Letters: Better ways to read looters the riot act

As PART of the enormous and entirely predictable parcel of bluster delivered by the Prime Minister to a re-called House of Commons, we had the same tired old threat of using water cannon to control or disperse crowds for whatever reason.

Won't somebody inform this lacklustre political performer that water cannon simply used to squirt water are large, heavy, cumbersome dinosaurs of a previous generation of law enforcement and a liability to the police.

It does not, however, take a great deal of imagination to see ways of updating water cannon to a more modern tactical function.

Given that soaking rioters with water will not stop them - indeed the more likely effect will be to split them up into smaller looting groups thus dividing police resources - a better way is to make rioting and looting more difficult. Adding a dense but harmless short-lived foaming agent to the water has got quite a lot going for it.

Once immersed in a bed of foam the rioter will become isolated, thus inhibiting his or her mob identity, thereafter presented with a barrier which could shield his target property, while at the same time allowing police to carry out arrests.

Sadly, a foam barrier will hinder media camera crews as they hover to record every little mistake made by the police, but I feel that might be a price we can afford.

Adding an irritant to the mix might work as, unlike CS gas, it is not affected by changes in wind direction.

The recent appalling events in England will teach government and police many things if they are prepared to learn, and given that necessity is the mother of invention, there can be no better time for education than now.

Dare the First Minister of Scotland repeat his assertion that it could not happen here until after the next Old Firm match?

Jim Bradley

Thornfield Terrace

Selkirk

The rioting we are witnessing in our big cities is the culmination of years of excessive tolerance towards criminals and wrongdoing.

The imposition of community sanctions and wrist-slapping Asbos has inspired total disrespect for parents, teachers, the police and all in authority and signalled our ineffectiveness in the face of criminal acts.

Recent conversations with several Justices of the Peace confirm the inadequacy of our attitude to punishment. As a society we have lost all conception of appropriate punishment and we are now paying the price for this softly-softly approach, which is laughed at by offenders even as they are being sentenced.

There is no respect or fear from our feral youths because we deserve none. We display weakness and our social misfits take full advantage of it.

A society which subscribes to these forms of misplaced tolerance deserves everything it gets.We need to revert to more robust practices and far more vigorous responses if, at this late stage, we are to save the day, our children and our futures.

AC McWilliam

Boreland Road

Kirkcudbright

If the riots had occurred only in Scotland we may be sure politicians and the BBC would have been unusually punctilious in making clear that all was at peace in England and tourists had nothing to worry about. And quite right too.

Tourism is promoted separately in Scotland precisely because it is a distinct destination. The First Minister has a duty to protect this valuable Scottish industry.

It's a pity our English friends cannot get out of the deplorable habit of using England, Britain and UK as interchangeable terms, but that is hardly Scotland's fault.

Alan Oliver

Battock Road

Falkirk

The suggestion of removing benefits from those involved in rioting is understandable but likely to exacerbate the situation by increasing any sense of deprivation, as well as leaving intact the false concept of rights, especially where public benefits have come to be seen as such.

Control of public attitudes is better achieved by positive rewarding of acceptable behaviour rather than by negative punishment of the reverse.

Currently our society is warped by absence of responsibilities, a situation which could be reversed by converting rights - often bestowed for simply existing - into privileges granted for approved behaviour.

Government benefits should take the form of a social contract imposing clear responsibilities on those in receipt of them.

Child benefit, for instance, should be payable only to parents formally agreeing to maintain certain standards of behaviour by the child; this would include matters like school attendance and social attitudes.

Rights are normally enshrined in law, whereas privileges can be withdrawn, and by agreeing to specified conditions attached to receiving these, the recipient removes any entitlement to grievance in the case of personal failure leading to their suspension.

Robert Dow

Ormiston Road

Tranent

Perhaps it is time that politicians of whatever party persuasion faced up to the fact that the current benefit system has encouraged certain sections of the community to have children without accepting their responsibility to provide for them.

If, as the figures show, unemployment is going to be an ongoing problem should the encouragement not be to have a decreasing or stable rather than an increasing population?

John Nisbet

Auchencrow

Eyemouth

With the present problems in London and elsewhere, does anyone seriously doubt that England is now reaping the "benefits" of what became known as Thatcherism?

Everybody should read the book Dancing With Dogma by Ian Gilmour (Lord Gilmour of Craigmillar), published in 1992.

Norman E Butcher

Drum Brae Walk

Edinburgh