back to article MPs prepare to beat off phantom Olympic hooker invasion

The UK Government is preparing to repel an invasion by an army of prostitutes, which it believes is likely to descend on the Olympic Games in 2012. On Monday, Labour MP Fiona McTaggart asked Tessa Jowell, Minister for the Olympics whether she had commissioned any research on the effect of increased visitor numbers for the …

COMMENTS

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  1. Disco-Legend-Zeke

    If half the 10,000 hookers came from Vegas...

    ...it would deplete our local supply by 15%

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Part of the problem

    "However, it is not clear what weight – if any – the Women’s National Commission gave to evidence from an organisation that is directly involved in sex work."

    Well of course they're all filthy whores (and probably on drugs) so you can't trust anything they say anyway!

    I was going to clarify that by saying I'm referring to the IUSW, but on second thoughts...

  3. Blake St. Claire
    Big Brother

    In the same ballpark

    Five. 40,000. Those are pretty close. Close enough for government work as my dear old dad used to say.

    Seems a bit like our War on Drugs and MickeyD's McDLT back in the 80's. Invent a problem where one didn't exist before, then solve it.

    FIFA¹ indicates that average attendance at the Germany World Cup games was 44K, so just about one prosy per attendee. Yes, that seems about right.

    ¹http://www.fifa.com/tournaments/archive/tournament=107/index.html

  4. John Robson Silver badge
    WTF?

    To be fair

    The 40k was an estimate of what they expected, the 5 is what they could confirm.

    I expect the truth lies somewhere between these values (I expect that criminals are vaguely competent at trafficking), but to try and categorically state any figure is just moronic.

  5. Annihilator
    Thumb Up

    @Blake St Claire

    Sterling arithmitic there, because of course there was only one match played in the German World Cup.

    No... wait...

  6. Anonymous John

    Playmobil preconstruction,

    or it won't happen.

    PS. Why isn't "preconstruction" a real word?

  7. James 5

    Aha !

    But they can always up the ante by declaring that at least half of them are paedophilic Al Quaeda operatives who intend to release CO2 bombs throughout London.

    That should scare the bejabas out of the Sun and Daily Mail readers.....

  8. The First Dave

    Location

    So, if these girls are going to be turned away from London, where are they going to be sent to? Coventry, Manchester, maybe Glasgow?

    Enquiring minds want to know (so we can avoid them, of course.)

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    lol

    The slugs language makes it clear where it's coming from, religo/moral outrage. Backed by BS, redtop hype, and other religo/moral slugs.

    All the government has done to date is strengthen pimps and dealers, go gov go. You guys keep up with the redtop saiting bs.

  10. Skizz

    "Found this spoon, sir. "

    40,000 single women going to Germany during the world cup. And nobody noticed.

    Skizz

  11. scottboy
    Joke

    Beating off the hookers

    In my day it was the other way round. How times change.

  12. Hermes Conran
    Welcome

    I for one...

    Welcome our street walking overloads with hearts of gold.

  13. Blake St. Claire
    Grenade

    @Annihilator

    > Sterling arithmitic [sic] there, because of course there was only one match played...

    At least my arithmetic is better than your spelling. By chance did you see the words _average attendance_ in my post?

    Perhaps I should have used "arithmetic mean" instead -- would that have made it clearer?

  14. John Ozimek

    Not so fair

    Actually, John Robson, by doing as you do, you are implicitly buying into the government agitprop on this issue. Its the old saw about a statistician drowning in water that is on average 1 inch deep.

    The 40,000 figure was pretty much plucked out of the air by those opposed to alleged trafficking...little or no analytical base for it whatsoever.

    The 5 is an actual, based on police figures. That is police figures in a country where prostitution is effectively legalised, organised and trade unionised. So working girls are not going to report instantly to the police if some outsiders turn up down the road undercutting the market and breaking the law?

    Really?

    In a sense, this story makes the case for decriminalisation of prostitution in a nutshell. Where working girls are able to police their own trade to some extent, they almost certainly will do.

    Yes...I would be more than prepared to believe that the police hit rate was not 100%...that they missed some instances...but not by miles.

    So the issue on the evidence provided is not "somewhere in the middle"...but quite possibly negligible to non-existent.

    What gets me, of course, is how the head of the Women's Commission is happy to talk to the Lords about these figures being widely known. Nope. Widely claimed. There is a difference.

  15. loopy lou

    Ridiculous

    So where are these 40,000 women the rest of the time? Sitting on shelves in some warehouse? And how exactly are the traffickers supposed to recoup the costs and risks of transporting them half way across Europe for two weeks? It is not as though accommodations is going to be particularly cheap at the time either. Traffickers may be scum but they aren't idiots, unlike certain of our esteemed political representatives.

