BS: Punishment for riots

Subject: RE: BS: Punishment for riots
From: DMcG
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 07:41 AM

"The most signed e-petition on the No 10 website is one calling for convicted rioters to lose benefit payments."

The real problem of this is that it is essentially retrospective. On the assumption that we, if not they, hold the law important, this should not apply to offences already committed. I agree with this quotation from 'A Man for All Seasons':
====
William Roper: So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!
Sir Thomas More: Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?
William Roper: Yes, I'd cut down every law in England to do that!
Sir Thomas More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's! And if you cut them down, and you're just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!

====

Yes, if it is Parliament's will, make stopping of benefits for rioters from today onwards one of the possible punishments. But changing punishments after the crime is a very dodgy practice...

Subject: RE: BS: Punishment for riots
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 07:51 AM

That sounds fascinating Leveller, and I'm carrying on working .8 as they say in the teaching profession, now that I will receive State Pension!!

Subject: RE: BS: Punishment for riots
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 08:22 AM

157-0 at lunch. Great!
The scone was very nice - Tesco 'Finest'. Fortunately the looters and arsonists didn't get as far as the backwoods of Lincolnshire, so our Tesco remains intact.

Subject: RE: BS: Punishment for riots
From: theleveller
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 08:31 AM

We're no longer welcome at Tesco after mrsleveller staged at sitdown protest in the produce department one Christmas Eve because they had no potatoes. (Honestly!) Fortunately we now have a great local Morrisons.

Subject: RE: BS: Punishment for riots
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 08:39 AM

Our Tesco seems to run out of most fresh produce on Saturday afternoons, Leveller. It's so frustrating. If I were a lesser man, or off a sink estate (oh shit, I was off one of those years ago!), I'd start smashing the windows and stealing the electrical goods - that'd serve 'em right! :-) :-)

Morrisons is **OK** but its aisles are too narrow, and always blocked by large baskets full of cheap cans of stuff, and gangs of old people and young mums with hordes of kids, all passing the day gassing. :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Punishment for riots
From: theleveller
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 08:50 AM

mrsleveller did point out to the producer manager that we live in one of the biggest potato-growing areas of the country and that with just one phone call she could have a lorry-load delivered in half and hour. Actually, there very nearly was a riot (this was in Goole - need I say more?)

I go to our new Morrisons at 9.30 on a Sunday before the tills open and am usually back home, fully ladened, by 10.15. Wine's better, too.

Subject: RE: BS: Punishment for riots
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 08:54 AM

"(this was in Goole - need I say more?)"

Nope! Played there many times.....but always managed to escape with my life!

Subject: RE: BS: Punishment for riots
From: Will Fly
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 09:08 AM

OK, now we've got it all off our chests - now we've birched the fuckers and made 'em each write 400 letters for jobs (to whom, by the way?), and we've stopped all their benefits and prosecuted 'em all and locked 'em all up at our expense - what now?

Let's spend our energies examining cause - not effect - and we might, just might, get somewhere.

I don't believe that the State should namby-pamby any part of society, and I have no sympathies whatsoever for the thuggish behaviour of the looters. But - just a thought - if it's tough enough for decent, hard-working kids to get work or get a decent place to live these days, what hope can be made for those who have absolutely no hope? Without hope there are no aspirations, and without aspirations, people will lie in the shit they were born into.

Subject: RE: BS: Punishment for riots
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 09:18 AM

Or ...


Precisely so Will.


Backwoodsman, you are such a reactionary that I had assumed you to be from a different more right wing country.   Have you not yet figured out that the best possible predictor of a future prison sentence is having served one already?

Subject: RE: BS: Punishment for riots
From: theleveller
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 09:29 AM

I agree with what Wiil says and am now withrawing from this discussion whilst it's still in a state of relative harmony and before it starts ti get acrimonious.

Watch out for more potato riots south of the Humber!

Subject: RE: BS: Punishment for riots
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 09:38 AM

Well, Will (almost poetry, innit?) - whatever anyone claims is the cause, the only thing that will change things is if people themselves make it change. And to do that, they need to stop blaming everyone else for their problems, stop expecting a free ride, stop behaving like feral criminal arseholes, and get a grip.

