URL escaping in AppleScript & Python

-- A function for escaping URLs and skeleton code for a test.

on URLescape(myURL)
	set myURL to quoted form of myURL
	set myURL to text from character 2 to -2 of myURL
	set cmd to "
from urllib import quote
print quote(\"" & myURL & "\", \"/:\")
"
	--return cmd
	return (do shell script "python -c '" & cmd & "'")
end URLescape

set test to "Here's a string with quotes & ampersands"
URLescape(test)