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Tolerance and Punitiveness in New Britain : two sides of the same coin ?

Emma Bell
p. 163-175

Résumé

New Labour’s punitive thrust, as exemplified by its current crime policy, stands diametrically opposed to its promotion of a notion of Britishness based on the values of tolerance, liberalism and a sense of fair play. It will be demonstrated that, far from exposing an inherent policy contradiction, such definitions of Britishness have actually justified the adoption of profoundly illiberal crime policies.

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Texte intégral

Introduction

  • 1  Linda Colley, quoted by Billig, M., et al., p. 16.
  • 2  Brown, G., Speech, 15 April 1999.
  • 3  Ibid.

1Attachment to a patriotic notion of Britishness has traditionally been regarded as the domain of the Tories. Consequently, for most of its history, the Labour Party has tended to deliberately steer clear of identity politics. One reason is that Labour saw itself as internationalist rather than nationalist, concerned more with the grand universalist principles of equality and human rights than with petty national squabbles. Secondly, as Linda Colley has pointed out, “there was a feeling that patriotism was vulgar”.1 Indeed, it was, and often still is, associated with Britain’s bloody, imperial past, and consequently seen as diametrically opposed to any notion of a new, vibrant, multi-cultural Britain, respectful of human rights. It seems that the Thatcher government, whilst recognising the importance of appealing to identity politics, did little to change this old idea of Britishness, linking patriotism with an imperial war in the Falklands and to insularity with regard to Europe. Gordon Brown – who appears to have taken the lead in his party with regard to publicly defining Britishness – considers that the concept was defined by previous Conservative governments “in terms of individual self interest, an unchanging constitution and a distrust of foreigners”.2 New Labour, conversely, claims that emphasis ought to be placed instead on “the great British qualities of tolerance, fair play, public service and a practical outward looking internationalism”.3 In defining a new conception of Britishness and appropriating yet another item of Tory clothing, New Labour hoped it had found the necessary electoral glue to unite an increasingly fragmented Britain – in terms of race, wealth and regional identity – around the Third Way project. Yet, as has been exemplified in many areas of New Labour policy, it is extremely difficult to change old ideas into something entirely new. So too with Britishness. While Brown and other party modernisers may associate Britishness with positive qualities such as modernity and tolerance, I will attempt to show that these stand alongside negative qualities such as regressiveness and brutality.

  • 4  Tonry, M., 2004, pp. 60-61.

2Nowhere is this more starkly exemplified than in current crime policy. Indeed, some commentators in this field associate punitiveness with Britishness, or at least with Englishness : the American criminologist, Michael Tonry, citing the extraordinarily high rate of imprisonment in England, along with its high rates of prison suicide and staff brutality, suggests that “English (and American) people seem better able to endure the suffering of others, especially of criminals, than are citizens of most Western countries”.4 I will seek to determine first, whether Britain may be regarded as an inherently punitive country with regard to its crime policy and, secondly and most importantly, to what extent this contradiction may be explained by the particular way in which New Labour has defined the New Britishness.

Punitive Britain ?

  • 5  Cavadino M., & Dignan, J., 2006, p. 5.
  • 6  Source : National Offender Management Service (NOMS), “Prison Population and Accommodation Briefin (...)
  • 7  Source : International Centre for Crime and Justice Studies, “World Prison Brief”. Available at ht (...)
  • 8  Ibid.
  • 9  Ibid.
  • 10  Source : Lord Rooker, Hansard, 17 May 2006, vol. 642, col. WA48. Available at http://www.publicati (...)
  • 11  International Centre for Crime and Justice Studies, ibid.
  • 12  Ibid.
  • 13  Ibid.
  • 14  Rethinking Crime and Punishment, “Sentencing and the prison population”, London, The Esmée Fairbai (...)
  • 15  Morris, N., 16 August 2006.
  • 16  Liberty, “Terrorism Act 2006”. Available at http://www.liberty-human-rights.org.uk/issues/6-free-s (...)
  • 17  Gil-Robles, A., 8 June 2005, para. 113, p. 35.