Here's a clip from a post I made on 'the other thread' about people who had nothing but who behaved like decent human beings and scratched a life for themselves:-

It is simply not good enough to take the line that, because people are having a hard time, they can be given carte-blanche to burn, loot and riot. My grand-parents and parents had absolutely fuck-all, they lived through the 30's Depression and a World War, lived their entire lives in council houses, no money, no car, no holidays, no electronic gadgetry, just a life of hard fucking work for peanuts-wages. But what they did have was dignity, morals, the work-ethic, respect for other people and other peoples' property, respect for the law, and a firm belief in education, and they made sure that, unlike many of the parents of the criminal animals we've been watching this past few days, they passed their standards on to their children.

There used to be a saying when I was a kid in the 50's - "You don't have to be rich to be clean". And you don't have to be rich to live like a decent human being either.

And that's the long and short of it - standards of decency, respect and civilised behaviour, which my forebears had in shedloads, and which they passed on to their children, are very sadly lacking in much of today's society. Somehow those values have to be re-instilled into people, and I'm not just talking about sink-estate-dwellers, I mean into all classes. There are arseholes at all levels, people who have little or no regard for their fellow man and no intention of giving any consideration to anyone but themselves.

But also they have to be made to understand that violence, arson, looting and murder are absolutely unacceptable no matter what excuse or justification they think they've got - and that means the full weight of the law coming down on the present bunch of criminal scrotes like a ton of bricks.

OK, I accept that birching is unacceptable, that was a rather juvenile suggestion and I regret making it. I withdraw my 'Birch the fuckers' demand, and replace it with 'Jail the fuckers for a long time'. They have to be forced to understand that crime doesn't pay - if we fail in that, our reward will be anarchy.

Someone else further up the thread said they should be sentenced to community service in a refugee camp in East Africa. Now ain't that the truth - they'd find out then what a hard life is really about. Might just change their outlook for the better.

Subject: RE: BS: Punishment for riots
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 09:46 AM

"Backwoodsman, you are such a reactionary that I had assumed you to be from a different more right wing country.   Have you not yet figured out that the best possible predictor of a future prison sentence is having served one already?

Not a reactionary at all, Richard. Just a guy who's worked his balls off and paid his taxes for almost 49 years, and who is sick to the back teeth of the "It's all someone else's fault", "Blame it all on the Guv'mint" bollocks that the bleeding-heart PC-Numbnuts keep drivelling on about.

And of course I've figured out that "the best possible predictor of a future prison sentence is having served one already?" Richard! Haven't you figured out yet that it's very rare indeed for leopards to change their spots?

Got to go - they're playing again.

Subject: RE: BS: Punishment for riots
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 09:49 AM

That was the justification they put up to excuse the looters' and arsonists' behaviour

(sigh)

Repeat after me: attempting to understand why these things happen and hopefully how we can prevent them from happening again is not the same as justifying, condoning or supporting the looters. Doh!

Subject: RE: BS: Punishment for riots
From: Fred McCormick
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 09:51 AM

Bloody hell. Will Fly. At last someone has said something sensible. No, there's no excuse for rioting or looting, and I've got a hell of a lot of sympathy for the small traders whose businesses were wrecked and for the people whose communities were wrecked, and for the families of the people who died defending their property.

But if the stuffed shirts who've spent the last few days calling for water cannon, baton rounds, eviction notices, benefits withdrawal, more police, more riot gear, tougher sentences and God alone knows what else, had been born into dysfunctional families on sink estates with no jobs, no hope and no prospects, would they have made better citizens than the kids who've been out rioting? I scarcely think so.

And if those stuffed shirts had been brought up faced with celebrity culture, overpaid bankers and company directors, dishonest MPs, and shops crammed with goods they would never be able to pay for, would they have reacted any differently to the way the disaffected youths of London, Manchester etc reacted between Saturday and Tuesday nights?

If you seriously want to solve the problem of rioting, you first have to solve the problems of inequality and scrapheap alienation.

Subject: RE: BS: Punishment for riots
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 09:54 AM

""if it's tough enough for decent, hard-working kids to get work or get a decent place to live these days, what hope can be made for those who have absolutely no hope? Without hope there are no aspirations, and without aspirations, people will lie in the shit they were born into.""

