With a population that small, all the parochial, and judgementalism of small-town mentality can be applied to "deliquents", but along with personalised care and attention that large communities can't offer. It's also that case that large communities themselves can create these problems.

Your point about "experts from other countries" is appropriate only if you accept that no-one has a right to comment on the internal affairs of other countries AND you are willing to cede from the Crown and the EU. This may of course impact on your principal industries but what the heck

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And there is no entitlement to public housing, nor can people apply for it until they are 18 and married. Maybe thats discrimination too but it seems to work out well for everyone.

Perhaps thats why we do not like 'experts' from other countries telling us how to run things.

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I agree with everything you've just said!

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I want to make it clear that I see nothing wrong with sex for fun; it needs to be done responsibly though and certainly not as a love token. Any results from it (including babies) are a joint responsibility

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Yes I agree, there are opportunistic girls who see popping out sprogs as a career….flats, benefits etc.

I was just annoyed because girls who I have worked with and went to school with are in the situation where they have recieved housing because they have no other option. They don't have the money to buy it on their own. One girl in paricular, has 2 kids to a bloke who also has two kids to another girl, he got them both preganant at the same time-twice. He doesn't work, doesn't pay-nothing. It's the girls and their mothers, the grandmas, who are picking up the pieces. Also, the only male role model in these poor kid's lives are the girls' fathers, the grandads. It's so sad.

I agree with your generalisations too (even though there are exceptions). But I just feel that if it were these men who HAD to, or were FORCED to, shoulder 50% of the responsibility via finance and care of the children; ther wouldn't be half of the pregnancies there are now.

It just annoys me that a lot of these girls are labelled as 'slags' etc when the males are left to carry on with their lives without a care in the world. I mean, they disn't get pregnant on their own.

Gay men are seen as promiscuous, but so what? Atleast they're having fun Maybe a lot of straights who condemn this behaviour are a bit jealous!

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And some guys are feckless shits who shag and run.

For men sex is a pastime, for women (I believe) it makes a commitment (OK a generalisation). That's one reason gay men are seen to be promiscuous, gays don't have to make the compromises or promises that a woman would ask for, but rather do it because it's fun. This truly pisses off the straights who have to say that promiscuity is wrong.

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Yeah it must be rosy, sitting in a dingy council flat rasing a child when you're still one yourself.

Must be really fun at age 14 to be pregnant. Reeeaaaaally fun!!!

It's not, girls in school did it and their lives were over.

These girls are ALWAYS the one left holding the baby, and if not the girl, then her mother- the grandma. I've seen it with my own eyes, too many times!

This country if full of feckless fathers/young men getting young girls pregnant and then pissing off whilst she raises it.

I mean how many boys, aged 13-18 do you see pushing THEIR babies around in prams???? Then contrast that with how many girls you see…..loads! When I see a teenage mum like that I instantly think 'where is the Dad?'.

Maybe if more people had that attitude and made it clear that a teenage father has just as much responsibility as a teenage mother; we wouldn't have near as many teenage pregnancies and hence council flats going to these women as they would't need it and would instead have actual support from the other person 50% responsible for makiing the baby,…..the father!

But this does not happen, so most of the time the flats go to girls who need it.

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As for fox hunters, well, do they contravene the harm principle? Some might say, disembowelling and dismembering an animal alive might well do.

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"To repeat, it's a mockery of democracy when the will of the people is used to deny the rights of a minority." – I take it fox-hunters are not considered a minority then?

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The size of the minority makes no difference. If one person is criminalised by this law it will be a gross injustice. In fact, I'd like to know why you are not campaigning for the straight age of consent to be increased to 18.

What could be more democratic than letting all those with a claim to the rock determine the fate of this brave little English exclave. After all, the Gibraltarians are only a VERY small minority.

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Ah! So what you are actually saying is, democracy is fine as long as the outcome is the way *YOU* want it to swing, otherwise it's a "mockery". Sounds like the NuLab we've all come to know and love.

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It was a free vote and it would seem that the elected representatives expressed the will of the people. Its a process called democracy.

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