3 If the imprisonment rate is to be taken as an indicator of penal punitiveness – indeed, this is often the best available measure of such a sentiment5 – then England is undoubtedly a punitive nation. In September 2007, the prison population of England and Wales combined reached its highest peak ever of over 81,000 prisoners6, representing approximately 150 people imprisoned for every 100,000 people in the total population.7 By this same measure Scotland may also be considered rather punitive, currently boasting an imprisonment rate of 140 people per 100,000 of the total population.8 Northern Ireland has a considerably lower rate of imprisonment – currently 84/100,0009 – but it seems this difference may largely be accounted for by the fact that approximately one quarter of all prisoners were released under the terms of the Northern Ireland (Sentences) Act 1998.10 Despite subsequently falling to a mere 52/100,000 in 2001, its imprisonment rate has been rising constantly and dramatically since.11 Compared to the USA, the overall incarceration rate for the UK may be considered rather insignificant – the imprisonment rate there currently stands at a phenomenal 737/100,00012 – yet, compared to most of its closest European neighbours, it remains very high. It may, for example, be compared to an imprisonment rate of 85/100,000 for France or just 67/100,000 for Italy.13 Other measures of penal punitiveness are the length of sentences passed and the kinds of sentences imposed on particular offenders. In these respects too, Britain would appear to be rather punitive : average sentences lengths constantly increased over a ten-year period from 1991-2001 – in Scotland, the number of adults receiving sentences of four years or more, with the exception of those given life sentences, increased by a massive 51 %.14This trend has only been exacerbated by the creation of Indeterminate Sentences for Public Protection by the Criminal Justice Act 2003. These indeterminate sentences may be imposed for any of 153 offences, provided that the offender is considered to be a risk to the public. In addition, an ever-wider range of behaviour has been targeted via an unprecedented welter of penal legislation – it is estimated that over 3,000 new criminal offences have been created since New Labour came to power.15 We may take the example of the creation of what the Human Rights organisation, Liberty, has described as the “unacceptably broad speech offences”16, created by the Terrorism Act 2006, which criminalise individuals and organisations that are considered to be glorifying acts of terrorism, even in the absence of any criminal intent. The criminal law has also been used to target non-criminal acts via the use of ASBOs. Even attempts to divert offenders from prison through the use of community sentences have failed to attenuate the general drift towards punitiveness : due to the government’s determination to improve the credibility of such sentences in the eyes of the public, they have been very strictly enforced, with failure to comply with the many onerous conditions they may impose leading directly to imprisonment. These are but a few examples of undeniably punitive policies which have been adopted in Britain in recent years. Yet, it may be argued that the picture is not one of uniform punitiveness : the Blair government did after all adopt some truly progressive policies that one may think should mitigate the apparent trend towards punitiveness. For example, in 1999 the European Convention on Human Rights was incorporated into British law via the Human Rights Act 1998, and in the same year William Macpherson published his government-commissioned report into the death of Stephen Lawrence, in which he accused the Metropolitan Police of institutional racism, thus setting in train a series of reforms designed to combat racism in the public sector. However, it would seem that these changes have done little to counter the general trend towards punitiveness. Although the impact of the Macpherson inquiry was largely positive, it also provided an excuse for the abolition of the legal principle known as double jeopardy according to which a suspect cannot be tried twice for the same crime. This measure, coupled with the erosion of other procedural protections, such as the attempted limitation of the right to choose trial by jury in the Crown Court, and the decision to allow hearsay evidence and proof of bad character to be heard in court, may be regarded as yet another example of punitiveness towards the offender. In addition, despite the enactment of the Human Rights Act, it has been argued by some, including the former European Commissioner for Human Rights17, that many of the government’s recent penal measures contravene human rights. This would suggest that the general thrust of penal policy has indeed been punitive.

