A Home Office minister has warned the government against "jumping to conclusions" as it goes about crafting its response to the riots.Liberal Democrat Lynne Featherstone has written in her local newspaper that the "government's job is to ensure that its citizens are safe ... but we do have to be careful about jumping to conclusions".
Her call for more caution in devising measures for dealing with the riots is in line with the Lib Dem position that they will put a brake on some of the responses.
Immediately after the riots, David Cameron and ministers floated a plethora of policy responses, including the eviction of the families of rioters from council houses and a consultation on halting benefit payments to offenders. The PM also gave emphatic support for tough sentences handed out by the courts, intended to be "exemplary" and to deter people from taking part in riots in the future.
Asked about this, Cameron said it was "very good" that courts had been able to send out a tough message.
In her article in the Ham & High, the Hornsey and Wood Green MP wrote: "The government was criticised for not having its senior members on the spot (that left me to go out on the airwaves as duty minister at the Home Office on the Sunday and Monday). It is now being criticised for knee-jerk reactions and for raising questions about police tactics. It is the government's job to ensure that its citizens are safe – and if there are questions that need answering on operational decisions, that is appropriate. But we do have to be careful about jumping to conclusions."
She singled out a fresh area of concern. She said: "One question I particularly want to keep an eye on is the large number of people who were on parole who have been arrested, and those who have 'previous' – which raises questions about how our parole and prison systems work (or don't)."
She added: "We all know that the stories which catch the headlines can be far from typical – we need a full analysis of the whos, the whats and the whys so that future decisions are based on reality rather than everyone just cherry-picking the evidence to support what they always wanted anyway."
The Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg sought to slow the run of suggestions immediately after the riots.
The deputy prime minister instead stressed plans to rehabilitate offenders through the government's work programme, softening the hardline language used 24 hours earlier by the prime minister. He also announced a cross-party inquiry into the causes of the riots after brokering a deal between Cameron and the Labour leader, Ed Miliband.
He also appeared to put the brakes on the benefit withdrawal plans, saying they would not be entered into without extensive consideration. He told a press conference in Whitehall: "We are going to take our time to look at this. Of course you need to be proportionate, of course you need to be careful, of course you don't want to create unintended consequences where the taxpayer ends up footing more of the bill or we create more social problems or problems of law and order."
Last week, two senior legal experts warned against tough sentencing for riot-related offences. Lord Macdonald, who led the prosecution service in England and Wales for five years, warned that the courts risked being swept up in a "collective loss of proportion", passing jail terms that lack "humanity or justice".
Fellow Lib Dem peer Lord Carlile, the barrister who was until this year the government's independent adviser on terrorism strategy, warned against ministerial interference in the judicial process, arguing that "just filling up prisons" would not prevent future problems.
Other senior Lib Dems also expressed deep concern over the government's so-called security crackdown. The former Lib Dem leader Sir Menzies Campbell described himself as being part of a growing "movement" calling for a more considered response to last week's riots.
"With all due deference to the prime minister, politicians should be neither cheering nor booing in the matter of sentencing. It is an important part of our constitutional principles that political influence is not directed at the judicial system," he said.
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Source: Guardian
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