I'm not surprised by the suggestion to criminalise it. Why not extend it to any private place where there are women present who aren't part of your family? I'm not proposing that, just thinking of the next (il)logical step. As is often the case, enforcement would be a real problem, so why bother? If it's unworkable, it's bad law (not that that ever stopped a government, of course - yes, IPPs, I'm looking at you). It would be open to malicious allegations, of course, and also the definition of what is porn, and whether any level is acceptable. More devices confiscated for forensic examination, to add to the backlog, anyone? Then there's the fact that in this case, the man in question wasn't in a public place, so it wouldn't have made any difference. 

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If you are to punish a man retributively you must injure him. If you are to reform him you must improve him. And men are not improved by injuries. (George Bernard Shaw)

The debate took a much darker turn, when some people alleged, that just by looking at porn, he was guilty of sexually harassing any woman who happened to be sitting nearby. That then led to calls, for looking at porn in public, to be made a criminal offence.

Just what the country needs! More people criminalised, more low risk people, who will never reoffend, on the register, so that the police have to monitor them.

The number of SO per head of the population has been increasing. When I first started looking at the figures, it was 108 SO per 100,000 people, now it is around 116 per 100k. That may not sound much, but during the same period, the total number of people in the UK also increased, by around 2 million. One reason for the increase, is that govt keeps coming up with new offences; cyber flashing, upskirting etc. Each new advance in technology creates more categories of offence.

Well, if he's employing his wife on parliamentary expenses then that is already something that is officially frowned upon. Already starting to sound like the entitlement aspect is in play, but he may have an addiction problem as well. On the other hand, I would very much hope that any other form of addiction (drugs, gambling, alcohol) would get him support in dealing with it, instead of being forced out of the job. So, if what he was doing was lawful but socially unacceptable, things should really have turned out differently. Of course, if there's no addiction involved and he just didn't see the issue or thought he could get away with it because he's important....

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If you are to punish a man retributively you must injure him. If you are to reform him you must improve him. And men are not improved by injuries. (George Bernard Shaw)

You could be right about the sense of entitlement. Parish appeared on GB News earlier in the week and was asked about this situation when we didn't know who it was... knowing fine well he was the one under investigation. Oh and he employs his wife as a secretary by the way...! So it does sound as though addiction could be a factor but we know an admission wouldn't wash with the electorate, nor should it in that role.

Edit: Interestingly, he's said he's not going to resign, said it was "a mistake" and "await the inquiry". Meanwhile, his "very embarrassed" wife says she's sticking by him.

Edit 2: He's resigning and admitted the second time in the HOC it wasn't a mistake. Right move, poor execution.

As for a conversation about addiction, the timing would be seen as defending inexcusable actions. Whereas we know the conversation should be about 'it could be anyone' and that prevention is much more helpful but the timing of that conversation is getting trickier and trickier, ironically, when anger against perpetrators is only going one way. Generation mobile phone will be hitting the age of adult prosecutions soon too, I honestly believe an avalanche is on its way.

In other news, unrelated I'm sure, Devon police chief has decided to announce his retirement today.

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Fighting or Accepting - its difficult to know which is right and when.

I certainly agree with what you said, but there is another interpretation of the event. Regulars will know I'm quite cynical about these things, and MPs aren't my favourite people. It might have been someone who has an enormous sense of entitlement - now that they're in that role, why shouldn't they do what they want? They might be an addict, but they might not. There is every chance that they are an addict, but they might also have been thinking that porn is more interesting than TV news.

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If you are to punish a man retributively you must injure him. If you are to reform him you must improve him. And men are not improved by injuries. (George Bernard Shaw)

People will have seen that an un-named MP was caught looking at porn in the House of Commons.

The story could just fade away, but I hope it doesn't, because this is an opportunity to put porn addiction on the political agenda. Only a porn addict, would do something so reckless as looking at porn while they are at work and especially in a place where they can be easily seen by other people.

I hope that this MP doesn't just make the usual excuses, like "I downloaded it accidentally", or "I just clicked on a link that somebody sent me, I didn't realise it was porn". I hope that instead, they come out and admit they are addicted to porn. Then I hope they declare that they are going to campaign for porn addiction to be treated like alcohol, drugs, or gambling addiction. Porn is the fastest growing addiction and internet porn is the crack cocaine of porn addiction, but at the moment it is still underground. The full scale of the problem is unknown. The number of addicts is unknown and as a result, there is no treatment available on the NHS.

That needs to change and it is going to take somebody very high profile to come out and admit to being an addict, in order for the authorities to wake up to what is happening and do something about it. If we just get the usual rubbish, about how the online safety bill is going to stop people accessing porn and magically solve all societies problems, then this opportunity will have been missed, but for now there is still a chance that something good  will come from this story.