4It must be noted, however, that this trend towards punitiveness started before New Labour came to power, circa 1992 when the then Conservative government of John Major, faced with a serious political crisis which included inter-party disputes over Britain’s role in Europe, a major recession and subsequently a moral panic over the murder of 2-year-old James Bulger by two ten-year-old youths, turned to a law and order agenda in an attempt to win back public support and confidence. It would therefore be incorrect to attribute the drift towards punitiveness solely to New Labour, yet the Blair government not only failed to reverse the trend but actively promoted it. Indeed, it could be argued that it was the refusal of both Blair and Straw, when shadow Home Secretaries (1992-1994 and 1994-1997 respectively), to actively challenge the penal severity that was being promoted by Michael Howard that led the country into a spiral of punitiveness. The reasons for this so-called ‘punitive turn’ are diverse and complex and a proper analysis of them necessarily lies outside the scope of this paper. What is most notable for present purposes is that penal punitiveness stands totally opposed to the notions of fairness and tolerance that New Labour has promoted as forming part of its new conception of Britishness. It may be asked whether this is simply an unfortunate coincidence or whether penal punitiveness may actually have been actively promoted by New Labour’s drive to construct a new British identity.

Civic nationalism – justifying punitiveness

  • 18  Brown, G., Speech at the Smith Institute, op. cit.
  • 19  Commission for Racial Equality, op. cit., p. 47.
  • 20  (my emphasis) Brown, G., Speech to the Fabian Society, 14 January 2006.

5The principal way in which New Labour has attempted to appropriate Britishness as its own is through the move from the ethnic to civic nationalism. This involves abandoning an idea of patriotism based on race in favour of one based on values. British identity is thus no longer associated with being white and Christian but rather with one’s acceptance of a particular set of values which may, it is claimed, be embraced by all ethnic and cultural backgrounds. These are values which are deliberately broadly defined, just as the Third Way project itself, enabling them to appeal to almost everyone. Who could fail to be attracted to values which include “a passion for liberty anchored in a sense of duty and an intrinsic commitment to fairness” ?18Indeed, such values seem intrinsically ‘good’, especially when juxtaposed against the previous Tory government’s promotion of individualism and selfishness, the ultimate embodiment of which was encapsulated in Margaret Thatcher’s infamous declaration that “there is no such thing as society”. This version of Britishness also eschews any explicit reference to race, which importantly allowed the politicians who promoted it to appeal to nationalistic instincts whilst still adhering to the Conservative/Labour pact made prior to the 2001 general election campaign not to make ‘race’ an issue.19 Therein lies the hidden danger of civic nationalism – its ability to mask the existence of old prejudices. Indeed, it has been used not only to conceal the race issue but also to gloss over the capacity of patriotism to lead to brutality. Brown has spent much energy highlighting the positive aspects of Britain’s past, suggesting that Britain can lay claim to the notion of liberty, citing the Magna Carta, the Bill of Rights and the Reform Acts, her role in abolishing the slave trade and in ‘standing firm’ against fascism. He consequently asserts that liberty is “a golden thread which runs through British history”20 and speaks of “our enduring British ideals”. So, paradoxically, while attempting to give patriotism a new, modern image, New Labour has searched for its legitimacy in the past. Its proclaimed historical roots make it seem all the more unquestionable and noble, something to be revered and venerated, no longer something to be ashamed of. This manipulation and re-working of past images was well demonstrated by New Labour’s use of the old image of Fitz, the British-bred bulldog, in the 1997 election campaign.

  • 21  Commission for Racial Equality, op. cit., p. 20.
  • 22  Blair, T., 23 June 2006.
  • 23  Ibid.
  • 24  Blunkett, D., 15 September 2002.

