Rough justice – the British State at its least attractive

It bitterly disappoints me that the response to the riots by the law enforcement and justice arms of England has been one of posturing, simplistic overreaction.

The jailing of two young men from Cheshire for four years for inciting disorder through Facebook is excessive and profoundly unjust.

I don't pretend to know anything substantial about the backgrounds of the men concerned, who are aged 21 and 22, but let's be clear they've been jailed for inciting a riot that never actually took place.

Could it be that they were simply silly young men, caught up in the dark excitement of the riots and in thrall to the unthinking, facile nature of digital communications networks? I think that probably is the case. I think that's the case for thousands, probably millions, of young people these days. It doesn't mean that two young men should be sentenced to jail with such unseemly haste.

We've seen courts sitting round the clock since the unrest started the weekend before last.

We've seen the cops involved in PR circuses, battering down the doors of suspected troublemakers in early morning raids - with TV news crews in attendance. There are dangers in this sort of operation. What if the cops get the address wrong and batter down the door of an elderly or infirm person, causing a fatal heart attack? It could happen.

Now, I do not condone violence at all. I have witnessed it over the years, of course, in street fights and pub brawls. Increasingly, I've noticed too that increasingly it is women as much as men who cause and are actively involved in pub brawls.

I have never been caught up in a riot. I have never experienced having my business or home or workplace wrecked by rampaging mobs. I'm sure that such scenes are, for most good people (i.e. the majority of people), frightening and profoundly depressing.

But justice should never be rushed, any more than it should be delayed. Rushing and delaying justice simply distorts and strains justice. Rushing for justice can sometimes destroy justice.

And in any case, I'm convinced what we are witnessing in the ramped up response to the riots by cops and the courts, isn't the pursuit of justice at all.

It is the pursuit of vengeance - something quite different, something very unattractive.

And there are disturbing signs that cops and courts are being goaded into going for vengeance by prattling politicians, including the Prime Minister.

Paradoxically, I think there was some 'justice' done recently - when David Cameron had to cut short his classic Posh Person from Central Casting's vacation in Tuscany because the streets of London were burning. Well, that made me laugh and it made me think ... both of which responses are good and better than rioting or looting.

That a modern state and a modern state's leader should be tough on transgressors and opportunistic thieves at a time of civil unrest is understandable; commendable even. We do need to teach people a lesson.

But that lesson must be one that makes offenders think about what they've done, and reflect on why what they have done is wrong. We must show them how people have suffered because of their selfish and violent actions.

What the state should not do is make people who have done something stupid at a time of collective madness feel like scapegoats; feel like people who can't turn their lives around; feel hated.

The tracking down of offenders needs to be done without heat and without the seeking of public relations advantage. It should be unflagging, certainly, but the punishments should not be excessive; not a knee-jerk response which will inevitably cause more resentment.

Don't sentence two young men to prison for four years for writing something stupid and opportunistic on Facebook. Save that sort of sentence for people convicted of mugging with a weapon or grievous bodily harm where the injury was not serious - as is normally the case when justice hasn't been distorted by political hysteria.

Politicians prattle and pose – but they’re all such nerds!

SOMEWHERE between the purity of the angels and the savagery of beasts – a wise man once remarked – there exists politics.

Meaning … angels can get by without governance and civil regulations and so can wild beasts. But humans cannot.

The philosopher Aristotle put it this way … man is a political animal. He meant that if we were all allowed to act as unfettered individuals, following selfish impulses, the result would be chaos and carnage.

The trouble is so many of us now despise politics and politicians ... and with very good cause.

In the UK, the summer’s scandal of greed surrounding MPs expenses has merely deepened public disillusionment.

And watching first the Liberal-Democrats’ and then Labour’s party conferences on TV, I could see a huge disconnection between life as perceived by ordinary citizens and as perceived by politicians.

Gordon Brown, Nick Clegg and David Cameron all display a huge deficiency of charisma. They are, all three of ‘em, nerds. They dress and speak like third-rate travelling salesmen.

And how I laughed when I heard the conference speech by Peter Mandelson described as “masterful”.

Bollocks! It was rubbish, full of camp posturing, and calls to patriotism which cannot be taken seriously, coming from a man who until quite recently had a top job in the undemocratic and anti-British EU.

Mandelson came across as a bonkers egomaniac in his speech on Monday in Brighton – like a man who shouts at strangers in the street.

And his ranting at the Tories at the end was so predictable. BORING!!

On Tuesday came Gordon Brown’s plodding effort. All that guff about “fighting to win for Britain”. What?! He’s sold Britain down the river time and time again.

And that ghastly warm-up act from his missus, Sarah, describing the dour loser as “my husband, my hero". Urgh!! Nurse, I need my private vomitarium!

Look Gordon, you’re a loser, and as Prime Minister you are unelected anyway. When the election comes you’ll be out on your sorry arse. I’d put money on it.

And anyway, on a very serious level, away from the madness of party conferences, the political system we use (representative liberal democracy involving competing political parties) is hopelessly outdated.

Oh, the men-in-suits, the platitudes, the narrow ideological parameters of moderate consensual politics. It’s all so yesterday.

International capitalism is where much of the real political power resides now – and national governments are virtually powerless to tackle big business.

Also, in recent years, nation states have encouraged their own irrelevance by: allowing international law (mainly run by militant liberal-fascists and backed by vile NGOs) to grow; and letting inter- governmental organisations such as the European Union to boss them about.

Meanwhile, all though its history, the United Nations has been riddled with corruption, and to this day remains a laughing stock.

It doesn’t make me happy to write any of the above.

Humankind needs poltics to fashion a good society, there can be no doubt about that.

Paradoxically perhaps, it is political society, with all its rules and institutions, which enables we mere mortals to live bigger and better lives.

So even if we feel mightily cheesed off with our politicians, for the moment it’s important we stay connected and involved in the democratic process … not least to ensure that some of our basic freedoms will endure.

And in Britain’s case, that we can dump this rotten Labour Government down the toilet of history.

The world is transforming rapidly, and the future is hard to predict, but we all have a duty to keep politics and political debate alive in the interim, not least at the national level, where what’s left of our freedom resides.

And hopefully, before too long, the rotten system of politics we have now will give way to something more relevant and more capable of advancing the achievements of human kind.

Hopefully, we’ll get real leaders again, the heroes who are needed, and not the likes of Brown, Clegg and Cameron.