London riots

[FJ_Biker]

Ken Wrote

Jordan Blackshaw and Perry Sutcliffe-Keenan were both convicted of inciting a riot on Facebook and jailed for 4 years each.

Normally getting someone to court and sentencing take ages, how come this has gone through so quick and by doing so will the evidence hold up later when some smart legal eagle goes through the case notes.

I have a feeling this is the government bowing down to the press again haven't they learnt lesson from Murdoch, they will end up with egg on their faces if someone finds faults in the case notes.

[redken1]

Ken Wrote

Jordan Blackshaw and Perry Sutcliffe-Keenan were both convicted of inciting a riot on Facebook and jailed for 4 years each.

Normally getting someone to court and sentencing take ages, how come this has gone through so quick and by doing so will the evidence hold up later when some smart legal eagle goes through the case notes.

I have a feeling this is the government bowing down to the press again haven't they learnt lesson from Murdoch, they will end up with egg on their faces if someone finds faults in the case notes.

Taffy, I think an appeal will reduce the sentence by a cosiderable amount. One of the guys told the court he had too much to drink and was just having a laugh. An expensive laugh. You have to be so careful what you post on a public forum nowadays. I can’t believe what some people admit to on forums and social networks. Alot of people even tell you when they are on holiday - why not put an advert in the paper.

[wasted_ace]

I’m not a Ken Clarke fan by any means but, he knows that the UK has one of the biggest prison populations (85,000) in the western world and that our prisons are full to capacity.
It costs £65,000 to imprison a person in this country once police, court costs and all the other steps are taken into account. After that it costs a further £40,000 for each year they spend incarcerated. If the growth in the prison population is not reversed then more prisons will have to be built, at a huge expense.

Jordan Blackshaw and Perry Sutcliffe-Keenan were both convicted of inciting a riot on Facebook and jailed for 4 years each. If both served the full term the cost to the tax payer equates to loose change shy of half a million quid.

The country is bankrupt – it’s ok to keep calling for stiffer sentences, but would we accept a rise in taxes to pay for it?

In short yes !..if crims are in the slammer then they aint looting,mugging or bundling your new R1 into the back of a transit

[Col]

Ken Clarke is a bumbling euro supporting waffler who, when Chancellor, introduced the ludicrous and ultimately crippling 'escalator' tax on fuel and baccy---total twat >

how the hell can it cost 40k p.a. to keep someone in nick can understand the £65k for excessively paid lawyers and state faffing about---are you paying too much tax ;D

[redken1]

Ken Clarke is a bumbling euro supporting waffler who, when Chancellor, introduced the ludicrous and ultimately crippling 'escalator' tax on fuel and baccy---total twat >

how the hell can it cost 40k p.a. to keep someone in nick can understand the £65k for excessively paid lawyers and state faffing about---are you paying too much tax ;D

Col, I can’t confirm whether or not the costs I quoted are correct – I sourced them from the Focus Prison Education (FPE) website. Like you, I have no time for Ken Clarke, I was merely pointing out that he was right about the prison population.
Interestingly, the number of prisoners reached an all time record high today of 86, 654 (Today’s Guardian), leaving only 1,439 spare useable places left in the jail system.

If the recent trend of 100 rioters per day receiving jail sentences continues, don’t be surprised to see prison officers calling last orders in two weeks.

I hope I am wrong, but as the prison population approaches full capacity, we could have another potential “Powder Keg” waiting to explode.

[cornishbob]

cure for the prison population - stop feeding them they die more space - simples

[Last Train]

Excellent article here, posted in another forum, which appeared in the Daily Telegraph shortly after the looting.

David Cameron, Ed Miliband and the entire British political class came together yesterday to denounce the rioters. They were of course right to say that the actions of these looters, arsonists and muggers were abhorrent and criminal, and that the police should be given more support.

But there was also something very phony and hypocritical about all the shock and outrage expressed in parliament. MPs spoke about the week’s dreadful events as if they were nothing to do with them.

I cannot accept that this is the case. Indeed, I believe that the criminality in our streets cannot be dissociated from the moral disintegration in the highest ranks of modern British society. The last two decades have seen a terrifying decline in standards among the British governing elite. It has become acceptable for our politicians to lie and to cheat. An almost universal culture of selfishness and greed has grown up.

It is not just the feral youth of Tottenham who have forgotten they have duties as well as rights. So have the feral rich of Chelsea and Kensington. A few years ago, my wife and I went to a dinner party in a large house in west London. A security guard prowled along the street outside, and there was much talk of the “north-south divide”, which I took literally for a while until I realised that my hosts were facetiously referring to the difference between those who lived north and south of Kensington High Street.

Most of the people in this very expensive street were every bit as deracinated and cut off from the rest of Britain as the young, unemployed men and women who have caused such terrible damage over the last few days. For them, the repellent Financial Times magazine How to Spend It is a bible. I’d guess that few of them bother to pay British tax if they can avoid it, and that fewer still feel the sense of obligation to society that only a few decades ago came naturally to the wealthy and better off.

