Yes, I presume the thinking is, hand out big sentences now to discourage any more misbehaviour from would-be-rioters in the short term, then deal with the inevitable appeals and reduce the sentences after that process when everything has calmed down already.
Bad idea. A justice system is as objective as possible, and it never, ever works in the short term. If it works in the short term, it is no longer a justice system.
We also put people in prison for "writing about, not committing" terrorism. Same legislation. I don't think many people would argue with putting people in jail for egging on terrorist attacks online.
I would. Because being in favor of terrorism, and expressing support for it, is, while stupid and wrong, supposed to be legal. It's not allowed to commit terrorism. But you can't arrest someone for being in favor of it, and if it's legal to be in favor of it, it's stupid, baseless and arrogant to outlaw expression of that opinion.
Freedom of speech is total or it is nothing. Freedom of speech is like a pregnancy. You can't be a little pregnant, either you're pregnant, or you're not. You don't have a little freedom of speech. Either you have freedom of speech, or you don't.
Popular, convensional, straight and normal opinions and expressions does not need legal protection. Because they are left alone. It's the ideas, the opinions and expressions that we don't just dislike, but hate and/or despise, that need such protection against sanction from the state.
It's a quite dismal law. In both cases.
Places with actual freedom where demonstrations are put down with tear gas and water cannon, right.
While there are nations where you have a more militaristic approach to policing (France as one example), Britain does seem to stick out as a nation where the policing of public order situations are getting more and more autoritarian.
I seem to remember someone from Greater Manchester's Police Association on Newsnight some days ago. He was saying "we're damned if we do, damned if we don't, like in the case of Ian Tomlinson [...]" (I'm paraphrasing).
To be completely honest, no, you are not damned if you do. You're damned if you assault an innocent, nonviolent man in a disgusting fashion, and he dies from it. Then you're damned. Other than that, you should have been damned for not stopping the black block at RBS, and you should be damned when you did the hideous kettling operation outside Parliament. Damned for the climate camp, and for a dozen similar situations.
There's a sentiment that the British Police can't act because they get condemned for doing their job. That is not the case, at least not as far as I am concerned, the case is, in fact, that police leadership overreacted completely in a number of ugly cases, and as a result, they made the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland look like a joke.
But hey - I live in Norway. We managed to have a NATO summit without a SINGLE stone being thrown, and without any real violence. We even had Obama visit a couple of years ago, and he wasn't shot, but more importantly, we didn't have anything close to violent protest. The closest was someone falling over and dropping a plackard on someone elses head. And it's not like there weren't 'anarchists' coming, there were. In both cases.
The thing is that you can't approach every situation the same way. For years, we had trouble with an anarchist group occupying houses and fighting the police in Oslo. In that case, it turned out that the only effective measure was to give them the house they wanted. It was a worthless house, and were made into a youth club. They're still renting it for a nominal sum. I have a pint at my local with one of the founders of this group, and he say this was the cruelst thing the town council ever did to them.
Now, that was effective there. But the problems you've seen recently in Britain isn't limited to a small group of anarchists wanting a house to serve vegan food in and drink carrot juice. But there is a clue in it, namely the fact that the solution wasn't about policing, it was about social policy. It was about reasons for actions. I am really fed up with the sentiment that people seeking explanations for the rioting (like myself) are excusing the acts. That's such a load of rubble it's not even funny. Cameron gets to stand in front of your nation and say this is just a matter of criminality. He even gets away with good old conservative dribble about fatherless homes, a traditional conservative nail to hit. Very few of those who have spoken on the issue (and I've probably seen more debates on this than the average brit, funnily enough) have excused criminal activity. But some have tried to explain it, and that's not just entirely legitimate, it's essensial.
I've seen cuts being laughed away. Why? I do not for one moment believe that the majority of rioters think about the cuts when they rob a Tesco's. Very few criminals actually reflect on the reasons why they become criminals (as in the social reasons, employment situation and the likes), but the reasons still play a role. It looks very clever to point at a great number of videos of kids saying they don't care about politics, they're out having fun, but listen, you can get affected by politics even if you're not interested in it. Even if you don't know anything about the budget, your local youth club is still closing, you may not relate it to a specific policy, but you register that it's happening. You may not even reflect over it, it might just be a case of "it's closed, let's do something else". They might not even KNOW it's closed permanently, they might think it's refurbishments or something other random reason for closing temporarily.
Every fascet of society gets affected by cuts and austerity. Only an idiot would say that people who think politics is a cheese don't get affected by it. It's like saying Amish people don't get cancer because they reject modern technology. They still get cancer.