A primary school teacher has avoided being barred from teaching following revelations in the press of her sideline as a dominatrix, the TES reports.

Faith-Anne Lesbirel, a primary school teacher, was exposed by a tabloid newspaper in 2008 as none other than ‘Mistress Saffron’, a dominatrix offering her services for money online.

[Lesbirel] insisted her fetish activities were private and of “no relevance” to her job, that her presence online was anonymous and she believed her identity was not traceable.

Following the newspaper article, Ms Lesbirel took down her website and admitted her activities to her headteacher, Lynn Samwell-Smith, who was “shocked” but supportive.

Mrs Samwell-Smith, who no longer works at the school, told a General Teaching Council for England (GTC) panel there had been disruption after the news came to light. Some parents told her they did not want Ms Lesbirel having contact with their children; others said her private life had nothing to do with her job.

Mrs Samwell-Smith said there was an “adverse impact” on the school and its reputation. Year 5 and 6 pupils asked Ms Lesbirel if she was a “prostitute”. Eventually the teacher, who had given notice before the incident, opted to leave her job early.

[Read the full thing here: http://bit.ly/mLuK4t]

Lesbirel was given a reprimand by a General Teaching Council for England (GTC) panel, which will stay on her record for two years.

It’s encouraging to see that the reaction from parents wasn’t entirely torches and pitchforks. Unfortunately, it is the ignorance and irrational fear of the more excitable parents that is routinely upheld by the GTC (pictured here: http://bit.ly/jzRUOE). The GTC’s code of conduct has been condemned by teachers’ union NASUWT, as it has been used to discipline teachers for attending gay pride events and having bikini pictures on their facebook accounts. (The code demands “standards of behaviour both inside and outside school [for teachers] that are appropriate given their membership of an important and responsible profession”. My emphasis.)

The comments of the GTC committee that questioned Ms Lesbirel are extraordinary in their contempt for basic ideas of residual freedom and their assumption that it is the Council’s right to police teachers’ private behaviour.

‘You promoted services of a sexual nature via a publicly accessible website that you instigated and you maintained a profile on the “Informed Consent” website, where you say in your written submission you also offered your services as a dominatrix.

‘Anyone could have gained access to these websites. [Children in Years 5 and 6 are accustomed to seeking out dominatrix services online, it seems.]

‘It is clear that the reputation and public standing of the profession was placed at risk by your choosing to initiate and run such a website and indeed the exposure of this did in the event damage the school and the profession. [This information was released, remember, by a tabloid newspaper].

Public trust and confidence was affected.’

[Quoted here: http://bit.ly/mcrTph]

Teachers in this country increasingly bear the brunt of our social and political ills. Pay is being frozen, while funding is cut. Creative and dedicated educators are forced to teach to the test, rather than attempt to inspire, to meet meaningless targets. Teachers are abused and harassed daily by children brutalised by urban squalor and inequality. And now their private conduct is subject to scrutiny from an unelected quango of puritans. Why does anyone sign up for this job?

OK I will admit it. The study I cited a few days ago – investigating the social costs of “passive non-smoking” – was not entirely factual. In fact you could go as far as to say that it did not exist and there is in fact no Professor Wyfman. What has however been recently released is a study into the trade in illicit tobacco, and particularly its effects on kids. It was found that 30% of young people had bought illicit tobacco, and alleged that ‘tab houses’ – informal premises at which illicit tobacco is sold – are creating the next generation of smokers. Unlike bona fide shops, it is impossible to impose an age limit on who illicit suppliers sell to.

If the analysis is correct, then this represents a spectacular policy failure by the New Labour government. The reason that so many Tab Houses exist is simple and obvious. Quite simply the taxes on smoking are obscene. Raising £7 billion pounds a year – most of which is paid by the poorest members of society – this particular sin tax creates a huge incentive for suppliers to enter the black market, which in turn makes tobacco easily available to kids of all ages.

It is high time the tobacco tax was repealed or at least substantially reduced. The 7 billion that it raises far exceeds the cost of smoking to the NHS. In fact, as some critiques of recent studies have illustrated, the actual financial burden of smoking on the NHS might be close to zero or indeed negative. Put simply, this is because everybody dies of something. People who die of lung cancer potentially save the NHS a huge amount of money by not getting older and dying of dementia. Yet even taking at face value some of the (well critiqued) highest estimates, the public purse still makes a substantial net gain from the smoking minority.

And this is wrong in so many ways. It is wrong because the tax on smokers is extremely regressive, with the poorest 20% of households spending 3.4 per cent of their income just paying the smoking tax. And it is wrong because tax should be a means of providing public services and redistributing income, not policing personal lifestyle choices. If the government want to punish people for smoking – and that’s what this is – they should have the bollocks and the democratic decency to put a law to that effect before parliament. Needless to say they would lose. And so they tack this piece of coercive social engineering onto a budget bill – a bill ostensibly concerned with raising money to fund the state.

And finally, even if, unlike me, you believe that it is the place of government to police people’s personal lifestyle choices, then the smoking tax is a completely ineffective way of doing so. Demand for tobacco is price inelastic – increases in price have very little effect on demand – which means that the smoking tax effectively fines people for their habits while doing nothing to change it.