Influence? Could have fooled me.

So this is the 41st most influential blog in the land. Yeah, right. Nice as it seems, the whole Wikio thing has a growing air of unreality about it.

Still, gift horses, mouths and all that, so congratulations and well done to Charlotte and Mark who have shot up the rankings and to everyone else who's gone up a lot or down just a bit.

Now the plebs can be sexual deviants too

It's Sunday morning, so another tough decision. Shall I go to church, or shall I write about sex fantasy stories on the Internet?

OK, not that tough. And the day after Pride London (not London Pride - a beer I've never rated) seems an ideal time to write about sexual deviancy.

Back in the good old days, only the rich and powerful were allowed to be sexual deviants. Lord such-and-such might have a taste for young boys, but he was decent enough to keep it private and, in so many other ways, he was a fine and upstanding chap so it could be overlooked.

But the hoi-polloi were a different matter. As we all know from the Lady Chatterley obscenity trial (it's the only thing we do all know from it), the prosecuting barrister rather blew his case by suggesting that, whilst the book might not corrupt a gentleman, his wife and servants were another matter.

Mervyn Griffiths-Jones may have been behind the times, but not that much.

The last eighty years has seen the democratisation of pornography. From the tijuana bibles - erotic cartoon strips popular in the first half of the 20th century through to the growth of Playboy, Penthouse, Hustler and their ilk to the massive boom of the Internet age that's made all sorts of specialist material available with a few clicks of a mouse.

And the curious thing, as I noted a few days ago, is that men haven't been turned into wild beasts as a result. Men aren't all treating their wives and girlfriends as mere objects, or committing more sexual assaults than in the past. If anything, we've gone the other way - western societies where we have access to all this stuff are also those which have seen the rise of feminism, greater equality for women and the growth of the idea that the husband/wife relationship is one of partnership, not to mention the shocking arrival on the scene of the considerate lover.

So, joy of joys, it turns out that the authors of sex stories on the Internet aren't to be prosecuted for obsenity.

This, you may have seen, all came about when the decision was made to prosecute 35-year-old civil servant Darryn Walker who had written a little story about the members of Girls Aloud (who, I'm told, are a popular music group, similar to the Supremes), being kidnapped, sexually tortured and finally killed.

Darryn's story is just one of thousands - millions probably - exploring every imaginable dark recess of our sexuality (and probably a few we'd never imagine). They come from men and women of all ages, all nationalities. Few have any great literary merit, being written to be read one-handed.

There's a rather good article on the issues around these stories in yesterday's Guardian which is definitely worth a read.

Although attempting to ban this stuff in the Internet age is obviously futile, it seems to me that there are a couple of reasons why we might want to if we could.

If there was a link between the material and crime, that could give us justification. Perhaps people who read the stories are more likely to treat women badly, or to commit rape or sexual assault, or maybe the act of writing a story - putting a mental fantasy onto the page - makes the author more likely to do something nasty.

Unfortunately for the would-be censors, there's no evidence of any of that.

We might also want to censor these stories simply on the yuk factor. No matter how cosmopolitan your sexuality, there's bound to be things out there that disgust you. I can understand wanting to ban stories on that basis, although I disagree with it.

But that battle's long been lost - we could clog up every court in the land for years with obscenity trials and it really wouldn't make any difference.

The truth seems to be something more interesting.

It turns out, despite what many of our ancestors thought, that you can enjoy all sorts of kinky, unusual and downright bizarre sexual practices, have all sorts of frankly disturbing sexual fantasies, not be posh and still be a normal person. You can be into S&M or any number of other fetishes and not be mentally ill, unstable or even damaged.

Who'd have thought you could get your rocks off fantasing about torturing and killing people and still be a perfectly decent, normal person who's no danger to anyone - but that's what the evidence tells us.

Life's rich tapestry, eh.

