The UK’s Department of Work and Pensions has disciplined 227 of its employees and sacked 16 for browsing porn during office hours. Liberal Democrat spokesman Steve Webb thinks this is too lenient: he says the civil servants involved are “assisting filth and paedophiles”.
Indeed, one of the relevant civil servants has been convicted for possessing child pornography; another two are under police investigation for the same charge. But while these three may well be paedophiles and have clearly been assisting the filth in their enquiries, it seems a bit much to tar the other 224 with the same brush.
Yes, the main point of this post was to make a rubbish ‘filth’ pun. But more seriously, I thought the Lib Dems were supposed to be in favour of pornography and teenage sex? If that’s actually just a lie spread by conservatives, who am I going to vote for next time round…?
Hmm. I’m not so good at being serious. Having another go, the Lib Dems are surely actually supposed to be in favour of worker’s rights and people’s rights in general. The DWP people who downloaded illegal porn have been sacked and are now off to jail; on what possible liberal grounds can Mr Webb claim that the ones who downloaded legal porn should lose their jobs?
Er Easy, breach of contract. Abuse of the computer system, leading to an greatly increased risk of spyware and other nasties. Plus opening up the department to Sexual harrasment charges (It’s been tried before).
Those are legal grounds, rather than liberal ones; I’m aware the DWP had the right to sack all concerned, although I believe it would have been foolish to do so. The point was more about Mr Webb’s illiberalism.