6As has been pointed out by a report for the Commission of Racial Equality, there is an inherent danger in such a strategy, namely that it may make it difficult to question the idea of Britain as a liberal and tolerant country. The Report asks, “How could the Metropolitan Police, for example, be ‘institutionally racist’ if Britain is such an open and tolerant society ?”.21In this particular case, it would seem that the notion of Britishness promoted by New Labour, and indeed by the other main parties, did not in fact preclude serious introspection. However, it could be argued that the portrayal of Britain as a tolerant country has encouraged many members of the public and government itself to turn a blind eye to the potential illiberal consequences of recent anti-terrorism and other criminal legislation. This is made all the easier when a crude stereotype of Britain and Britishness is contrasted with presumably less tolerant countries, notably those in the Islamic world. Indeed, the tolerance and liberalism of the British people is often taken as read. Far from being intolerant and punitive, Britain is often seen as having gone too far down the path to liberalism. The tabloid press constantly deplores Britain’s ‘softness’ in matters of law and order, deriding judges who are seen to pass over-lenient sentences and criticising government policy on parole and early release arrangements. Blair himself has implied that the system is somewhat over-tolerant, tilted too much towards “ensuring the fair treatment of suspects and criminals” but “detached from an equivalent concern with victims”.22 He attributes this perceived lack of balance between the rights of victims and offenders to 19th century penal and legal reform.23 Notably, these particular liberal reforms are not considered to form part of Gordon Brown’s “golden thread”. Paradoxically, whilst promoting tolerance and liberalism in some spheres, such values are derided in that of law and order. It is the very notion of a tolerant Britain that may actually favour the promotion of tough crime policies : it is because Britain is a tolerant country that punitiveness may be justified in order to protect the values of liberty that ‘the decent majority’ hold dear. Indeed, the criminal law has been frequently invoked to tackle criminal and non-criminal behaviour alike which is perceived as threatening the dominant value system. As David Blunkett has suggested, with regard to the government’s tough anti-terrorism legislation, punitive policies may be justified against those who threaten the basic values of democracy.24 In other words, intolerance is justifiable in a tolerant country.

The extremes of emotionalism

  • 25  Blair, T., 1996, p. 35.
  • 26  Driver, S., & Martell, L., 2002, p. 146.
  • 27  Christie, N., 1977, p. 8.
  • 28  Karstedt, S., 2002, pp. 299-317.

7Another problem with New Labour’s value-based notion of Britishness is that it tends to assume that a specific set of government-defined values are inherently popular. Indeed, New Labour has promoted itself as “the mainstream voice in politics today”, “back to speak up for Britain, back as the people’s party”.25 It therefore presents the interests/values of government as being totally in tune with those of the electorate, thus conferring them with a popular, and therefore almost unquestionable, legitimacy. Martell and Driver have pointed out that one of the principal ways in which New Labour tried to identify with the British people was by prefiguring their emotional response to the death of Lady Diana in the summer of 1997, notably by describing her as the “People’s Princess”.26 Consequently, the unprecedented outpouring of public grief prompted by her death became a way of uniting the British public around a common symbol and the emotionalism that surrounded the event was seen as something patriotic. Ever since, emotionalism appears to have been celebrated by New Labour as a true expression of British sentiment, informing public policy and favoured over the dry rationalism of expert debate. Examples may be given of the government’s failure to calm the public’s emotional response to the risks posed by Islamic terrorism and other crime. If anything, it may be argued that New Labour has actively indulged these fears by publicly and overtly placing itself on the side of the victims of such acts and by taking a tough stand against the presumed perpetrators, regardless of the possible human rights infringements which the response may entail. In such an emotional climate, stark dichotomies are placed between victim and offender. It is assumed that the victim, considered as one of ‘the decent majority’, respects the prevailing value system, whilst the offender does not, thus precluding any recognition that the boundaries between the two are often rather blurred. Such simple dichotomies are a perfect recipe for punitiveness : it has long been suggested that we are likely to be less understanding and sympathetic to those who we perceive as being radically different from ourselves.27The prevalence of the new emotionalism in Britain and its link to punitiveness may be starkly exemplified by the almost hysterical reaction towards paedophiles. For example, the British criminologist Susanne Karstedt has compared the public reaction to the murder of 8-year-old Sarah Payne in 2000 to the reaction of the German public to a similar case that took place there a year earlier.28 She noted that, unlike in Britain, the public display of emotional reactions there was minimal. There was certainly nothing like the outburst of vigilantism which had been encouraged by the News of the World’s decision to publish the names and addresses of convicted paedophiles. Although government ministers condemned the virtual witch hunt of suspected paedophiles which the campaign had unleashed, it would seem that emotional responses to crime have been generally encouraged by the government through its deliberate politicisation of criminal justice issues in an attempt to steal the mantle of the toughest party on law and order from the Tories. Yet, the emotional identification of the British public with a particular set of values risks creating exclusive, homogeneous communities, rather than the inclusive, multicultural, civic communities that New Labour has claimed should define British identity. Once again, we see that, in practice, Britishness fails to live up to its ideal as promoted by the government, at least partly on account of the concept’s inherent contradictions.

