Somebody think of the children!

Labour MP Claire Curtis-Thomas has launched an assault against the ready accessibility of lads' mags, demanding that children be protected from these "repulsive" publications by having them displayed only on the highest shop shelves possible.

The Private Members Bill (stop sniggering at the back) has no chance of becoming law because there isn't time, but Curtis-Thomas argues that these magazines contain "hardcore porn", numbers for "sex chatlines" and adverts for masseurs.

Now, quite apart from questioning whether the lady would actually have a clue what "hardcore porn" looked like, even if it jumped up and jangled a nice pair of nipple clamps in front of her face, she'd find adverts for chatlines, masseurs and sexual services in an awful lot of other, more 'innocent' publications – like local newspapers. And it's hard to believe that she actually wants to consign the Hackney Gazette to the top shelf.

And she seems to be forgetting that children will use anything to find out about sex - from looking up 'rude' words in the dictionary to examining the underwear sections of their mother's catalogue.

But instead of wasting Parliamentary time in rehashing the old Clare Short bugbear about page 3, perhaps Curtis-Thomas would be better occupied in trying to see the following removed from youthful reach:

• all publications that publish faddy, dangerous diets (this will include the Daily Mail);

• all publications that chastise women about their weight and looks, preying on their vulnerabilities over self-image, and thus helping to encourage children as young as nine to start dieting (this will include the Daily Mail);

• all sex-negative publications, which see anything outside heterosexual, monogamous marriage as the end of the world (this will include the Daily Mail);

• all publications that, despite being sex-negative and prudish, also hypocritically publish titillating articles under the guise of 'health' or 'science' interest (this will include the Daily Mail);

• all publications that have homophobic attitudes (this will include the Daily Mail);

• all religious publications that are sex-negative and homophobic (it might be pushing it a bit to say that this will include the Daily Mail).

And if she has a spare moment, perhaps Curtis-Thomas would also like to explore whether legislation on disability equality might not make it discriminatory to a disabled person if they can't reach the top shelf to get their copy of Loaded without having to ask the newsagent to get it for them.