European Parliament Elections

Today I went by the local District Council offices to pick up the lists of candidates standing in the 4th June elections (these are County Council and European Parliament).

The European Parliament elections are run on a proportional representation system whereby each political party runs a list of candidates and then seats are awarded in approximate proportion to the number of votes cast (so if 6 seats are available, and three parties are running, then party A might get 70%, party B might get 18% and party C might get 12%, meaning that A would get 4 seats and B & C would each get 1 seat). Each country in the EU is divided into regions (I am in UK region "South East") and each region is awarded a certain number of votes in rough proportion to population. (I think there are some issues about some countries getting disproportionately more seats than others, but I'm not up to speed on that or if it's still current.)

Since I have decided to be one of those annoying people who actually bothers to write to the people who want to represent me in various democratic bodies, I have written to the top two candidates on most of the parties' lists to find out their views on the sexual politics matters that matter to me, and that I feel will be unlikely to be raised otherwise.

I left out some parties that I would definitely not be voting for. I included the three main UK parties (Conservatives, Labour, Liberal Democrats). I left out the Christian Party, on the grounds that I was fairly sure that their answer would only annoy me; UKIP, on the grounds that they already annoy me; United Kingdom First, on the grounds that they sound like they'd be just as annoying as UKIP; the BNP, on the grounds that they're racist bastards; The Roman Party, because I couldn't find an email address, and besides, I think (hope?) that that's just someone playing silly beggars (there's only one name on their list).

I sent emails to The Green Party (who have a Member of the European Parliament elected from this region); Libertas (who claim to be the "only pan-European party"); the Socialist Labour Party (who I don't think are all that relevant any longer - if they ever were); the Peace Party (sound awfully nice!); No2EU-Yes to Democracy (a left-wing alliance against the undemocratic "Lisbon Treaty"); the Jury Team members (who reject the idea of party politics in the first place, but each stand on their own platform); and the English Democrats (who sounds a lot like UKIP, but dafter and more entertaining in their nonsense!)

The emails were all as follows:

I am writing to you today because I understand that you are one of the top two candidates for your party in the European Parliament election in the South East region this year. As a campaigner on alternative sexuality and sex workers' rights, I would like to ask about your policies in those areas.

In particular, I would like your views on the various approaches to dealing with prostitution (e.g. the Swedish Model, the Dutch Model and the New Zealand Model) and which you prefer. I would also like to know what your views are on adult pornographic material, its production, and whether (and to what degree) it should be censored.

Finally, on the alternative sexuality question, will you commit to bringing sexual orientation including modes of sexual expression such as sadomasochism, fetishism and other non-mainstream sexualities, within the framework of human rights law?

If I get any good (or entertaining!) replies, I'll probably post them here for others to read!