Ignoring the predictably nonsensical response above, answer me this Will.

If your final sentence be true, how come we still have ANY decent hardworking kids?

It's about the presence or absence of guts, determination to succeed, and a willingness to work to achieve one's aspirations.

Those you refer to as having no hope represent the absence of those qualities. You can't really believe that there are that many kids too stupid to learn......Can you?

It's a gimme everything free world they live in, and when they are told that free lunches have to be worked for, they simply can't be bothered.

They are on just about every street corner, singing the same refrain...."There's no work available!"

I have repeatedly during my life, which includes a couple of recessions and a "winter of discontent", proved that to be absolute bollocks.

There are always jobs to be had, if you are prepared to do them, and they are jobs for which the decent hardworking are over qualified, but, if you threw away your chances of an education and have (through your own indolence) no skills, then you are perfect for the positions.

There are plenty in this country who started out this way and ended up managing directors, but the downside is that you have to be willing to work hard and learn.

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: Punishment for riots
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 10:02 AM

Amen. I'm gone.

Subject: RE: BS: Punishment for riots
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 10:06 AM

Bloody Hell, Fred McCormick. I've never been called a 'Stuffed-Shirt' before, and if you knew me, you'd understand how inappropriate (yet hilariously funny AFAIC) that is.

I will wear that badge with pride (and a great deal of amusement!).

Now I really am gone, cricket's far more important than this - and the guys I'll be listening to really do know what they're talking about.

Subject: RE: BS: Punishment for riots
From: Teribus
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 10:10 AM

Don(Wyziwyg)T - Date: 11 Aug 11 - 09:54 AM

&

Backwoodsman - Date: 11 Aug 11 - 09:38 AM



Are the most sensible things said on this thread so far.

Subject: RE: BS: Punishment for riots
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 10:13 AM

You're missing Carry on Cabby.

Subject: RE: BS: Punishment for riots
From: Big Mick
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 10:21 AM

A couple of observations.....

Don wyziwig, we get it. You are to be commended. Good man you are for risings from the detritus of your upbringing. Would that "they" were all like you. But, you see, "they" are not all like you. The ingredients that went into the soup that is you, plus a bit of luck, is peculiarly you. And that is why it serves little purpose in the search for answers, IMO. Your country has a problem. Will Fly, and earlier, Richard Bridge are wisely trying to urge that you all put aside your own peculiar views and look at the broader societal and political causes as you seek to understand and fix. Good sauce, that.

I have only one bone to pick with Richard and others in this and the earlier thread. I have read several comments which referenced "other right wing countries" or "being like America". May I suggest to you that these comments project an arrogance to those of us that are not from your country? It seems to me that national SELF examination is the way forward for my British friends. Your problems are yours and the cause and effect of it is complex. Just as ours are. Comparisons to other countries at times like this only serve to reinforce a negative stereotype of you folks as self righteous and arrogant. And if there is one thing I have learned from years of listening in on your conversations, it is that you are a kind, generous, and hospitable people. I hope the context is not lost on this post, as it meant to be sincere and not perjorative.

All the best,

Mick

Subject: RE: BS: Punishment for riots
From: Will Fly
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 10:30 AM

Don - I'm speaking from personal experience here. Owing to the recession and to bad business practice (greed) on the part of the partners of the firm he worked for over 10 years, my hard-working son was made redundant - along with 170 other (mainly) young people - just before Christmas last year. This is in the "well-off" south-east - Brighton, in fact. He has a mortgage and two young children. He's an intelligent and capable man of 35. Jobs? There aren't any jobs. None. Zilch. Niente. Sweet fuck-all. And he's very experienced in his line of work.

Should he do a Tebbit? (Remember him?) Get on his bike? If so - where to? Where is it easier? If you do know, pass it on.

In fact, he's had a hard re-think and decided to go for a change of career - go to college and study for a different way of life. Let's hope there's a job for him at the end of those three years, with perhaps £12,000 of debt (student loans) to pay off. Now - if someone like him can't make it, what hope is there for someone of a lesser background? He's intelligent enough - and civilised enough - not to want to loot and pillage, but he thinks Cameron and this government just "isn't up to it", and he's not alone.

