Rioters to loose benefits...can dodgy MP's lose their pensions and bankers lose their golden handshakes/pensions

[bkgirl]

www.ft.com/cms/s/0/c8970a8c-c688-11e0-bb50-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1V33VPzMq

Fair is fair, I think you should pay for what you destroy but I want to see the law applied fairly for rich and poor.

Also all these midnight courts, Murdoch and his mates were not rushed in front of a judge the same way,

[bkgirl]

sorry for the typo it is lose of course.

[timidviper]

IF ONLY!

Peter Oborne's article this weekend about how the rot in our society has affected both rich and poor was very true but only one group has the power to punish the other. The rich will never punish their own.

[CogitoErgoSometimes]

YABU... rioters aren't losing their benefits, it's just some idiot petition suggesting that. If an MP or a banker had been robbing shops and setting fire to buildings, they'd get exactly the same treatment as everyone else. And the midnight courts are being run in order to empty police station cells of the 2000-ish people currently clogging them up.

[meditrina]

I am not aware that any rioters will be loosing benefits because at present there is no provision in the laws and regulations which govern the provision of any benefits to reduce or cut them to any/all entitled person (entitlements whilst actually in prison already covered by regulations - fair enough, needs are different then).

Retrospective changes to MPs, or any public service, pensions scheme would IMHO be an exceptionally dangerous step.

And I would find it extremely worrying if the state took on a role in private contracts, such as specific individuals' employment contracts. I think that has to be the most chillingly totalitarian concept I have heard arising in the last few days.

BTW: the Oborne article has been espoused by the coalition (see front pages today). The second companion article, which has not attracted so much comment is beginning to be reflected in Opposition rhetoric (if Jowell this morning is anything to go by).

[niceguy2]

Whilst I understand the sentiment behind the petition, the fact is that there is no law currently in place to do this and as meditrina rightly points out any law would then have to be retrospective which is and incredibly dangerous precedent to set and I'd object to it based solely on that.

Some councils are using anti-social clauses in their tenancies to evict people from council housing and again I think it's a bit dangerous but on balance I think the message it sends out is probably worth it.

I can see why it sticks in people's throats that the looters can wreck their local community yet still expect the council to not only subsidise their existence but also give them a lifelong secured tenancy to boot.

[lachesis]

'I can see why it sticks in people's throats that the looters can wreck their local community yet still expect the council to not only subsidise their existence but also give them a lifelong secured tenancy to boot.'

They do this already. Criminals who come out of prison are considered involuntarily homeless and housed accordingly. They also come out and get benefits.

[BonnieLassie]

Any current MP has been voted into office despite what they may have done in the past. Banksters have worked their arses off to get what they have, you don't just step off the street and be trusted with billions of pounds.

The rioters

[Ryoko]

You want the law to treat people equally? are you mad sir!, why if we started treating the serfs the same as the morally upstanding gentlemen of this great Empire it would only cause them to think above their station sir!. And then where will we be?, why they would be calling for tuppence a day and start making themselves seen outside the scullery, in time they may even start asking to be educated. such madness!.

I will bid the good day sir, the boy has just arrived to clean the chimney and he clearly isn't fat enough to do the job so I shall have to get the maid to wrap one of the tiger skins round him.

[bkgirl]

Bonnielassie, true sometimes you are just born in to the right family. It still doesn't give them the moral right to steal our pensions.