The murder of five women in Ipswich at the end of last year and the response of the media to the situation - at a time where there were few other stories for journalists to cover -raises important questions.
But while I agree with a number of the points raised by Louise Whittle above, there are other issues on which we take different stances. Those disagreements are not just between two individuals but represent longstanding debates amongst socialist feminists.
It is certainly common ground that the tendency of both the state and the media to suggest that women who are prostitutes have in some way brought whatever awful fate has befallen them on themselves is a part of the continuum of misogyny that all women face. Such approaches are obviously completely unacceptable.
Secondly I completely agree that criminalising women who are prostitutes increases their social exclusion and is also counterproductive if you want to persuade them to co-operate with the police.
Obviously we know nothing at this stage about what were the motives of the individual(s) who committed the murders -although you don't have to be addicted to TV crime series to suspect that the fact that all the women who were killed were sex workers is no accident.
But I'm not sure that the Peter Sutcliffe analogies work in terms of the way the case has been reported. Rather l was surprised that some of the media have treated the dead women and their families with a modicum of dignity, talking about them in a way that gave them some respect and individuality.
This I think does show some progress in the way women are treated in the media, as a result primarily of the battles we have waged, since the days that Sutcliffe's murderous carnage was reported.
I also think it is a significant fact that all the murdered women were drug users. Certainly there is a very strong relationship for many women between dependence on drugs and feeling trapped as sex workers.
Decriminalising drugs would be an important step in allowing many women to escape a life they don't want. While the left has tended to support such calls, it has not tended to give the issue much priority. Nor have feminists raised the question
Almost 30 years after the passing of the Equal Pay Act, women in full time work still earn 17 percent less than men in the same position - and of course far more women work part-time. For some women selling their bodies seems like one of the few options open to them.
Rather than following the line that Louise argues of the decriminalisation of women working as prostitutes, I agree with the position adopted by the Scottish Socialist Party on the issue at its last conference, support for the Swedish model.
As SSP Executive member Mhairi McAlpine told the Voice, this involves "a mass education programme aimed at men who use prostitutes and legal sanctions brought to bear on those who continue to sexually exploit them, " rather than the prosecution of the women involved.
I came to this view through seeing evidence that where decriminalisation has been tried it has not lessened the numbers of women being trapped in prostitution.
Internationally and in Britain, one of the most pernicious aspects of capitalist globalisation has been the extension of sex trafficking and the number of migrant women who leave home in search of a better life and ended up being kidnapped and forced to work in some aspect of the sex trade including as prostitutes.
So l agree with Caroline Leckie MSP who said
"We need to work towards the eradication of prostitution but in the short term, increase the protection afforded to desperately vulnerable women, many of whom are addicted to drugs....
"Violence against women is endemic in this society, and manifested most brutally in these murders...Women must have the right to go about their lives free from fear."
"That means the left needs to give greater priority to campaigning against violence against all women.
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Veronica Fagan Aviation is the fastest growing contributor to climate change. Air travel produces 19 times the greenhouse gas emissions of trains; and 190 times that of a ship. Aviation could contribute 15% of greenhouse gases worldwide each year by 2050 if left unchecked.
It's actually quite a frightening experience looking at the BBC website for stories under the rubric "airport expansion". I'm not sure I knew there were that many airports, let alone how many were seeking expansion.
Have you heard of London Ashford airport for example? But these plans would see a deadly tripling of air traffic by 2030 - in complete contradic...... 20г The Air Pollution Facts • Air travel produces 19 times the greenhouse gas emissions of trains; and 190 times that of a ship. • Aviation could contribute 15% of greenhouse gases worldwide each year by 2050 if left unchecked. • One return flight to Florida produces the equivalent CO2 of a year's average motoring • Flying 1 kilogram of asparagus from California to the UK uses 900 times more energy than the home-grown equivalent. • A train would have to travel from London to Madras and back before polluting the air as