I'm nearly 67 and never had to struggle to get a job when I was his age. There were jobs - OK, they weren't so plentiful that you could walk into one, but it was never too hard. Those days are dead and gone! Get that into your head. Until a government - any government - gets off its arse and thinks hard about how it spends its money on job creation, education, seeding small employers and similar actions, it won't change. Until large corporations start putting their profits back into their industry, into training and development - rather than handing them all over to shareholders - it won't change. We're probably the only industrialised country in Europe which doesn't put a decent bit of profit back into its own infrastructure.

If you get people involved, working, thinking - with some light at the end of the tunnel, some hope of opportunity and betterment - then you just might get somewhere. We're not all born equal - not by a long way - but we should all have equal opportunity, and that doesn't exist at the moment. By all means lets have sticks - but give people some carrots as well.

Subject: RE: BS: Punishment for riots
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 10:31 AM

""But if the stuffed shirts who've spent the last few days calling for water cannon, baton rounds, eviction notices, benefits withdrawal, more police, more riot gear, tougher sentences and God alone knows what else, had been born into dysfunctional families on sink estates with no jobs, no hope and no prospects, would they have made better citizens than the kids who've been out rioting? I scarcely think so.""

You obviously haven't been following the conversation very long, but if you had you would know that I was born (with the exception that I had a VERY functional family) in exactly the circumstances you describe, and I believe I can say hand on heart, that I did turn out to be a better citizen. And I did so by willingness to work, which meant I was fully employed from leaving college in 1957 to drawing my Old Age Pension in 2006. Nobody ever GAVE me a job, I went out and FOUND one when necessary.

""And if those stuffed shirts had been brought up faced with celebrity culture, overpaid bankers and company directors, dishonest MPs, and shops crammed with goods they would never be able to pay for, would they have reacted any differently to the way the disaffected youths of London, Manchester etc reacted between Saturday and Tuesday nights?""

It is often amusing Fred to listen to those who know little about a subject tying themselves in knots, amusing but somehow sad.

We had celebrity culture, with Hollywood film stars as the idols. We had Fat Cat businessmen, and they were less controlled than now. We had shops crammed with goods we couldn't afford.

You know what?...We took whatever job was available and stuck at it until something better came along, and in time we bought those goods.

We could have stolen them, but we had too much pride and self respect to sink to that level.

Some of us actually made it to the top by hard work, not corruption, and some of the rich people who are so despised and reviled by many here came from the same background.

Incidentally, I'm not one of those you describe as wanting ""water cannon, baton rounds, eviction notices, benefits withdrawal, more police, more riot gear, tougher sentences and God alone knows what else,"" in fact I've posted against it, but I do want these kids taught that crime doesn't pay, by suffering the realistic punishment so often not delivered by our over soft judiciary.

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: Punishment for riots
From: Will Fly
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 10:35 AM

I think I've probably contributed all I can to this thread, so I shall retire gracefully from it - have a positive discussion!

Subject: RE: BS: Punishment for riots
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 10:56 AM

""In fact, he's had a hard re-think and decided to go for a change of career - go to college and study for a different way of life. Let's hope there's a job for him at the end of those three years, with perhaps £12,000 of debt (student loans) to pay off. Now - if someone like him can't make it, what hope is there for someone of a lesser background? He's intelligent enough - and civilised enough - not to want to loot and pillage, but he thinks Cameron and this government just "isn't up to it", and he's not alone.""

Just to take up what I think is a pertinent point, it isn't very productive to lay the blame for a four decades long decline at the door of a government in power for just fifteen MONTHS.

That dealt with, I rather think that your son HAS made it, and done so in a way I can only admire. His position is entirely different than that of the looters, whose motivation (I repeat) was pure greed.

You son has fallen victim to the other side of the coin, by which I mean that there is nothing available locally for a man with his particular skills, compounded by the fact that modern business seems to have applied the concept of obsolescence to human beings.

Of course he shouldn't get on his bike. A sensible man only relocates when he HAS a job in the new location.

So he has decided to improve his skills set to become more attractive to employers, and he is going to have a hard time financially, but he has done the right thing as he would have been worse off in a menial job.

