Jeremy Corbyn has called for prostitution to be decriminalised. Cathy Newman of C4 News opposes this and tweets:
Because Cathy is on Channel 4 News you instinctively know she is talking utter rubbish and so here are just a few factoids for you:
1. Prostitution is legal in certain counties in Nevada but not all. There are currently 16 legal brothels in the State. 66 times as many women work in illegal venues or on the street as in legal brothels.
2. Nevada in 2013 (most recent data) ranked 5th among US states where women were likely to be killed with a female murder rate of 1.95 homicides among 100,000 women. That was 27 deaths.
3. However among men Nevada ranked....5th with a homicide rate of 6 per 100,000 versus a national average of 4.7 ( 2014 data).
4. 94% of women murdered in the US know their assailant well. The vast majority are victims of domestic violence.
In light of this the tweet from Ms Newman is patently utter gibberish and does not land even a glancing blow on Comrade Jeremy.
You do not need to have studied philosophy at Oxford to work that out. As it happens Ms Newman studied English at Oxford but surely she can see all sorts of reasons why her tweet is just rather embarrassing for her. Perhaps, as a journalist shown not to have got her facts right, it is time she apologised to her followers and to poor Comrade Corbyn?