David Cameron promised that looters would feel the full force of the law. Courts have
been sitting round the clock holding
defendants on remand and issuing stern sentences. This is causing disquiet in some circles. Lib Dem MPs complain that the government has overacted, incapable of resisting the temptation to take
draconian decisions without adequate scrutiny.
Tessa Munt told the Guardian that the government’s approach “smacks of headline grabbing by Conservatives, not calm, rational policy-making.” Lady Hamwee also told the paper that it would be a “great pity if what [the justice secretary] Ken Clarke has been doing – finding a better way of sentencing – was to be undone.” Much of this dissent is by-the-by, the stock-in-trade of agitation. But an unidentified Lib Dem minister has also informed the paper that the party is striving to frustrate the introduction of elected police commissioners, a key Tory objective protected under the coalition agreement.
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