If the looters showed half his industry and commitment, they wouldn't have needed to steal in the first place.

As to the availability of entry level jobs for the unskilled or semi skilled, which you assert do not exist, well they are being done by Eastern European workers for a reason. They turn up on time, they work a fullshift, and they don't take a day off every week.

The jobs are there, but who would YOU employ in those circumstances?

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: Punishment for riots
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 11:08 AM

"There aren't any jobs. None. Zilch. Niente. Sweet fuck-all."

There are many hundreds, if not thousands, of Polish, Portugese and Lithuanians in South Lincolnshire whose response to that would be their language's equivalent of "What a load of bollocks!".

South Lincs is full of them. They take the jobs that our people won't take. Not "can't find", won't take. Not highly paid jobs, but jobs for all that - jobs that at the very least give a worker a sense of worth and self-respect. I can only guess at the reasons why unemployed, underprivileged British people won't take them.

This is in no way a complaint or criticism of Poles, Portugese or Lithuanians. Good luck to them - they did get on their bikes (metaphorically), they pedalled a very long way and they got the jobs. Because they want to work.

Subject: RE: BS: Punishment for riots
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 11:13 AM

""Don wyziwig, we get it. You are to be commended. Good man you are for risings from the detritus of your upbringing. Would that "they" were all like you. But, you see, "they" are not all like you. The ingredients that went into the soup that is you, plus a bit of luck, is peculiarly you.""

Self aggrandisement is not the objective here Mick.

The point of the argument is that I was not unique, nor even unusual.

Most of my contemporaries grew up with exactly the same values, and many of them fared much better than I did, only a very few faring worse.

That changed in the trendy sixties, as I pointed out in the other thread, with the introduction of Dr Spock's lunatic ideas on education and parenting, which are the root cause of the absence of discipline and respect three generations on.

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: Punishment for riots
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 11:19 AM

==="shops crammed with goods they would never be able to pay for " ===
                                  ,.,.
What 'goods' would these have been, that these youths, in their £100 trainers, tricked out in their         "New Look Black Perforated Hooded Jacket - £30.00" [Google index],   communicating on their smartphones & BlackBerries, would 'never be able to pay for'?

I merely ask.

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Punishment for riots
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 11:29 AM

"That changed in the trendy sixties, as I pointed out in the other thread, with the introduction of Dr Spock's lunatic ideas on education and parenting, which are the root cause of the absence of discipline and respect three generations on."

Yep.
That, and this idea propounded by the Loony-PC-Numbnuts that when a little shit gets caught burning and looting, you pat him on the head and gently explain that it's not his fault, it's the fault of that nasty (insert name of current ruling party) government, or those greedy rich people, then give him a bit of community service - exit little shit from the court, pissing his pants laughing at the stupid old fart of a magistrate/judge who's just effectively let him off and the numb-nuts lawyer who fell for his sob-story and aided and abetted him in getting off, to attend the first session of community service and then say "Bollocks to that" and never turn up again.

Subject: RE: BS: Punishment for riots
From: GUEST,Bluesman
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 11:30 AM

I can understand people trying to comprehend why over a 5 day period cities in the UK were subjected to an unpredicted level of lawlessness, violence and murder.

To blame, Murdoch, bankers, government policies, police brutality, people who worked hard to establish themselves in business is sheer stupidity.

If you want to know way they did it, look towards the culture of "why the fuck should I work when I can get state benefits and a home for doing fuck all" yes there is a culture of laziness and opt out of the system and no one can say it does not exist.

Pressure groups get changes made to the law, I spoke with a friend who is a solicitor last night(not a washed up never made it in the real world example) he said governments introduced so many laws over the years to appease such groups that they actually are now unable to deal with situations such as what is currently happening because these laws are now biting them in the ass.

The reality of the situation in our cities is that many cultures are now prepared to defend the areas they call their own. This will lead to tension, divisions and resentment. I am still of the opinion that a monster came of the flames of the past week and we will soon get to the opportunity to meet it.

Subject: RE: BS: Punishment for riots
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 11:32 AM

319-2 at tea. Just coming out again. Gotta go.

Subject: RE: BS: Punishment for riots
From: Musket
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 11:45 AM

Backwoodsman - Just noticed you called Bridge my mate. Steady on a bit. Also don't recognise the point about my views you made Never mind, been a lot of cricket since then.