Yet we celebrate people who live empty lives like this. A few weeks ago, I noticed an item in a newspaper saying that the business tycoon Sir Richard Branson was thinking of moving his headquarters to Switzerland. This move was represented as a potential blow to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, because it meant less tax revenue.

I couldn’t help thinking that in a sane and decent world such a move would be a blow to Sir Richard, not the Chancellor. People would note that a prominent and wealthy businessman was avoiding British tax and think less of him. Instead, he has a knighthood and is widely feted. The same is true of the brilliant retailer Sir Philip Green. Sir Philip’s businesses could never survive but for Britain’s famous social and political stability, our transport system to shift his goods and our schools to educate his workers.

Yet Sir Philip, who a few years ago sent an extraordinary £1 billion dividend offshore, seems to have little intention of paying for much of this. Why does nobody get angry or hold him culpable? I know that he employs expensive tax lawyers and that everything he does is legal, but he surely faces ethical and moral questions just as much as does a young thug who breaks into one of Sir Philip’s shops and steals from it?

Our politicians – standing sanctimoniously on their hind legs in the Commons yesterday – are just as bad. They have shown themselves prepared to ignore common decency and, in some cases, to break the law. David Cameron is happy to have some of the worst offenders in his Cabinet. Take the example of Francis Maude, who is charged with tackling public sector waste – which trade unions say is a euphemism for waging war on low[ch8209]paid workers. Yet Mr Maude made tens of thousands of pounds by breaching the spirit, though not the law, surrounding MPs’ allowances.

A great deal has been made over the past few days of the greed of the rioters for consumer goods, not least by Rotherham MP Denis MacShane who accurately remarked, “What the looters wanted was for a few minutes to enter the world of Sloane Street consumption.” This from a man who notoriously claimed £5,900 for eight laptops. Of course, as an MP he obtained these laptops legally through his expenses.

Yesterday, the veteran Labour MP Gerald Kaufman asked the Prime Minister to consider how these rioters can be “reclaimed” by society. Yes, this is indeed the same Gerald Kaufman who submitted a claim for three months’ expenses totalling £14,301.60, which included £8,865 for a Bang & Olufsen television.

Or take the Salford MP Hazel Blears, who has been loudly calling for draconian action against the looters. I find it very hard to make any kind of ethical distinction between Blears’s expense cheating and tax avoidance, and the straight robbery carried out by the looters.

The Prime Minister showed no sign that he understood that something stank about yesterday’s Commons debate. He spoke of morality, but only as something which applies to the very poor: “We will restore a stronger sense of morality and responsibility – in every town, in every street and in every estate.” He appeared not to grasp that this should apply to the rich and powerful as well.

..........

[Last Train]

continued here....

The tragic truth is that Mr Cameron is himself guilty of failing this test. It is scarcely six weeks since he jauntily turned up at the News International summer party, even though the media group was at the time subject to not one but two police investigations. Even more notoriously, he awarded a senior Downing Street job to the former News of the World editor Andy Coulson, even though he knew at the time that Coulson had resigned after criminal acts were committed under his editorship. The Prime Minister excused his wretched judgment by proclaiming that “everybody deserves a second chance”. It was very telling yesterday that he did not talk of second chances as he pledged exemplary punishment for the rioters and looters.

These double standards from Downing Street are symptomatic of widespread double standards at the very top of our society. It should be stressed that most people (including, I know, Telegraph readers) continue to believe in honesty, decency, hard work, and putting back into society at least as much as they take out.

But there are those who do not. Certainly, the so-called feral youth seem oblivious to decency and morality. But so are the venal rich and powerful – too many of our bankers, footballers, wealthy businessmen and politicians.

Of course, most of them are smart and wealthy enough to make sure that they obey the law. That cannot be said of the sad young men and women, without hope or aspiration, who have caused such mayhem and chaos over the past few days. But the rioters have this defence: they are just following the example set by senior and respected figures in society. Let’s bear in mind that many of the youths in our inner cities have never been trained in decent values. All they have ever known is barbarism. Our politicians and bankers, in sharp contrast, tend to have been to good schools and universities and to have been given every opportunity in life.

Something has gone horribly wrong in Britain. If we are ever to confront the problems which have been exposed in the past week, it is essential to bear in mind that they do not only exist in inner-city housing estates.

The culture of greed and impunity we are witnessing on our TV screens stretches right up into corporate boardrooms and the Cabinet. It embraces the police and large parts of our media. It is not just its damaged youth, but Britain itself that needs a moral reformation.

8-)

[redken1]

Brill Last Train, I agree wholeheartedly – reposted one of my earlier posts on this thread.

Who should the young unemployed look to for moral guidance? The Bankers? The Law-makers who stole from the public purse? The Law-enforcers who allegedly took bungs for information? The media who allegedly hacked in to the phones of murdered children? Or what about their so called role models, footballers - champion's of morality on £250 thou a week?

When I predicted unprecedented civil unrest six months ago on numerous forums (including WB) and platforms, I was shouted down. It’s not rocket science – all the ingredients were in place. I reiterate, that the shooting in Tottenham was not the cause, merely the catalyst that lit the fuse.

[cornishbob]

lumpen prols were identified many many years ago. remove them from society and society benefits