Everything for Free? The brave new world is flawed

An exciting new book has hit the stands - it contains the next big idea and we should all buy it. "Free: The Future of a Radical Price" isn't free at all. It's the latest wheeze from Chris Anderson, who came up with the now largely discredited "long tail" theory.

(The idea behind the long tail is that since a virtual shop, unrestrained by shelf space, can sell millions of titles, suddenly people will be able to make real money by selling a few copies of each of the vast array of books, albums or whatever else is out there. It turned out not to really work, but why let a little thing like reality get in the way of a good evangelistic Internet theory).

This latest work argues that, as more and more things can be produced pretty much for free, we're going to have to get used to it and change the way we work. More people will work for non-financial benefits (e.g. the adulation awarded to bloggers - in their fantasies at least). Think of online newspapers, of Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Last.FM, Spotify.

It's an issue I looked at a few months ago. My conclusion (and I'm far from alone) differs from Anderson's. I don't see the free model as sustainable beyond cottage industries like blogging. It's all very well talking about the marketplace driving costs down and people being motivated by rewards other than money, such as peer recognition, but we all need to earn money somewhere down the line.

There are two ways it can go.

Some services will work as loss-leaders or advertising-generators for the big boys, but the smaller fish will be driven out of business. That's what happened with email: Hotmail and now Google Mail destroyed any idea that a company could charge money for consumer email accounts.

Others will stop being free when the money runs out: they'll either find a business model that works, or they'll vanish when it becomes apparent no-one's willing to pay for them.

Those of you who are clued up on such things will have noticed that this debate has been going on for twenty years or more, not about information and media, but computer software.

Free and open source software doesn't have to be given away (it's free as in freedom, not free as in beer) but it normally is. Its creators either seek non-financial rewards, such as the approval of their peers and users, or make money elsewhere (IBM pays programmers to work on open source projects, believing it allows them to make more money on hardware and services).

But the funny thing is that it turns out to be quite hard to get that model to work. Sure - there's loads of free and open source software out there. A lot of it's even quite good (I use it myself almost exclusively). But there are very few examples where the best open source option is as good or better than it's proprietary equivalent.

Ever compared OpenOffice.org to Microsoft Office? Sure, OpenOffice is good enough for most of our needs, but it's a long way from being the superior product. Gimp vs Photoshop? Scribus vs Quark Express? Ubuntu vs Mac OS X?

Amongst the thousands of software packages out there, in just a handful might a free/open source variant be truly superior. Perhaps Firefox (funded by Google to tune of several million pounds) and some others you may not have heard of but use every day (Apache, BIND, Sendmail...).

The result is that, commercially, there are thousands of companies continuing to do well selling proprietary software, because for all the talk of revolution and zero pricing, people prefer it. How many are making serious money from creating free and open source software? A handful. Red Hat and Novell, maybe. You could have fifty Red Hats and their combined market capitalization still wouldn't match Microsoft.

What does that tell us?

Open Source Software is in a similar position to the likes of Facebook and Twitter, only without the venture capital and speculative funding. If you want to see Anderson's future world of free information, see it today in open source.

You have organisations creating software and giving it away. Their programmers, designers, artists, documeters and the rest are mostly volunteers who need day jobs to survive. They don't have big marketing budgets - they mostly rely on word of mouth and (frequently very poor) websites.

And we can see how this zero-cost-to-consumer model stacks up. It does OK. It survives. It grows. But it doesn't eclipse its paid-for alternative. OpenOffice.org is a struggling project (now owned by Oracle, its future is uncertain). Microsoft Office charges on.

So there won't be a revolution where information is all free and we have to find new ways of motivating everyone to work for nothing.

What's more likely is a day of reckoning, when the venture capital and financial reserves run out. Some services will continue as loss-leaders for Google, Microsoft, News International or some other huge beast. Others that are free today will become paid for - and will survive on that basis, just as proprietary software has survived and flourished in the face of open source. And many will fold.