Leveller. - Plenty of spuds growing south of the Humber. In fact not many miles south of Goole, in my garden. Going to dig a few up now as a matter of fact so I can make a nice meal for my responsible adult.

Bridge. - Predictors of who might end up in prison in the future may well be a good debating point for prison reform, but here we are talking about removing people from society because as the murders to date have graphically show, decent people need protection and no amount of debate over future regimes can comfort them. Incarceration of the buggers will suffice for now.

Everybody else; I reckon a Spanish omelette, what do you think? I am about to get the spuds in, and the perpetual spinach. I have already got out my garlic crop and enough onions for now. We have plenty of eggs cos friends are away and we are feeding their chickens. Medley Farm Shop (Belton) are making their own chorizo so that can go in it. I reckon there are a few mushrooms in the pantry. Yeah, I reckon a Spanish Omelette for my responsible adult. That'll please her.

Subject: RE: BS: Punishment for riots
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 11:53 AM

Now you're just being cruel Ian.

If my mouth waters any more you may wind up owing me a keyboard.

Don T

Subject: RE: BS: Punishment for riots
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 11:56 AM

"Also don't recognise the point about my views you made"

Which point, Ian? Been a long day (in more ways than one!).

Subject: RE: BS: Punishment for riots
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 11:56 AM

Everybody else; I reckon a Spanish omelette, what do you think?

Yuck. I can eat egg in something like a cake but not as egg and omelette is "as egg" for me. I'd throw up. Shame as we have had our own hens at various times.

Spinach and cheese pie with new potatoes please.

Subject: RE: BS: Punishment for riots
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 11:57 AM

Haggis, neeps and tatties (Lincolnshire-grown, of course) for me and Mrs. Backwoodsperson.

Subject: RE: BS: Punishment for riots
From: pdq
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 12:01 PM

... but we should all have equal opportunity, and that doesn't exist at the moment. By all means lets have sticks - but give people some carrots as well."

Psycopathic street punks are afraid of carrots?

Subject: RE: BS: Punishment for riots
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 12:02 PM

Depends where you shove them, pdg! :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Punishment for riots
From: Big Mick
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 12:04 PM

"haggis, neep, and tatties"

Ummmhhh. Now my mouth IS watering. Finding decent haggis in the States is no mean feat. But Ackroyd's in Birmingham, Michigan, USA makes it fresh and overnight ships it. I think I will order one up!!

Subject: RE: BS: Punishment for riots
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 12:10 PM

Go for it Mick! :-) :-)
This haggis came home with us from the Isle of Eigg (one of The Small Isles south of Skye) been in the freezer a few weeks and we've finally cracked today. Yum!

Subject: RE: BS: Punishment for riots
From: pdq
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 12:15 PM

Backwoodsman...if we go by your suggested use of vegetables may I suggest parsnips instead.

Subject: RE: BS: Punishment for riots
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 12:16 PM

This is a splendid opportunity for the government to show they are even handed, by coming down every bit as hard on the feral crooks in the City who looted us all as they do on the people who have followed their lead so disastrously in the last few days.

Put them in the same cells.

Subject: RE: BS: Punishment for riots
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 12:21 PM

Mick, good post - but what do non-USAians mostly see of US politics which is on average far to the right of the rest of the world?

I have nice carrots.

But, Don, when I was young, and when a little further back you were young, there were jobs. UK's youth unemployment is now over 20%, and it's a lot worse in the hotspots. I know two very high achieving young people who went off on a world trip and now are unable to get employed but are precariously self-employed. I know another less young who was European manager of part of a worldwide computer company who let go of the greasy pole to breed and now lives precariously from contract to contract. The world is not what it was. It is conservative governments who have deliberately undermined workers, and removed safety nets, and now it continues. You don't teach a dog by beating it. You teach it with reward and praise. Beat it and sooner or later it will bite you or someone else.


