Comment: Why Labour is prudish about sex

Labour are worse than the Tories when it comes to what people get up to behind closed doors.

When sex and politics collide, it is usually no more than an excuse for some good old-fashioned crudity, along with a hefty dose of journalistic double standards and, more often than not, ministerial embarrassment. How else to deconstruct the serious but essentially misguided furore over expenses-gate, in which it was revealed that Jacqui Smith had signed off expenses for home entertainment (serious breach) that also happened to feature some smuttiness (mostly trivial)?

However, recent developments in Australia, coupled with a serious Labour obsession with sex – quite distinct from gender – raise the question of whether the issue might not eventually find its way on to the UK political agenda as a vote-winner (or loser) in its own right.

Apart from playing a part in Ministerial downfalls - from Profumo to David Mellor - sex has never been a stand-alone issue in UK politics. Its most famous exponent was Lindi St Clair, aka Miss Whiplash, who, after a run-in with the Inland Revenue, set up the 'Corrective party' to campaign for a liberalisation of the laws on prostitution and the sex trade. She stood in a total of nine by-elections before being made bankrupt in 1992 and disqualified from standing again.

For a more serious intrusion into politics, you must look to Italy and the 'partito dell'amore' which for a time looked as though it might actually gain parliamentary representation, in the form of one-time porn star and model, Ilona Staller – 'la cicciolina'. Her political credentials involved a stint as a parliamentary representative for the partito radicale: in addition to greater sexual liberalisation, the partito dell'amore also tapped into a range of issues around sex education and the environment.

However, the Australian experience takes sexual politics to another level. In part, this is due to the workings of the Australian electoral system and in part because some serious money is at stake. At federal level, the Australian Senate divides 32-32 between government and opposition, with many major issues decided by the Greens and a handful of independents. The latter have tended to take less liberal stands on a number of issues whilst 'family values' is the public platform of at least one independent.

A similar pattern occurs at state level, with close results in several legislatures and balance of power held by candidates who are populist, Christian and possibly reactionary. A series of increasingly restrictive measures in respect of the adult trade, plus government proposals for a controversial compulsory firewall to protect Australians from the dangers of 'harmful material' on the internet appear to have been the last straw.

In autumn 2008, the Australian Sex party was launched. They have no governmental ambitions: they would like to supplant a few of the independent senators at state and federal level, thereby ensuring a voice for the mass of ordinary Australians whose laidback views on sex are not well-reflected by a much more nannying Labour government. Their programme has a central core that is focused on censorship, licensing and associated issues: but they have widened out beyond this, to take on board issues such as gay rights, sex education and, as in Italy, some issues more readily associated with the Greens.

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