Goodness me, but don't we have a great furore this morning? Following the sentencing of various morally deficient rioters, people are starting to protest that these sentences are too harsh. This, I'm sure you will remember, comes after a week of demands to ensure that anybody conviceted of involvement in the riots was shown a bit of tough love, and it's this kind of wishy-washy pussy-footing about the issue that got Britain into the mess we're in today. A great deal of our problems can be put down to politicians and the public in general not having the moral conviction to carry through their aims. Get a grip! If you decide to do something, stick to your guns, or those same guns will be turned against you.
A main point of contention in this debate surrounds the fates of Perry Sutcliffe-Keenan and Jordan Blackshaw, both jailed for four years for inciting violence on Facebook. Apparently, the fact that no rioting or looting resulted from this incitement should be considered in their favour. I say that no matter how staggering a criminal's ineptitude at actually committing a crime, he remains a danger to society through his attitude, just as if he had succeeded in his nefarious plans. "But four years is such a long time!" wail the apologists. "Such a sentence will ruin their lives!" Assuming they even had fine and upstanding lives in the first place, a willingness to destroy other people's livelihoods for a bit of fun deserves the ruin of your own. As for those who whine about rehabilitation, if there is one thing we should learn from the riots, it is that the criminal element holds no more regard for our pifflingly useless attempts to steer them onto the straight and narrow with a couple of months in a nice comfortable chokey than it does for the victims of its muggings and rapes.
Stick 'em away for a good long time, and if they do it again, put them away for longer. And for goodness' sake, stop letting them watch TV while they're in. It's not a holiday.
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