According to the Times, Blair's not keen on the tabloids' demand for "Megan's Law", which would let parents know where child sex offenders live. Why might this be?
Simple. It's bad for house prices. Here's the summary of recent US research:
When a sex offender moves into a neighborhood, houses within a one-tenth mile area around the sex offender's home fall by 4 percent on average...while those further away show no decline in value. "These results suggest that individuals have a significant distaste for living in close proximity to a known sex offender," the authors conclude.
Full paper here (pdf).
Blair knows there's one thing the mob is more hysterical about than paedos - and that's house prices.
Careful. If this ever got out, copies of the Daily Mail would spontaneously burst into flame.
Posted by: Alex | June 20, 2006 at 04:50 PM
Well, he can house all the pederasts in Dorneywood and such, now that his cabinet ministers are scared to accept use of such piles. Prob solved!
Posted by: dearieme | June 20, 2006 at 04:53 PM
"These results suggest that individuals have a significant distaste for living in close proximity to a known sex offender."
Next they'll be telling us the Pope's a Catholic...
Posted by: Blimpish | June 20, 2006 at 05:22 PM
Hmm, not sure about this.
Are there not two different mobs who are hysterical about these two things?
The House Price mob is relatively wealthy middle-class people, whereas the paedo-mob is, well, maybe this is going somewhere politically unacceptable, but you know what I mean.
Blair might actually be opposed on good grounds of principle, but if so that would be a first...
Posted by: andrew duffin | June 21, 2006 at 03:35 PM