Flashman and the Angels

When Jim Flashman won a Caradon council by-election by the margin of just seven votes in 2002 he probably didn't envisage the sort of local government career which would result in him leading an official fact-finding tour to a lap-dancing club.

Now, as chairman of Cornwall Council's Miscellaneous Licensing Committee, he sits in judgement on where and when sex establishments can operate within the law. But dairy farmer Jim, 62, is the sort of man who likes to know what he's talking about and so he and his colleagues are off in pursuit of the facts.

"We haven't decided where we're going to go yet, or how many of us are going," Jim tells me. "It'll be some councillors and a few of the officers, I expect. I'm fairly broadminded, but we need to have a good look at one of these clubs and understand what goes on, how they're policed and what associated problems there might be. How can we make a recommendation to the council if we don't know what these places are really like?"

The visit is likely to be to a lap-dancing club in Plymouth or East Devon, and Jim insists the costs will be minimal. But how will he know if the girls on display are being on their best behaviour, simply for the purposes of the council visit? Or will the councillors visit incognito? No simple answer.

"We won't have the wool pulled over our eyes," says Jim, "and it won't cost the taxpayers very much at all. There are one or two members of the committee who do have some experience of these sorts of places but not enough for us to make a confident recommendation to the full council. And it would be wrong for us to visit a place in Cornwall as we might have to consider it at a later stage in respect of licensing."