Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
New York Times: Cameron's riot reaction wrong
New York Times Editorial; Wrong Answers in Britain
'The thousands who were arrested last week for looting and for more violent crimes should face the penalties that are prescribed by law. But Mr. Cameron is not content to stop there. He talks about cutting off government benefits even to minor offenders and evicting them — and, in a repellent form of collective punishment, perhaps their families, too — from the publicly supported housing in which one of every six Britons lives.
He has also called for blocking access to social networks like Twitter during future outbreaks. And he has cheered on the excessive sentences some judges have been handing out for even minor offenses.
Such draconian proposals often win public applause in the traumatized aftermath of riots. But Mr. Cameron, and his Liberal Democrat coalition partners, should know better. They risk long-term damage to Britain’s already fraying social compact.'
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Sophie Smith on
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I'm far more scared of the Tory legislative response to the riots than I ever was of the riots themselves. God help us if this empowers him to enact ideological change.
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Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on
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Thanks, Matt. The rest of the editorial is worth reading too. Including the comment that: "Trying to shut down the Internet in neighborhoods would be an appalling violation of civil liberties and a threat to public safety, denying vital real-time information to frightened residents."
I wonder as well if Cameron & Co have given any thought to what happens when those convicted come out of jail? Possibly with some new "skills" and new "friends". But no job, and no home.
Did anyone see Channel 4 News yesterday - when Juliet Lyon, Director of the Prison Reform Trust tried in vain to have a sensible adult conversation with "Lord" Michael Howard?
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Permalink Reply by matt on
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Yes I saw that Channel 4 News discussion. Britain still lives in the dark ages when it comes to prisons. Whilst inside prisoners should be working, producing, gaining a new, useful, transferable skill, something useful once they leave prison. Then they can earn, contribute and pay taxes like the rest of us.
And it is certainly no use chucking a family out of the house/flat they're living in because one member committed a crime. Where are they going to live? Under a bridge? The 'new, caring' Tories don't exist, never did.
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Our friend Nigel Mellor, an educational psychologist and occasional poet, sent us his latest.
CRISIS MANAGEMENT
When bankers riot
And investors
Pull down the City of London
We calm them with trillions
When youths riot
And children
Pull down the inner city
We calm them with truncheons
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Permalink Reply by Old-Age-Emporium(OAE) on
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Right, if only Cameron spent some time reading the NY Times rather than Bill Bratton's NY/LA/BostonPD Gazette. Isn't it time his Coalition bedpartners started giving him a bit of the old zero tolerance? He's certainly not going to get it from such as the once upon a time student firebrand, Jack Straw.
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