DaveR

" And the Judiciary do take note of guidance on sentencing, so if you have a Government line that says 'we will get you and there will be no leniancy', then some Judges will interpret that to mean maximun sentencing and no bail. " Sentencing guidelines are not issued by the govt. "Except that how the judiciary are seeing it is that even those who 'just' looted opportunistically are responsible 'art and part' for the bigger situation" Public order offences (affray, violent disorder etc.) explicitly make each individual responsible in law for all the consequences of the associated behaviour, and I can't see any reason not to extend the logic to the 'passing looter'. There is no conspiracy. Sentences are not, as far as I can see, generally out of step with what you would expect for offences committed in the context of serious widespread disorder, even if there is the odd particularly harsh one. Linking it to MPs and/or bankers is just nonsense.

No-one who is such a complete git online could be anything other than an utter git in real life. Damian, I hope you get so outraged that you burst. I sense that you're nearly there. btw, I'm not offended by your stance. Pointless indignation has never been so entertaining.

Crikey, lots of expert opinion here. I would make a couple of observations. A comparison with 2010 will have been with similar charges, but hardly likely to be similar offences. I don't recall much in the way of mass rioting & looting in 2010, and it's hardly surprising that the courts are treating this context as a pretty serious aggravating feature. A bit of light shoplifting is not really on a par with stepping through the broken front window of Tescos and helping yourself to whatever you want, while buildings around you burn. What has been happening is that the magistrates have been committing people for sentence - a sign that a bit of proper bird is coming - and not giving people bail because they fear they won't turn up to get it. Committals for sentence are very often in custody, for precisely that reason. Another reason for refusing bail is the likelihood of committing further offences. When the defendant in front of you got a BBM saying 'cum and loot', and duly went, that might be a bit of a worry. "the sentence is just another example of the ludicrous headline grabbing reaction by the government and I have to say the Judiciary" how is the government responsible for a particular sentence imposed by a particular judge? I know this will offend a few swivel-eyed conspiracy theorists, but the idea that judges in criminal courts are government stooges is fantasy.

I agree, and I'm not so sure about 'in real life' either...

After the looting of Cartpetright, Police say illicit rug dealing is rife Spurs trophy room burnt down - police suspect Arsene I'll get my coat...

Going back to the original idea, I don't see why (for example) continued receipt of benefits for offenders couldn't be conditional on complying with community orders. While you're at it, why not establish a more direct link between the offending and the reparation - clear up after your own riots. How about offering people on community orders the possibility, once they've estalbished themselves as reliable, to do extra hours and be paid for it. Get local businesses involved in community orders so that the work that is done is more varied and more productive - again, if you prove yourself reliable at the start of your order you get the opportunity to complete it doing work that might actually lead somewhere. Businesses get free/cheap labour but, say, have to share the profits with the community - they get to keep some to provide an incentive. I don't read the Daily Mail, or the Guardian - does it show?

The plod have massively stepped up the extent of their PR operations in recent years but, as *Bob* said, they're still not very good.

Liberal vs reactionary is kind of tired, and misses the point IMHO. Similarly, just focussing on the police will not solve any underlying problems, short term or long term. Whilst there is no excuse at all for 99.9% of what has been happening across the UK in recent days, it is pointless pretending that there are not some lessons to be learned about the context. The last 50 odd years in the UK has seen a massive change whereby authority that was previously vested in institutions is now vested in rules/rights. Back in the 50s a whole range of institutions - parents, schools, communities, churches, the police, courts and, various organs of the State exercised authority directly, and broadly in line with a consensus that bridged the majority of social classes. Although there were obviously legal rules and rights in the background the day-to-day authority exercised by, for example, teachers and police officers, was rarely scrutinised by reference to those rules/rights - their word was law, in the most literal sense. That has clearly changed, and much of that change has been for the good. Unfortunately, as with all changes there are unintended and unanticipated consequences. In the most basic way, we are all now far more free to challenge authority, and as a consequence some will feel empowered to challenge authority by reference to their own understanding of their 'rights', regardless of how skewed and perverse that is. Now, this all sounds like a load of theoretical sociological tripe, but actually the evidence is pretty clear. Speak to any teacher and they will tell you that even young children are very aware of their 'rights', and that any expectation that their authority will be backed up by parents is sadly misplaced. Sadly, perhaps, some teachers question whether they should be seen as authority figures at all. The picture is very different in catholic and (I am told) Islamic schools where there is still largely a consensus between schools and parents, bound up with the continuing acceptance of the authority of the religious institutions in the background. In those circumstances the police are genuinely caught between a rock and a hard place. The modern police are far more aware and respectful of individual rights than they ever were in the past, but they also know that this makes it harder for them to do their jobs effectively. One explanation that has been posited for the widespread riots in the mid 80s is that the police were out of step with other institutions - they were still trying to assert authority simply by reference to the uniform, and sometimes with scant regard for the strict legal rules, but they were dealing with young people born in the 60s and 70s who had other ideas. Their teachers had been at college in the 60s and 70s, and many had been (in a very understated, British way) radicalised. Kids, especially those from Caribbean backgrounds, rejected the attitudes of their parents and elders who had largely remained deferential to the classic British authority figures (and as a result had suffered endemic discrimination). In the 80s the mass rejection of authority expressed itself almost exclusively through violence. In the consumer driven 21st century, even urban rage is ultimately just another shopping opportunity.

