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MPs Expenses Cheats vs Looters. What's The Difference?
End-Em-All
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Let me start by apologising for starting yet another thread on this matter. I would like to debate the issue of the prosecution of looters (those not actually involved in smashing businesses i.e. opportunists who helped themselves to other people's properties). What really is the difference between these people and MPs who abused the expenses system? The looters are being rightly prosecuted but only a handful of MPs saw the inside of a court for their criminality. Is this acceptable? I think not.
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And wear a suit. But that's about it.
Lol.
Seriously though, they stole from the public purse and got away with it.
Obviously the MP Expense fiasco was wrong and no doubt more prosecutions should have been sought but to compare it to what we saw earlier this week is insane!
5 people have died in the recent goings on. People have lost their lively hoods and homes!
A bit of context please
MPs did not get away with fiddling their expenses. They were asked to give the money back.
Some perspective please. I made the distinction that I wasn't referring to the mindless thugs who smashed and grabbed and caused the deaths. I was referring to opportunists like the person sent to prison for looting bottles of water from an already smashed shop. Are they really different from the MPs who helped themselves to money they weren't entitled to?
Yeah but have the looters been given the choice of handing the stolen goods back or face jail?
No, because to a common street looter, giving back the goods wouldn't be a punishment and it wouldn't deter them from stealing again. The MPs deterrent is the fact that Parliament has made it a lot more difficult to fiddle expenses.
What's your definition of a "common street looter"?
Tee hee.
Prevalent public road plunderer. :rolleyes:
And how many people's businesses and houses did they force entry into or burn down? How many people did they terrorise, injure or kill?
What a ridiculous comparison.
:rolleyes:
Can some of you not read :yawn:
I am referring to the opportunists. Those who the courts have accepted did not engage in violence but entered smashed up shops and looted.
For years the strange extreme right of America amused us all on such programmes as CH4s "The Daily Show", but rather like pod-people such types are amongst us too.
They are that person next to you on the bus reading the Metro, the woman behind the counter at Coop who doesn't say thanks. And very probably a fair number in government too.
Run for your lives!
None, par the MP's have done it in a dignified way by not rioting and looting
The difference, well whilst not condoning the Mp's who fiddled I dont recall any of them smashing up shops and stealing , I dont remember seeing any attack public transport with passengers on and then firebombing it or attacking and burning down businesses for fun or setting fire to peoples houses and cars .
That really is the difference.
Financial only crime and violent crime are two very different areas.
I think it is different. Their presence and activities added to the climate of fear and made it far harder for police to do their jobs.
They did not just act as opportunist thieves they were rioting looters. Violent or not they made a very tense situation worse and made it easier for the violent criminals to evade the police.
Come on now skp. I know you can read.
Every single person who rampaged through the streets added momentum to the riot.
I don't agree with most of the sentiments in it, but you scroll mid-way it actually gives the value of dodgy MP expense claims in looted goods.
http://thenewsthing.com/?p=209
don't get me wrong, the situation is very different and i acknowledge that. but when the prime minister is calling people scum and my facebook feed is full of people slagging off the unemployed, i just think it helps to remember that greed is everywhere.