THIRTEEN years ago this summer, cities across the UK were ablaze as rioters ran amok.
The damage was immense, but thankfully justice came hard and fast.
The pampered Left and assorted social justice warriors were incensed at this hardline approach.
I particularly remember the bed-wetting over some toe-rag who got 18 months for being caught with a stolen TV in his car.
But I just thought: Good. I’m glad you’re going to jail for ages.
Let this be a lesson to anyone else thinking of spreading terror on our streets.
I had a similar feeling this week at the news those swaggering a***holes from Just Stop Oil have been sent down by a very sensible judge for a total of 21 years.
Principal among them was hirsute leader Roger Hallam, who was slapped with a five-year sentence for screwing up journeys to funerals, hospital appointments and holidays, by disrupting the M25 two years ago.
Scruffy Hallam was jailed on Thursday with four other cretins, who all got four years.
My delight at these sentences was enhanced by the role The Sun played in helping nail this rabble by infiltrating a Zoom meeting where the plot was hatched, and passing our findings to cops.
I was editing this paper one Sunday in November 2022 when my colleague Scarlet Howes brought news that thanks to her brilliant investigation, Hallam had been nicked.
I remember it well. I put the story on Page One, where it deserved to be.
But all the while I was struck with a niggling fear that our justice system would let us down once again.
Just Stop Oil clowns had been arrested in the past and very few had been given anything meaningful by way of punishment — suspended sentences of a few weeks, derisory fines.
But I did not know about Judge Christopher Hehir.
This eminent member of our judiciary spoke for us all on Thursday when he said of the five defendants, who included Cambridge University “music student” Cressida Gethin: “The plain fact is that each of you some time ago has crossed the line from concerned campaigner to fanatic.
“You have appointed yourselves as sole arbiters of what should be done about climate change.”
Hear hear! Give that man a glass of Champagne, and hang the air miles.
Because that’s the thing about this new type of extreme protest on our streets, the kind that sets out to deliberately ruin ordinary people’s days.
These posturing zealots are driven by a cast-iron belief that only they know about climate change.
But this is hogwash. Even those living at the bottom of the sea — especially them, with their diet of microplastics — know that global warming exists and that we need to wean ourselves off fossil fuels. And we are, whether we like it or not.
Just Stop Oil’s demands are not just received wisdom.
Most of them, like banning new North Sea oil and gas projects, are actual government policy.
Look around you — electric lorries scooping up our recycling, new trees being planted on our roads, refill shops springing up on the high street, electric car sales up 18 per cent last year, the wretched Ulez.
We may argue about the details and the speed of it, and our government’s obsession with forcing us to ditch our perfectly workable boilers.
But Britain is decarbonising, and far quicker than other fossil fuel addicts such as the US and China.
Net Zero is coming, so an army of idiots supergluing themselves to roads, bridges or works of art won’t make any difference to that.
All they will achieve is turning more and more people against them.
Hallam and his gang should use their jail time to reflect on this and order the Just Stop Oil campaigners to change tack. And if they don’t, then I hope those cells get very crowded indeed.
I’VE been studying my cat quite closely recently – mostly to find out how he cleans himself without needing to shower.
Because this waterless washing is a tactic I will shortly be introducing into my own household as the cost of life’s most fundamental element skyrockets.
My supplier, Thames Water, has decided that I should pay 110 per cent more each month.
Another rise is on the cards too after regulator Oftwat, sorry, Ofwat, agreed more price hikes to help stop water firms being so crap.
Meanwhile, the bosses of these useless firms continue to pay themselves obscene sums of money, like Southern Water’s Lawrence Gosden who got a £183,000 bonus as part of a £764,000 pay package – up from £428,000 a year earlier.
Labour has finally taken steps to give Ofwat better powers to hold bosses to account.
It’s about time they hosed them down.
GHOSTS in the machine at Amazon. I clicked on the site because I wanted to buy a record as a present for someone.
But when it came to selecting the “gift option”, it was “unavailable for this item”, which was somewhat frustrating.
It would have meant a random cardboard box arriving at my pal’s house, leaving him none the wiser. So I shopped elsewhere.
The following day, I was back on the site hunting for dishwasher tablets and, much to my surprise, up popped the “gift option”.
Naturally, I filled it in, wishing myself many happy months of streak-free cutlery and glassware.
But I can’t help feeling someone needs to have a serious word with that algorithm.
Meanwhile, if any friends or family are reading this, would you mind holding off buying any cleaning products.
Otherwise, I’ll be out of ideas for Christmas presents.
“A MAN of honour”, “a thoroughly decent human being”, “a class act”, “the best since Sir Alf Ramsey”.
The tributes to departing England gaffer Gareth Southgate flowed thick and fast this week – and deservedly so.
The one-time Pizza Hut pimp is now a national treasure who gave us some of our greatest international football since . . . well, you don’t need me to point out when.
Arise Sir Gareth, surely? I hope so.
In a world where Geoffrey Boycott, cricket World Cup runner-up, girlfriend beater, is deemed suitable for a knighthood, then why not Gareth?
Yet what was missing from the tributes is what could not be said about the man also dubbed “Mr Nice Guy” – and also perhaps the clue to why he never took us to the promised land.
No one said Gareth Southgate was intimidating. No one described him as cutthroat.
No one mentioned him screaming and shouting at players when they weren’t performing.
No, those things were not said because they were not the tools in this mild-mannered Englishman’s box.
We can think of this as a good thing.
Being shouted at is not pleasant, aggression is ugly.
But sometimes – sometimes – creating a bit of a sense of fear can motivate, it could squeeze out that extra ten per cent.
A little bit of intimidation keeps you on your toes. Just ask anyone who played for Sir Alex “Hairdryer” Ferguson’s treble-winning Manchester United side.
But despite the aggro the players still loved him.
The same goes for more current no-nonsense trophy-winning managers like Man City’s combustible Pep Guardiola.
Gareth Southgate was a brilliant coach but he was not that man.
If we really want England to win a tournament, maybe, as the hunt for a new boss goes into overdrive, it’s time for us to say: No more Mr Nice Guy.
THAT other England team Mr Nice Guy, Kyle Walker, was in court this week.
Kyle is a prize pillock but his ex-mistress Lauryn Goodman’s behaviour is giving him a run for his money.
Turning up to court with a KW necklace on display was quite the stunt.
She can rightly claim it is the initials of her four-year-old son with Kyle, called Kairo Walker, and nothing to do with Kyle’s initials.
But given the way everyone has carried on in this whole unseemly business, it just looks like another slap in the face for Annie Kilner, Kyle’s already humiliated wife.
MY new hate watch is the deliciously appalling Owning Manhattan, which I recommend with gusto.
A spin-off of the equally preposterous Selling Sunset, the Netflix show revolves around a group of hardbodied egomaniacs shifting multi-million dollar apartments in New York, while constantly slagging each other off.
All the agents are loathsome, bar the one British star, Jessica Taylor, who managed to convince a couple to more than double their budget and buy a $21.7million home.
These well-heeled buyers were never named except to say they lived in California, had two young kids and were completely obsessive about their privacy. Who could they be?