If anybody is organising a pro- foie gras campaign, I'm in. And if anybody is organising a 'please bugger off all self-righteous killjoys' campaign, I'm up for that too.

"Foie gras i think is the epitome of all that is cruel" Slight hyperbole? The evidence for foie gras production techniques being cruel is largely photographic i.e. 'look at what that nasty French man is doing to that goose!' rather than scientific i.e. measurements of stress levels, premature mortality rates etc. And the one thing it definitely isn't is factory farming. So, my view on foie gras? Delicious! PS "is there a vegatarian equivalent?" "Forced rhubarb" = comedy gold

Unsurprisingly given the volume of stuff they write, the Mash guys have a formula and stick to it. I think it's more hit than miss, and occasionally superb. How about this: Parking

The hacking thing has definitely been overblown, the interesting one is police corruption, and it's too early to say what's going to come out of that. Hacking was widespread because it worked, and continued to work, because nobody realised for years that it was going on (interesting sub-plot - how many relationships broke down because celebs assumed that 'friends' had talked to the tabloids?). The degree of intrusion resulting from hacking was generally no greater, however, than from lots of other journalistic practices that are not unlawful and that will carry on. Police corruption is another matter, but we don't yet know whether that goes beyond plod being paid for early heads-up of big stories and for sordid details (which has always been around, tbh). There has been a suggestion of a DPG officer selling details of private royal engagements and contact details, which would be a biggie, but the real game changer would be evidence of police accepting bribes to ignore law-breaking by journos. As an aside, a UK based employee of a US company making a corrupt payment to a UK public official almost certainly commits an offence under the US Foreign Corupt Practices Act, which is a current 'hot' area for US law enforcement. Some of the News International folk will be hoping they get charged in the UK.

Thinking that an average school might want to improve = trying to get a private education without paying for it. Words fail me.

Data for Southwark schools is here: School data Southwark school Ofsted reports are here: Ofsted I don't think that any of the issues that you mention should stop parents wanting the school their children to attend to be excellent. As I've already said, Goodrich has fewer than the Southwark average SEN pupils, and I suspect has a distinct socio-economic advantage over many schools in the borough. I have some sympathy for the teachers. As I've already said, I thought the parent meeting was handled badly and it sounds like the staff meeting was no better. But, that having been said, if it is accepted that Goodrich needs to improve then that is the collective responsibility of the governors and all staff, and I would be more likely to be concerned about retention etc. if I was persuaded that the staff really did accept that improvement is needed, and that they are committed to doing their bit.

Ofsted ratings (satisfactory, good, outstanding etc.) are not just based on academic results; Goodrich is rated satisfactory and other local, comparable schools are rated better. Measured attainment is below the Southwark average. Goodrich's proportion of pupils with SEN is also below the Southwark average. There's no getting away from the fact that the school in underperforming, and that's what the school and the LEA told parents earlier this year. As for this: "Also, I don't know why it is but there are a bunch of parents around Goodrich that want to make the school excellent no matter what" if you take out the words 'no matter what', your statement becomes just ridiculous. So what do you mean by 'no matter what'?

"Dave R is your child not doing so well?" Obviously I'm not going to answer that, and the implication is unhelpful, to say the least - suffice to say that, both from my own experience of the school and conversations with lots of other parents over the course of the last few years, it is clear that there are significant weaknesses and these should not be obscured by the fact that the school is strong in some areas. barts, why do you think that your child is less likely to be happy if the school were a bit more rigorous about raising standards of attainment? That's the implication of your post, and I've already alluded to the fact that this almost subconscious attitude seems to be prevalent with Goodrich. I stand by what I said at the beginning - the knee jerk hostility to the proposal at the meeting was extraordinary and did not seem to me to have any rational basis. The advantages in principle of an academy federation with one or more local outstanding schools are clear, and I don't see any inherent disadvantages, at least from a parent's perspective. At the detailed level that assessment may change - in particular when the nature of any proposed federation is clear, and when there has been a robust assessment of the financial implications - so the sensible thing is to keep an open mind. I didn't think last night's meeting was conducive to that.

"I was at the meeting last night, and did not see any 'egging on' by the teachers, and would dispute that they have different interest at heart" Where I was sitting I was essentially surrounded by teachers and other school staff who kept up a constant flow of hostile comments for pretty much the whole of the meeting. I also note that a letter apparently produced by the NUT openly advocating opposition was circulated to pupils - one appeared at my house, at least, along with the regular school letters. The overt comments of the staff last night were IIRC entirely confined to issues about terms and conditions, implications for the head and other senior staff, and complaints about communication; not one of them mentioned standards in the school or the need for improvement, which is my primary interest as a parent. I also thought the presence of so many staff actually inhibited the debate.

