalling use? You guessed it, Human Rights. At least that was the justification offered by one social worker.

What about the human rights of the prostitute? Do these social workers and civil servants not realise that despite the care free portrayal of the life of a prostitute in the Secret Diaries of a Call Girl, the reality is altogether darker. Perhaps the best and most tragic example of this was the murder of five prostitutes in Ipswich. Far from the whimsical lifestyle of Belle de Jour, these real life women shared the most squalid of existences with an addiction to drugs and in constant fear for their lives.

What about the rights of the taxpayer to expect that our money is spent wisely and effectively on helping those less fortunate than ourselves?

Those who administer this fund and the countless others must start to realise they have a duty to safe guard the taxpayer. These bureaucrats also have a moral duty to protect behavioural standards of the country. They encouraged their clients to attend sexual awareness courses, sign up to dating sites and in some cases visit sex workers, but where was the discussion about abstinence? Where was the discussion about how to form a loving relationship? Where was the discussion that sex does not equal love?

The last Government not only caused a financial recession, but a moral one and the challenges facing Cameron and CO in resolving this are even more daunting, but they would do well to make a start by wielding the axe to the seedier elements of Putting People First. They must also axe those civil servants who want to promote at the taxpayers’ expense this type of lascivious and morally corrupt behaviour.