Shopping in Liverpool today, I noticed there are almost as many blonde women there as in Pontevedra. And their faces are just as tanned. Well, orange to be more accurate.

The British media is dominated today by the arrest of two suspects in the case of the murdered 5 prostitutes. There have been numerous articles in the press but these heartfelt comments caught my attention today, for what they said about how British society has changed:- It used to be taboo to go with a prostitute. Something to be done furtively. Something that brought shame if you were found out. But now it’s something to do on a stag night or a night out with the boys. It's considered a bit of a laugh to go to a lap-dancing club or a brothel and pay for sex. It's disgraceful this has been allowed to happen. This is basically society saying it's okay to exploit women in the 21st century. The statistics quoted were well down on those I’ve seen for Spain, both as regards the number of prostitutes in the country and the percentage of British men who resort to them. But the gap is clearly closing, as southern European attitudes take hold in the UK. I wonder how they view this in Brussels, given the importance placed there on ‘convergence’. They certainly must look askance from Stockholm, where it’s now a criminal offence for a man to rent a woman’s body. Too much to hope for Spain, I fear. And for the UK too, it now seems.