Nick Clegg backs face-sitting protesters over UK porn ban

Deputy Prime Minister says people should be free to 'get their kicks'

Nick Clegg has a perilous three-point lead over Labour in Sheffield Hallam - where 17.3 per cent of the electorate are students (PA)

Nick Clegg today backed Liberal Democrat MPs who are opposing a ban on a list of erotic acts being shown in porn because they have been judged “harmful”.

Three days after a face-sitting protest outside Parliament against new curbs on what can be shown in internet video porn, the Deputy Prime Minister said the new regulations had not got the balance right, and that the state should not invade the privacy of people’s bedrooms.

He told his monthly press conferences that he shared some of the concerns raised by his MPs.

“It is not a prurient judgement of whether we approve or not of someone’s behaviour of the privacy of their bedroom. It is not the role of politicians to cast moral judgements on that,” he said.

“It’s whether we think that in a free society, people should be free to do things that many people might find exotic at mildest or deeply unappetising at worst, but it’s their freedom to do so. That seems to me to be is a classic liberal assertion.”

One of the 'face-sitting' protesters outside parliament (EPA)

The Lib Dem leader added: “Government is not there to stick its nose in the bedroom as long as people are not doing things which are illegal under the law. It’s not really for us to judge how people get their kicks, but it is our role to make sure the law is upheld, and that the law does not encroach on private spaces where the law has no role to intrude.”

Julian Huppert, the Lib Dem MP for Cambridge, has tabled an early day motion opposing the Audiovisual Media Services regulation, which states that any online paid-for porn such as Video on Demand (VoD) must adhere to the same rules set out for DVD production. But he has not secured a Commons debate.

Opponents say the new law means spanking, caning, aggressive whipping, penetration by any object "associated with violence", physical or verbal abuse (regardless of whether consent is given or not), urolagnia (known as "water sports"), role-playing as non-adults, physical restraint, humiliation, female ejaculation, strangulation, face-sitting, and fisting are now banned from web porn sold in the UK.