Cavedweller - there are four theoretical bases for imprisonment: prevention, reform, punishment, and Hegelian balance (the balance between right and wrong). Total prevention (ie lock them up for ever so they can't do it again) is wholly unaffordable. It is also morally wrong since the punishment then does not fit the crime, as was the case in the bad old days. The USA has one of the highest prison populations per capita in the first world - and one of the highest crime rates. We do pretty badly on that scale too. Your kneejerk reactions learned presumably from Melanie Phillips are no recipe for a cure.

Oh, and if you want to insult my professional career, at least check for how long you could find me in the Legal 500 first.

Subject: RE: BS: Punishment for riots
From: Musket
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 12:26 PM

Water under the bridge, (now that's a thought, see if he can walk on it,) Backwoodsman. I just thought you were reckoning I was being a bit soft on crime. Not me mate..

So, you get to grow your own haggis? Are you rearing clockwise or anticlockwise haggis? I would have thought either will do, but in Lincolnshire, how do you ensure their right / left pair of legs can touch the ground? I thought you needed hills to grow haggis, hence their indigenous state in the in The Highlands. (And McSween stockists.)

Subject: RE: BS: Punishment for riots
From: GUEST,Bluesman
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 12:59 PM

I see a lot of these young thugs up in front of magistrates today didn't have legal representation. Does anyone know a "solicitor" who would be understanding to their cultural poverty, deprived backgrounds and lack of social or community understanding who would represent them free of charge ?

It would also be a good chance to tell magistrates and judges the reasons why they did what they did and also put a word in for student protesters due in court after the summer recess.

Subject: RE: BS: Punishment for riots
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 01:17 PM

How long before this one is shut down?

Subject: RE: BS: Punishment for riots
From: GUEST,999
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 01:30 PM

I read somewhere that the English have suffered about 100 million pounds in damages so far. I do not understand why it's been allowed to go so long.

Subject: RE: BS: Punishment for riots
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 01:42 PM

On the other hand the financial crisis has cost the British economy up to £7.4 trillion in lost output, according to the Bank of England...

Now that is damage on a somewhat larger scale. Seventy thousand times as much (assuming that's the American version of a trillion they were talking about - otherwise it would be one million times as much...)

Subject: RE: BS: Punishment for riots
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 01:46 PM

I think its got to be the US/Canadian version.

Subject: RE: BS: Punishment for riots
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 01:53 PM

"Cavedweller - there are four theoretical bases for imprisonment: prevention, reform, punishment, and Hegelian balance (the balance between right and wrong). Total prevention (ie lock them up for ever so they can't do it again) is wholly unaffordable. It is also morally wrong since the punishment then does not fit the crime, as was the case in the bad old days. The USA has one of the highest prison populations per capita in the first world - and one of the highest crime rates. We do pretty badly on that scale too. Your kneejerk reactions learned presumably from Melanie Phillips are no recipe for a cure."

Richard, By "Cavedweller", I assume you mean me. That is a personal insult and against forum rules. I haven't called you names, please don't call me names - hardly the proper behaviour for someone who professes to be a lawyer.

And yes, I studied law at college, albeit forty-five-or-so years ago, and I'm well aware of those four bases. Read my posts again - I have not suggested locking them up forever - again, I'm well aware of the cost of such an exercise, and that to do so would be disproportionate to their offence(s). What I have suggested is that, in the present circumstances, punishment and deterrence trump Reform and the Hegelian Balance, and that they should have long prison sentences. The precise length of those sentences is not for you or I to decide, but it should be proportionate to the crimes, which are in my view heinous. If your dog shits on your carpet, you punish it. These dogs shat on everyone's carpet, and should be punished - properly and proportionately. That's all.

Regarding prison populations - why are you unable to comprehend a simple fact - the USA has a high prison population precisely because it has a high crime rate. Horse before cart, Richard. Why do Lefties always put the cart first and try to blame prison for criminals' criminality, and why do they have greater concern for the criminal than the victim?

Finally, I have not insulted your professional career. As far as I remember, my only reference to you was as Ian Mather's 'mate'. I don't know you, I don't know if 'Richard Bridge' is your real name and, to be perfectly frank, I don't care a toss about what you do. Lawyer or shithouse-cleaner, it's all the same to me.

I hope that makes my position crystal clear?

Have a nice evening Richard. Be sure thatI will.

Subject: RE: BS: Punishment for riots
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 02:35 PM

100