I should clarify that I also thought the meeting was not well-handled by the governors present, and that they could have been a lot more up front about why they had put a resolution to the governors before having any consultation, even though the resolution does not actually commit the school to any final decision. I suspect the reason for that was that the current leadership team would be expected to be lukewarm, at best, about the idea. A 'satisfactory' school deciding to go into a federation with an 'outstanding school' inevitably implies an admission by the weaker school that they need support from their peers to improve - not easy for a head teacher to swallow, but sometimes necessary. In those circumstances formal approval by the governing body was probably a necessary step to getting the leadership team on board at all. That's also why you can't always 'act with the professionals' - if, as a governing body, you think this may be the best way, you have to explore it. Re finance, it is clear that the school receives more direct funding, but then has to meet costs that were previously met directly by the LEA. The school will come out ahead if, broadly, they can achieve the same economies of scale but reduce financial management costs. There is also greater freedom to prioritise spending to suit the needs of the school rather than as determined by the LEA. There is clearly some work to be done on this, but it shouldn't be a deal breaker. As to the attainment stats, the school and the LEA were very clear about the fact that there was no evidence of improvement, although they said that they expected KS1 and KS2 results at the end of this year to show progress. No idea whether those are now available. Of course, stats don't show the whole picture, and for the record there is a lot about Goodrich that I like a lot (and have said so on this forum before), but I don't think there is any place for a school to say 'we're average and that's good enough'. Whilst no-one associated with the school has come out and said this, the apparent resistance to change is such that I suspect that's where we have ended up.

I have also just come back from the meeting; I have a slightly different take on it. I was astonished by the level of uninformed hostility amongst parents, egged on by members of staff who in truth have quite different interests at heart. The starting point, surely, is (as Monkey observed above) that Goodrich's record of pupil attainment is poor. I went to the meetings earlier this year when the schools' leadership team and reps from the LEA produced stats showing below average performance and no improvement over the last three years. I cannot understand, against that background, why anybody would reject out of hand the opportunity for Goodrich to work in partnership with one or more local schools that are rated outstanding. The other point which was made but largely ignored was that Southwark are making massive cuts to their budget for educational support; ruthlessly, now is the right time to look at academy status for financial reasons as well. Finally, I'm genuinely astonished that there is a pervasive assumption that making any change means losing something unique and special, and particularly that there is an automatic trade-off between high academic standards and other positive features. I just don't buy this. Like most parents, I went to visit a number of local schools before my child started reception, including (more in hope than expectation) Fairlawn. I would advise anybody who thinks that Goodrich is 'amazing' to go and have a look at a genuinely outstanding school, and try and find any significant weakness.

"Isn?t one of the requirements for theft that there is intention to permanently deprive the victim of their property? If so how would you prove that a squatter?s intention was to permanently deprive the owner?" Under UK law the 'property' is not the physical property but the rights associated with it. The right to occupy a property for a term (either as a tenant or as a licensee) is a valuable right, whether that term is 99 years, a month, or even a day. Each day that a sqatter occupies a house the lawful owner is deprived of the ability to exercise the right of occupation for that day for themselves, or to grant it to another. That deprivation is permanent - the value of the right is lost - and for as long as the squatter is in occupation there is an intention to continually deprive the owner of that property which is renewed each day. That's how I'd argue it, anyway.

"Squatters are simply illegal tenants" No they're not. A tenant has a right of occupation either granted by someone with a superior right or arising by operation of law. Squatters are trespassers, and because the UK common law never developed an offence of criminal trespass squatting has never been a crime in itself. Squatting is also conceptually almost indistinguishable from theft in that it involves the deliberate taking of a valuable property right. Theft of land is specifically carved out of the statutory offence because it would otherwise be caught by the basic defintion. I can't see any reason why it shouldn't be included where there is deliberate unlawful occupation of property.

"My problem is that any theory when dealing with anything as complex as society, culture, economics, socio-economics, politics, climate, industry, international trade, war, strife and an interaction of all of the above, tends by its very nature to be reductionist, and then by definition simplistic" Theories always represent a simplification of real life - drawing a neat curve through a messy pattern of dots. The issue, surely, is whether there is a pattern to the dots at all, or whether the curve is just wishful thinking. I'm fairly sure that climate has close to zero causative link with economic prosperity, but that doesn't mean there's nothing that Ireland, Greece and Spain have in commmon (but Germany doesn't).

There are, naturally, a whole bunch of other theories. One is that it is not Protestantism per se that makes the difference, but that Protestantism is associated with significantly higher levels of literacy (because of the need to read the bible, which was prohibited to Catholics). F Fukuyama reckons it's all about trust, but he didn't turn out to be so hot on the end of history, so who knows. Back on topic, I think a little bit of I told you so-ing might be forgivable from those who pointed out the difficulties of having a single currency without sensible and consistent fiscal policies across the Eurozone.

Weber's theory of cultural determinism = Protestantism and capitalism are inextricably linked with the qualities of the former, in particular individualism and (ironically) the rejection of materialism, being the driving force for the development of the latter. Hence Calvinist Germany and Switzerland more economically successful than Catholic Spain and Italy. Of course, that may also be complete tosh.

The 'new Tim' also had the foresight to be born Australian and therefore blessed by the God of Sport (allegedly)