Back in April when I last wrote about this, I looked at loss-making services like Twitter, YouTube and Facebook and wondered would would happen to them. I thought then than they might be replaced by open source alternatives that, whilst perhaps not as good, would be financially viable.

I've changed my mind on that one now - I think I was wrong. The problem is that the biggest cost by far for these modern cloud applications isn't the software, it's the hardware. Server room upon server room filled with computers, disks and wires. That isn't suddenly going to become free.

Our conservative Government is failing us again

In the last year, two of the biggest political issues in decades have hit. First the credit crunch and the world economic slump, then the whole issue around MPs' expenses.

On both, radical and decisive action is needed.

Whether or not you agree with specific elements of any plan to reform the banking system or revitalise our democracy, few claim there's no need for change. Few are honestly suggesting that sitting around talking about it for a few years before doing nothing very much is the correct response.

So why is our Government doing exactly that on both issues?

Is Gordon tackling the city bonus culture? Is he tackling the problem where safe savings banks are used to bail out riskier investment arms (or, worse, dragged down with them)? Is he addressing the need for tougher, cleverer regulation?

Is Gordon reforming our political system? Beyond a few cosmetic changes, has he shown the slightest will to really tackle the democratic defecit?

No. Brown and his Government are fundamentally and deeply conservative and risk averse.

I'm reminded of John Major's last few years in office. Reforms were desperately needed in all sorts of areas, but they just didn't happen. Instead we had constant infighting, "Back to Basics" and the cones hotline.

Brown's always been a conservative at heart. He stuck with most of the Tory's economic policies inherited in 1997. The costly PFI, talisman of the right, was taken to heart. And his timidity, most clearly demonstrated when he decided not to call a General Election a few months after becoming PM (and will opinion poll ratings over 10% higher than they are today).

This is a time of change. Change in the world, in the economy, in politics. We need a government capable of keeping up.

Back in the 1950s it was another time of great change as nations rebuilt themselves in the wake of the Second World War. British industry stagnated, firm in the belief that the old ways were the best and johnny foreigner would never match us Brits when it came to manufacturing.

Let's not make the same mistake again. Let's not delude ourselves into thinking we can get through this and come out stronger by sticking to conservatism, prudence and the same old ways.

Now is the time for radical action and Gordon simply can't deliver.

Direct action: ask "what would the BNP do?"

Should we be able to break the law with impunity for a cause we genuinely and sincerely believe in?

Yesterday, 22 climate change protestors were found guilty of obstructing a train carrying coal bound for the Drax power station - they will likely find themselves thousands of pounds out of pocket (had they won, the taxpayer would presumably have picked up the bill).

There have been other examples. A few years ago, anti-GM crop protestors destroyed crop trials in farms around the UK. Last year, protestors who defaced a chimney at Kingsnorth power station in Kent were acquitted by a jury.

In the US, abortion doctor George Tiller was shot dead by someone who, it seems, honestly believed that by taking that one life, he was saving thousands of others.

And there's the problem. It's very easy to approve of direct action and complain about the heavy handed approach of the law when it's a cause you agree with. Less so when it's one you don't.

After all, other than our feelings about the cause, what's the difference between anti-globalisation protestors smashing the windows of MacDonalds and Burger King and a bunch of neo-Nazis doing the same to corner shops run by Asians? In both cases the protestors sincerely believe they're right. In both cases, many others disagree.

So it isn't as easy as saying "Direct action good". But nor is it always bad. Sometimes it's a powerful and effective way to protest, where lives aren't put at risk and a message is more effectively conveyed than by a petition or meeting with the minister.

Where's the compromise?

It makes sense that, whatever the cause, there should be legal and free ways to stage a protest or demo - that's one of the prices we should be happy to pay for living in a free society. It's entirely right that anyone should be able to stage a peaceful demonstration, have it sensibly policed, and not be faced with a huge bill or legal action.

