Brian Coleman's crass attitude to Paedophile Pornogrophy

This clipping is taken from an article in todays Ham and High. The Mayor of Barnet, Brian Coleman was talking about political bloggers. The article was a follow up of the Standards case where he was found guilty of breaching the London Borough of Barnet's code of conduct.

So Brian Coleman believes that people like me, who write blogs about politics should be regulated in the same way as Paedophiles. Let's think this through. What are bloggers? They are members of the public who use a service such as this to share their views on topics of their  choice with the general public. That may be football, music, sport or politics. Now on my blog, I talk about local politics. There's nothing said on my blog that you won't hear in pubs, dining rooms, on the bus or on the tube, as people talk about local politics. We live in a free society where if I want to say "Brian Coleman is doing a lousy job" I can. It's not like China or Nazi Germany where you get imprisoned, beaten up or murdered for criticising "Public figures". All this blog does is say these things to a wider audience. It's called Free Speech. I'd suggest that if Brian Coleman doesn't like it, he's not a very good Tory.

Let's compare this perfectly legal activity which has formed part of our national culture, with Internet Child Porn, as Brian Coleman seems to think they are equally serious issues. Unlike people discussing Barnet Council, people abusing children is illegal. To give you an example of how most parents feel about the issue, let me share a little story with you. 8 years ago my best friend and former business partner was in the death throws of pancreatic cancer. He'd had his leg amputated and was a couple of days away from death.He asked me to visit and said he wanted to discuss an important issue. When I entered the room, I could see he was in agony. I asked if everything was OK. He replied "Rog, I've stopped the morphine as there's something I needed to discuss and I wanted to be completely with it". He went on to explain that he was worried that when he died, his wife and children may be targeted by predatory paedophiles, who befriend single mothers to get to their children. He explained that he wanted me to keep an eye on them and if anything untoward ever happened to notify his brothers, who would deal with it as a family matter. He didn't care about the pain, just his kids.

Brian Coleman states that bloggers should be regulated in the same way as internet child abusers,
for what? for saying "Brian Coleman spends too much public money on taxi's"?

I would never, ever trivialise the issue of child pornography. It as a wicked evil in our society. I cannot believe that a senior Conservative politician such as Brian Coleman can think it is on a par with someone saying "Brian Coleman is a Lousy mayor". Of all the blogs I've written about Brian Coleman, the one he finds the most objectionable, the one he finds most beyond the pale and the one he (Mis)quotes in the Ham & High is this one (CLICK HERE it isn't rude). I consider it to be a rather frivelous and mild bit of political lampoonary, on a par with much of what Simon Hoggart may write in his Guardian Diary. Brian Coleman clearly considers that it is on a par with Child Abuse, based on his comment. He either takes himself far, far too seriously or alternatively he has no concept of how vile the man in the street finds kiddie porn. Either way his statement is in shocking bad taste. Yet again, he shows himself to be completely out of touch with the concerns of the average family in Barnet.

I have this question for Brian Coleman. Does he think that Policemen should be pulled off Child Abuse cases to arrest bloggers for saying he's useless at his job? If he does, then he's worse than we all thought. If he doesn't, then he should issue a public apology for belittling the victims of such a terrible crime.