  16. scottboy
    Coat

    @Hermes Conran

    Overload? Sounds like a chargeable extra.

    Mine's the mac with no buttons.

  17. lukewarmdog
    Badgers

    5.. 40,000

    If we're going to extrapolate figures here, there were approximately 5 million people in each stadium watching a game played by several forty a side teams each ref'd by 35 people from 169 different countries.

    Meantime at home and in pubs around the solar system, viewing figures were in the trillions.

    It doesn't say much about our law enforcement teams if they could only find 5 of those girls now does it?

  18. Juan Inamillion
    FAIL

    Conjures up a mental image...

    .... of 40,000 women hanging around the entrances of the stadium in short skirts, stilettos and smoking the obligatory Gauloise fag. And they could only nick 5 of them? FFS were the plod blind?

    One of the most ridiculous stories yet to come out of the mouth of a British MP... oh wait

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    In other news...

    The budget for the 2012 Olympics went up another £17.8 trillion.

  20. TeeCee Gold badge
    Joke

    Never mind the (alleged) trafficking.

    I'm fascinated by the idea of "Olympic hookers". What events do they compete in?

    The breast stroke?

    Pole Vault?

    Four man bob?

    Coxless pairs?

  21. shay mclachlan

    Difference?

    So what's the difference between a phantom hooker and a real one, and which gives more bang for the buck?

    I think we should be told.

  22. Anonymous Coward
    Alert

    Buy British!

    How's this for an idea?

    1. The IUSW launches a patriotic Buy British! campaign, promoting British prostitutes over foreign imports. (You'd buy their services, by the way, not the prostitutes themselves (they're not slaves, you know).)

    2. The IUSW calls on the government to support it's Buy British! campaign as part of its wider efforts to deal with the problem of sex slave trafficking.

    3. ?????

    4. PROFIT!

  23. RichyS
    Unhappy

    Misunderstood

    Damn, read the headline, and assumed rugby had been given the go-ahead as an Olympic sport.

  24. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Prostitution and the EU?

    Aren't UK prostitution-related laws some sort of interference with free trade within the EU?

  25. Captain Hogwash
    FAIL

    Denis MacShane

    Where's Czechoslovakia? I can't find it in any atlas printed this century.

  26. Olafthemighty
    Coffee/keyboard

    @TeeCee

    Thanks for that - you've cheered my day up no end, and that's no mean feat after the morning I had!

  27. scottboy
    Joke

    @TeeCee

    Nice one

    You missed rhythmic gymnastics and handball

  28. Kevin 43
    Grenade

    But!

    Will the brothels be built on time?

  29. Mr Bear
    Joke

    It's more than 40,000

    Those prostitutes were cunningly smuggled in. Not only did they pay their own way in, they also bought tickets to the stadiums and the alcohol that was needed to get them so legless they'd shag anything. Who said the prostitutes were women? They were football fans.

  30. Cynical Observer
    Coat

    Olympic Motto

    Faster - Higher - Stronger.

    Can just imagine the chant emanating from the Olympic village in 2012.

  31. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    what about rugby?

    seems to cause and invasion of several dozen foreign hookers on a yearly basis for the autumn internationals

  32. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    'not tainted"

    I don't see how that's even possible if they're humanoid. Everyone has a taint.

    Paris knows all about it.

  33. Pascal Monett Silver badge

    Ms Jowell needs a reminder

    "that vile trade" says it all.

    Of course, I can understand that a woman does not appreciate the concept of prostitution. I don't think I've ever met a woman who does (never having met a prostitute, that is).

    Unfortunately, speaking in her official capacity, Ms Jowell should remind herself that her personal opinions are not to be brought up in official speech.

    Prostitution, like it or not, is as old as Humanity and is not going away any time soon.

    Deal with it.

  34. TeeCee Gold badge
    Unhappy

    @scottboy

    How could I have overlooked Rythmic Gymnastics? I'm mortified...

  35. Matt Hawkins
    Thumb Up

    Hype

    I don't think the Olympics will result in Mr Jowell watching any more dodgy films than normal so the British taxpayer can breathe a sigh of relief.

  36. Spleen

    @Matt Hawkins

    I think you may be getting your spouses of corrupt female polits mixed up. Mr Jacqui Smith is the one with the dodgy films, Mr Tessa Jowell is the one with the massive Italian bribery scandal.

    So difficult to keep track of them, I know.

    The good news here is that we can look forward to the plod arresting half the women's marathon, on the grounds that any woman going around outdoors wearing only briefs and a crop top must be touting for business.

  37. troldman
    WTF?

    Evidenced Based Policy

    "This is an interesting source, given the Government’s preference for only basing its "evidence-based" policies on evidence that it likes."

    What, like the Reg and climate change evidence then?

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