But protestors shouldn't assume that the taxpayer, or private companies, will always pick up the tab for their actions when they go further. It may be on occasion (as with Kingsnorth and the road-building protests of the '90s) that they do, but it can't be taken for granted.

Realistically, the more sympathy the public has for a protest, the more likely the protestors are to avoid repercussions.

Perhaps those of us on the more progressive side of politics should just ask ourselves "If this action were being taken by the BNP to promote a cause they sincerely believe in, what would I think and how would I like the police to behave?"

The Mail isn't homophobic but...

The typical Daily Mail reader, were they to believe all they read, would huddle at home in constant fear that a gang of obese, drunk, illiterate, drugged up and tooled up eight year olds would drag themselves away from killing prostitutes in Grand Theft Auto just long enough to smash the door down and stab them to death, before defecating on the dog.

So no surprise that the Daily Mail is concerned that our youngsters are being taught how to be gay. This is, let me stress, absolutely not that Mail journos are a bunch of homophobes stuck in the 19th century.

David Cameron might have recanted and, like the prodigal - if slightly camp - son, apologised for having opposed the scrapping of Section 28 (which prohibited Councils from promoting homosexuality in schools) but the Mail is having none of it.

After all, Jesus wasn't gay. No really, he wasn't. What do you mean surrounded himself with fit young men? He was playing hide the sausage with Mary. No, not his mum. Mary Magdalene. It must be true - I read it in a history book by a Professor Daniel Brown.

Sorry, where was I?

Ah yes, local authorities dedicating millions of pounds to convert decent heterosexual eleven-year-olds, happily rutting behind the bike sheds, into gays and lesbians. Not the Katy Perry type of lesbian either. Real lesbians. Crew cuts and dungarees.

This outrage must be stopped.

Such a shame, then, that reporter Harry Phibbs barely has time to get going before he arses it up.

Because, to maintain the pretence that he doesn't want all the gays put in a pit and stoned to death, Harry has to claim that it's not about queers, it's about all sex.

The argument is not, or should not be, about the moral argument over whether or not there is anything wrong with homosexuality.

It is just not an issue that councils should be involved with.

Sex should be a private matter. What goes on in our bedrooms is not a matter for Town Hall bureaucrats.

We expect councils to empty our dustbins - not to express preferences on the relative merits of different forms of sexual intercourse.

Still less do we expect them to tell our children about sex.

I rather think we do expect exactly that, Harry. Unless you're suggesting that every state school in the country should independently develop its sex education programme from scratch.

My local authority, like pretty much every other, works with its schools to develop sex & relationship education materials.

The Mail is horrified about

... books as Jenny lives with Eric and Martin.

It included photographs of Eric and Martin naked in bed.

Rimming, no doubt.

Sorry, Harry, but sex ed includes photos of adults in bed. In fact, these days it can include cartoons of couples having sex. Shown to primary school children. And I've seen them.

Most parents do expect schools - and the councils that support them - to tell children about sex. Go to any school and ask how many parents have opted their children out from sex-ed - the number will almost always be few or none.

At my local primary, where a significant proportion of the children are muslim, not a single child has been opted out.

Let's hear for councils and schools not just pretending to approve of gayers, like the Mail does, but actually giving children the opportunity to see that being gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender isn't something bad, to be hidden away, kept secret, be ashamed of and be mercilessly teased and bullied about if discovered.

How Tories conned the Telegraph and bloggers on crime

I'm not the biggest fan of Labour, but I like misleading statistics even less.

A story wandered its merry way around the blogosphere yesterday, claiming that under Labour violent crime had increased by 77%.

The report in the Telegraph has been picked up on The Last Ditch, Patently Rubbish, Marmalade Sandwich and Sharpe's Opinion. In each case the figure has been repeated without question. But questions should have been asked, because the Tory claims turn out to be a bit of a scam.

What's really going on?

Here's what the Telegraph says about the figures:

The figures were sourced from Eurostat, the European Commission's database of statistics. They are gathered using official sources in the countries concerned such as the national statistics office, the national prison administration, ministries of the interior or justice, and police.

