Bill Aitken – sexist shitebag.

If you’re a Tory, you’re pretty much already a contemptible little prick. If you’re a Scottish Tory, then you’re up there with Bond villains – you’ve basically chosen to become something EVERYONE AROUND YOU DESPISES. That might explain why Bill Aitken made comments earlier, that a woman who was raped might have been a prostitute.

Little Prick

In an interview with the Sunday Herald, Aitken said of lane rapes (4 of which have occured in Glasgow city centre since Christmas) “I really think we need to know a bit more about these. They are not always as they seem to be, put it that way.”

When he was asked to explain what he meant, he said “Somebody should be asking her what she was doing in Renfrew Lane. Did she go there with somebody? … Now, Renfrew Lane is known as a place where things happen, put it that way.” The “things that happen” are men buying women for sex of course. But instead of condemning this, Bill – after immediately assuming a woman in Glasgow at night in a certain area is a prostitute – condemns the victim, the woman who is bought to be abused.

Of course there is no evidence except Bill’s prejudice to suggest the woman was a prostitute. But even if she was, does it make it any less of a crime? When rich folk get burgled or mugged, Tories don’t blame them for being a victim of crime because they flaunted their wealth. When it comes to rape, there’s a disturbingly high % of people (including young men) who blame women for their ordeal. At the same time it’s prostitutes – and not their abusive consumers – who are persecuted by the police, with many of them currently jailed in the Cornton Vale woman’s prison.

This viewpoint obviously is represented in the corridors of the legal establishment as well – Bill Aitken (currently Tory spokesperson on Law and Order) was formally a District Court Judge and a Justice of the Peace. With people like Aitken in these positions it’s probably unsurprising that Scotland’s rape conviction is shockingly low – less than 4%. While Aitken is no longer a Justice of the Peace or a District Judge, his involvement in legal matters has not ended – disgracefully he is chair of the Justice Committee at the Scottish Parliament. Someone who insults and demeans rape victims has no place in Parliament, let alone a committee that’s meant to be run in the interests of victims.