'Southport rioters are being handed out in-the-moment sentences to send out stern message'

Yep, I yield to nobody in my immediate robust reaction to the riots which have blighted Britain.

I happened to be out of the country and felt ashamed and embarrassed by the disgusting scenes broadcast on the international news of events back home. I didn't want people to think these yobboes represented me, my country, and Britons in general.

While wrapping themselves in the Union Jack they were in fact traitors to the compassionate British values of offering succour and protection to those seeking refuge.

However, now that the anger has died down a bit, I am wondering whether, looked at dispassionately and objectively, at least some of the sentences being meted out in the wake of the disturbances will survive the appeals process further down the line. We'll have to see.

One of those immediately banged up this week had "shouted in the face of a police dog." Another of those jailed had "rocked a police van."

Reprehensible indeed, but if that sort of thing had happened on, say, Tipton High Street on a busy Saturday night, my guess is that the wrongdoing would have been dealt with by magistrates as threatening words and behaviour, and the sentences would likely have been non-custodial, and certainly no more than six months inside, which is the maximum for that crime.