‘Cool Britannia’ and the Demonisation of Youth

  • 29  John Major, The Independent, 25 April 1993.
  • 30  Blair, T., Speech, 28 October 2004.
  • 31  Straw, J., & Michael A., 1996, p. 9.

8One of the most salient contradictions in New Labour’s version of Britishness was its early promotion of ‘Cool Britannia’ and the simultaneous demonisation of young people. The concept of ‘Cool Britannia’ was a blatant attempt by the party to present itself as something radically different from the past, especially from John Major’s infamous, outdated image of Britain as the country of warm beer, Shakespeare and “old maids bicycling to Holy Communion through the morning mist”.29 For New Labour, the ‘New’ Britain was to be represented by a young, rock-guitar playing Prime Minister and symbolised by the Young British Artists and Britpop. The Blair government claimed to be looking after the interests of youth by investing heavily in education and getting more young people into vocational training schemes or employment. Yet, it soon appeared that not all young people were to be equally welcomed in Blair’s Britain. It was made clear that government help was conditional. Blair declared, “in return for the increased opportunities and help we have offered, society, too, has a right to demand that everyone keeps to their side of the bargain – to behave properly and to ensure effective action against those who refuse to do so”.30 Consequently, youths who do not ‘behave properly’ are to be punished : they must “be held to account for their actions”.31No longer will the government tolerate the old practice of giving repeat cautions to young offenders in an attempt to keep them out of trouble. The Crime and Disorder Act 1998 replaced the informal caution system with one of reprimands and final warnings ; abolished the old common law principle of doli incapax which for centuries had presumed that a child aged 10 to 14 was incapable of committing a criminal offence ; and created the Detention and Training Order which provides for the incarceration of 12 to 17-year olds who are considered to represent a high level of risk or who are persistent offenders. Those non-criminal youths who are considered to be behaving anti-socially may be punished with an ASBO.

  • 32  Wintour, P., & Dodd, V., April 12 2007.
  • 33  Tempest, M., 12 May 2005.

9The government clearly had a certain kind of young person in mind when it conjured up the idea of ‘Cool Britannia’, i.e. one who respects the law and corresponds to a certain social stereotype. It is was thus deemed respectable to listen to Blur or Oasis but certainly not to the ‘gangsta rap’ which forms part of the Black culture that Tony Blair has held responsible for the large number of knife and gun murders in London in recent months.32 Likewise, certain items of clothing are considered inappropriate – in 2005 Blair personally approved the decision of the directors of the Bluewater shopping centre in Kent to ban the wearing of hooded tops and baseball caps.33 It would therefore appear that promotion of a narrowly conceived notion of ‘Cool Britannia’ as a defining characteristic of Britishness has actually helped to create a more exclusive, rather than inclusive, identity politics. Yet again, liberalism in some areas has been used to justify increased punitiveness in others.