A breakdown of the statistics, which were compiled into league tables by the Conservatives, revealed that violent crime in the UK had increased from 652,974 offences in 1998 to more than 1.15 million crimes in 2007.

So what did the Conservative researchers actually do to earn their money? Well, they went to this page on the Internet where you can find lots of crime statistics for the whole of Europe, based on crimes reported to the police.

They probably checked through a few of the stats before settling on the violent crime ones.

Here are the numbers. The left column is 1998, then you count through the years and get to 2007 at the end.

Sorry it's a bit small, but the numbers add up.

But look! What's this! According to these statistics, violent crime has been falling for the last few years. I can't think why the Tories and the Telegraph didn't mention that one.

Here's the graph.
So that's what the official figures for reported crime show - yes, a 77% increase in violent crime since 1998, but also violent crime falling since 2005.

But is that the whole story? After all, the police figures only show the crimes reported and definitions can change too. Perhaps real crime is higher and the figures only look like it's been falling for the last few years.

For this, we turn to the British Crime Survey. The BCS is generally considered the most reliable guide to crime (with the exception of murder and crimes against children and commercial properties, which it doesn't measure). Instead of waiting for victims to turn up at the police station, the BCS asks around 50,000 people each year about their own experiences of crime.

Here's what the BCS says about violent crime.
According to the BCS, violent crime rose through the '80s, peaking around 1995 and then falling. The small increase from 2005 to 2007 that might be real or might be a statistical fluke (there's no way to tell from the BCS data).

But there's something odd here. The BCS has violent crime peaking in 1995 and then falling but the recorded crime figures rise rapidly from 1998 to a peak in 2005. How can they tell such different stories?

Part of the explanation is changes in the way the stats were recorded - changes that for the most part in the late '90s increased the number of recorded violent crimes.

For example, a pub fight between four people would have counted as one crime under the old system. In the new system, it could be up to 12 crimes (if each person had assaulted the other three). Definitions of what count as a violent crime also change - most significantly to include pushing and shoving where no-one gets hurt. (The BCS definitions have remained more consistent - under the BCS around half of all "violent" crimes don't involve anyone actually being hurt).

There's something else interesting too*, if you can get past the headline-grabbing stuff.
According to people's own experiences of crime, as reported to researchers, mugging and violence by strangers has remained pretty steady since the mid-90s but violence by someone you know and domestic violence are both way down (in both cases, the drop happened mostly when Major was in power, but whether Government policies have much effect on any of this is open to question).

Might it be that the official police figures under-record domestics and crimes by acquaintances? Perhaps we're less likely to go to the police with those than when a stranger mugs us in the street. There should be an answer somewhere - I might track it down sometime.

44% of victims of violent crime believed their attacker was under the influence of alcohol.

There's no perfect measure of crime. The British Crime Survey is almost certainly the best for what it measures, but it doesn't measure everything, and it isn't very good at spotting trends in rare crimes.

Reported crime is not only affected by the reporting rate, but also by changes in definitions and procedures.

What's absolutely clear though, is that the Conservative researchers deliberately misled.

Even if they took the EU data at face value and didn't know about the other issues around the stats, it's clearly nonsense to talk about a 77% increase without mentioning that, according to those figures, violent crime is currently on the way down (although not on the Eurostat figures, recorded violent crime in England & Wales fell by a further 8%* in 2007/8).

When you take into account the British Crime Survey and changes in the way the police record and define violent crime, it's even more obvious that looking at the recorded crime figures in isolation is an utter nonsense, unless you're trying to score political points rather than get at the truth.

(And whilst I'm on the subject, what else have the Tories done? Compiled the figures into a league table. And what's the first thing the Eurostat people advise that it's not valid to do, because data from different countries can't be directly compared? Compile the figures into a league table. D'oh).

* Link is to a pdf.