The French state goes in with water cannons, rubber bullets, tear gas and riot shields, battering everyone within hitting distanceI like neeps wrote: Mon Sep 05, 2022 6:40 amWe weren't talking about protests though, we were talking about riots. And Starmer's response as Head of DPP was very harsh. I.e. a student with no priors getting the maximum sentence for nicking a bottle of water.Tichtheid wrote: Sun Sep 04, 2022 7:18 pmI like neeps wrote: Sun Sep 04, 2022 4:14 pm
Last time there were riots in this country Sir Keir decided on prison for everyone though. What's the judicial response in France? Most people probably think it isn't worth their time.
Not that the courts in this country function anymore so really the time is ripe.
When I was younger I'd go on marches and demos, they were generally peaceful, but the miners' strike was different.
I know a guy who threw a stone at a window of an empty mobile tea hut at a pit just outside Edinburgh. That footage was shown on the BBC six o'clock news. It was edited so that the stone appeared to hit a police officer at a pit in Yorkshire.
If he had that sort of arm on him he should have been in the Olympics.
Anyway, I've also been inadvertently caught in a demo when things went a wee bit ugly. I had my then 7 year old daughter with me (I wasn't on the march, I was just accidentally in the wrong place) and turned a corner to see EDL people smashing windows of cafes and shops. Mounted police were riding into the crowds and anarchists were throwing stones at the EDL and at the police.
I got my daughter out of there immediately.
No one wants full on riots, but recent government legislation is outlawing peaceful protest so that it will be dealt with in the same way riots are.
As far as I remember Starmer wanted to stop rioting, not to prevent protest. He spoke up against Johnson's idiotic and dangerous claims of rioting if his will on illegally proroguing parliament was opposed.
Starmer is not the villain here.
I imagine if you compare the French states reaction to rioting and the UKs you'd see why we don't do it so often.
Jacques Pezet, fact-checking Journalist for the CheckNews division of Liberation had, as of the 30th of January counted 144 verifiable cases of gilets jaunes and journalists severely injured by the riot police. At least 14 victims have lost an eye and 92 of the 144 have been shot by flashballs. Flashballs are rubber bullets fired from a tube like weapon with the stopping power of a .38 calibre handgun. At close range, as the French CRS (riot police) have used them, they can be particularly damaging.
As far as the student who nicked water is concerned, he took part in looting
The only thing I can find so far from Starmer about those prosecutions is that he was of the opinion that quick convictions were more effective than heavy sentences in stopping the looting and preventing future rioting. From what goodle tells me he didn't pursue maximum penalties, I'm open to correction on that of course.At Camberwell Green magistrates, Nicholas Robinson, 23, an electrical engineering student with no previous convictions, was jailed for the maximum permitted six months after pleading guilty to stealing bottles of water worth £3.50 from Lidl in Brixton. He had been walking back from his girlfriend's house in the early hours of Monday morning when he saw the store being looted, his lawyer said, and had taken the opportunity to go in and help himself to a case of water because he was thirsty. He was caught up in the moment, and was ashamed of his actions, his defence said.
But the prosecution told judge Alan Baldwin: "This defendant has contributed through his action to criminal activities to the atmosphere of chaos and sheer lawlessness." There were gasps from the public gallery as his sentence was delivered.
On what Farage said, I was no fan of Corbyn, and neither was the electorate in 2019. Has there ever been a Labour Prime Minister from the left of the party? I'd prefer if there had been but I realise that the country just doesn't want it, as far as I recall no one fromt he left has ever been PM.