Conclusion

  • 34  Hannah, A., 2004, pp. 59-60.

10Far from creating something new, New Labour’s definition of Britishness has simply glossed over the problems of exclusiveness that have always plagued identity politics. As a result, it has failed to prevent the punitiveness that the promotion of values of tolerance and fair play ought to mitigate. On the contrary, it has been the promotion of these values that has justified the imposition of ever more punitive policies. The example given here is the field of penal politics but the punitive trend can be seen in many other fields also – in tightened immigration laws, and in welfare-to-work policies, for example. We could also note the Blair government’s failure to create a ‘culture of human rights’, as it was hoped would be the result of the enactment of the Human Rights Act 34. Perhaps, in the final analysis, any attempt to develop a unified concept of national identity, in whatever country, is futile, for the adoption of one set of values over another will inevitably lead to the exclusion of significant sections of the population. Rather than unifying, it seems a strong sense of identity can only divide.

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Bibliographie

Billig, Michael, Downey, John, Richardson, John, Deacon, David and Golding, Peter, Britishness in the Last Three General Elections: From Ethnic to Civic Nationalism, Report for the Commission for Racial Equality, Loughborough University. Available at www.cre.gov.uk/downloads/ britishness_elections.pdf. Consulted on 1 August 2007.

Blair, Tony, New Britain : My Vision of a Young Country, London, Fourth Estate, 1996.

Blair, Tony, Speech on Anti-Social Behaviour, 28 October 2004. Available at http://www.pm.gov.uk/output/Page6492.asp. Consulted on 5 October 2007.

Blair, Tony, “Our Nation’s Future : Criminal Justice System”, Speech at the University of Bristol, 23 June 2006. Available at http://www.number-10.gov.uk/output/Page9737.asp. Consulted on 5 October 2007.

Blunkett, David, “What Does Citizenship Mean Today ?”, The Observer, 15 September 2002. Available at http://observer.guardian.co.uk/race/story/0,11255,792231,00.html. Consulted on 5 October 2007.

Brown, Gordon, “The Future of Britishness”, Speech to the Fabian Society, 14 January 2006. Available at http://fabians.org.uk/events/new-year-conference-06/brown-britishness/speech. Consulted on 5 October 2007.

Cavadino, Michael and Dignan, James, Penal Systems : A Comparative Approach, London, Sage, 2006.

Christie, Nils, “Conflicts as Property”, The British Journal of Criminology 1977, 17/1.

Driver, Stephen and Martell, Luke, Blair’s Britain, Polity Press, Cambridge, 2002.

Gil-Robles, Alvaro, Report by the Commissioner for Human Rights on his visit to the United Kingdom, 4th-12th November, 2004, CommDH(2005)6, Office of the Human Rights Commissioner, Strasbourg, 8 June 2005, para. 113. Available at : http://www.statewatch.org/news/2005/jun/coe-uk-report.pdf. Consulted on 5 October 2007.

Hannah, Alison, “Exercising rights as the way to social inclusion” in John Grieve, and Roger Howard (eds.), Communities, Social Exclusion and Crime, The Smith Institute, 2004, pp. 59-64. Available at www.smith-institute.org.uk/pdfs/crime.pdf. Consulted on 5 October 2007.

International Centre for Crime and Justice Studies, “World Prison Brief”. Available at http://www.kcl.ac.uk/depsta/rel/icps/worldbrief /world_brief.html. Consulted on 5 October 2007.

Karstedt, Susanne, “Emotions and criminal justice”, Theoretical Criminology 2002 : 299-317.

Liberty, “Terrorism Act 2006”. Available at http://www.liberty-human-rights.org.uk/issues/6-free-speech/terrorism-act-2006/index.shtml. Consulted on 1 August 2007.

Morris, Nigel, “Blair’s ‘frenzied law-making’ : a new offence for every day spent in office”, The Independent, 16 August 2006. Available at http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article1219484.ece. Consulted on 5 October 2007.

