| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"Therion Ware" |
| Date: |
24 Sep 2003 03:44:56 PM |
| Object: |
OT: Conservative Politician Says: "have more sex". |
- Bit of a laugh.
Why making love is the Tories' new policy
By Megan Lane
BBC News Online
Have more sex, a top Tory has said - for the good of the economy and
to solve the looming pensions crisis, of course. What's with this talk
of making lots of love from a party long associated with Victorian
values?
Conservative politicians and sex. To do it is one thing - perhaps
whilst wearing a Chelsea strip, or with John Major in a bathtub? - but
to speak of it quite another.
For all the cut and thrust of political life, the corridors of power
are a strangely sexless place. Rare is the MP who will make even a
veiled reference to bonking - instead policy talk is of being "family
friendly".
So it is rather surprising that the party's shadow work and pensions
minister, David Willets, has urged us to go forth and multiply. "After
the baby boom of the 1950s, we have had the baby bust. Europe's real
demographic crisis is not longevity but birth rates." Over the next 50
years, he says Europe needs an extra 40m young people.
Sex is the one topic Tories in particular tie themselves up in knots
over, so MPs tend to plump for a rather prim stance on the subject.
The aforementioned Mr Major espoused family values in his 1993 Back to
Basics moral crusade, a campaign which somewhat backfired when various
ministers and high-level MPs became embroiled in one indiscretion or
another.
Ten years earlier, Margaret Thatcher urged a return to what she called
"Victorian values", which bore some similarity to the Puritans'
insistance on hard work and the traditional family unit.
Conservatives with a small c, too, share this unease about the
pleasures of the flesh. In a 1951 letter only now made public, Ronald
Reagan revealed his angst about sex. "Even in marriage I had a little
guilty feeling about sex, as if the whole thing was tinged with evil,"
the man who would be US president wrote to a friend.
Double entendre? I'll give you one
Even Labour's Tony Blair discovered - and quickly quashed - his inner
Sid James last July when an attractive German reporter was confused as
to whether it was her turn to ask a question.
"Do you want me now?" she asked. "I want you any time," the PM replied
naughtily, before coming over all flustered. "I mean that in a, er,
non whatever-it-is way."
Ah, whatever-it-is. Politicians have long been concerned that we are
not getting enough of it - well, women of child-bearing age in a
stable, preferably married, relationship where neither party uses
contraception, that is.
Hitler and Mussolini saw high birth rates as key for victory in battle
and success at home, and set about encouraging their citizens to
procreate. The Nazi regime cracked down on abortion and equality for
women; Italy criminalised abortion and passed laws which denied civil
service jobs and promotions to bachelors.
For Hitler, it worked - compared to a birth rate of 3.3 per 1,000 in
1900, by 1939 that had risen to 20.4 babies per 1,000; but Mussolini's
Battle for Births did not - the rate actually fell from when he
introduced it in 1927.
In France after German liberation, General de Gaulle urged his
citizens to produce 12m beautiful babies in 10 years. His
administration built new flats for young couples, and passed policies
which encouraged women to be housewives and mothers. The country's
birth rate shot up, and was among the highest in Europe from 1945
until the late 60s.
Baby love
Today France's birth rate has fallen, but remains relatively high in
part due to incentives such as tax breaks and lower rents for families
with three or more children. No doubt the 35-hour working week gives
parents more time to spend with the kids, as well as make them.
BIRTH RATES IN EUROPE
In Spain, women have 1.15 babies each, in Italy it's 1.23
In the UK it's 1.6, France 1.89 and Ireland is top at 1.9
The tendency for couples to have fewer children - and later in life -
is ringing alarm bells across much of the developed world.
This cannot simply be explained by women putting their careers first.
In Italy, where few women work full-time, the birth rate is one of the
lowest in the world.
In the UK, the birth rate is higher but not enough to sustain
population growth. Two groups, however, are more likely than most to
heed the Tories' call. The rate of teen pregnancies here is among the
highest in the world; and there's a mini baby boom in the fashionable
middle classes. In London's Stoke Newington - the new Islington -
there are said to be more children under five than anywhere else in
Europe.
Sadly for the Conservatives, neither group is naturally Tory by
inclination.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/magazine/3131444.stm
Published: 2003/09/24 09:12:45 GMT
© BBC MMIII
--
"Do Unto Others As You Would Have Them Do Unto You."
- Attrib: Pauline Reage.
Inexpensive VHS & other video to CD/DVD conversion?
See: <http://www.Video2CD.com>. 35.00 gets your video on DVD.
all posts to this email address are automatically deleted without being read.
** atheist poster child #1 **
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| User: "Take Clayton Only As Directed" |
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| Title: Re: Conservative Politician Says: "have more sex". |
24 Sep 2003 07:49:59 PM |
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"Therion Ware" <autodelete@city-of-dis.com> wrote in message
news:df04nvcdd5fce6h2pknl9opvru24je6ri1@4ax.com...
- Bit of a laugh.
Sex is the one topic Tories in particular tie themselves up in knots
over,
That is true in so many ways!
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