National Offender Management Service (NOMS), “Prison Population and Accommodation Briefing for 15th June 2007”. Available at http://www.hmprisonservice.gov.uk/assets/documents/10002B5715062007_web_report.doc. Consulted on 5 October 2007.

Rethinking Crime and Punishment, “Sentencing and the prison population”, London, The Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, September 2005. Available at http://www.rethinking.org.uk/publications /index.shtml. Consulted on 1 August 2007.

Rooker, Lord, Hansard, 17 May 2006, vol. 642, col. WA48. Available at http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200506/ldhansrd/vo060517/text/60517w05.htm. Consulted on 5 October 2007.

Straw, Jack and Michael, Alun, Tackling Youth Crime : Reforming Youth Justice, A consultation paper on an agenda for change, London, Labour Party, 1996.

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Notes

1  Linda Colley, quoted by Billig, M., et al., p. 16.

2  Brown, G., Speech, 15 April 1999.

3  Ibid.

4  Tonry, M., 2004, pp. 60-61.

5  Cavadino M., & Dignan, J., 2006, p. 5.

6  Source : National Offender Management Service (NOMS), “Prison Population and Accommodation Briefing for 21st September 2007”. Available at http://www.hmprisonservice.gov.uk/assets/documents/10002FD421092007_web_report.doc. Page consulted on 27 September 2007.

7  Source : International Centre for Crime and Justice Studies, “World Prison Brief”. Available at http://www.kcl.ac.uk/depsta/rel/icps/worldbrief/world_brief.html. Page consulted on 5 October 2007.

8  Ibid.

9  Ibid.

10  Source : Lord Rooker, Hansard, 17 May 2006, vol. 642, col. WA48. Available at http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200506/ldhansrd/vo060517/text/60517w05.htm. Page consulted on 5 October 2007.

11  International Centre for Crime and Justice Studies, ibid.

12  Ibid.

13  Ibid.

14  Rethinking Crime and Punishment, “Sentencing and the prison population”, London, The Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, September 2005, p. 2. Available at http://www.rethinking.org.uk/publications/index.shtml. Page consulted on 1 August 2007.

15  Morris, N., 16 August 2006.

16  Liberty, “Terrorism Act 2006”. Available at http://www.liberty-human-rights.org.uk/issues/6-free-speech/terrorism-act-2006/index.shtml. Page consulted on 1 August 2007.

17  Gil-Robles, A., 8 June 2005, para. 113, p. 35.

18  Brown, G., Speech at the Smith Institute, op. cit.

19  Commission for Racial Equality, op. cit., p. 47.

20  (my emphasis) Brown, G., Speech to the Fabian Society, 14 January 2006.

21  Commission for Racial Equality, op. cit., p. 20.

22  Blair, T., 23 June 2006.

23  Ibid.

24  Blunkett, D., 15 September 2002.

25  Blair, T., 1996, p. 35.

26  Driver, S., & Martell, L., 2002, p. 146.

27  Christie, N., 1977, p. 8.

28  Karstedt, S., 2002, pp. 299-317.

29  John Major, The Independent, 25 April 1993.

30  Blair, T., Speech, 28 October 2004.

31  Straw, J., & Michael A., 1996, p. 9.

32  Wintour, P., & Dodd, V., April 12 2007.

33  Tempest, M., 12 May 2005.

34  Hannah, A., 2004, pp. 59-60.

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Emma Bell, « Tolerance and Punitiveness in New Britain : two sides of the same coin ? »Observatoire de la société britannique, 5 | 2008, 163-175.

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Emma Bell, « Tolerance and Punitiveness in New Britain : two sides of the same coin ? »Observatoire de la société britannique [En ligne], 5 | 2008, mis en ligne le 01 février 2011, consulté le 28 septembre 2023. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/osb/668 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/osb.668

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Emma Bell

Doctorante à l'Université de Lyon 2

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