I don't think the principle is a bad one. Would you all be in favour of fat cat "businessmen" who park their Mercs on double yellows repeatedly because it's cheaper than paying for parking, and anyway it's just small change to them? To be any kind of deterrent at all, the punishment has to make some attempt to reflect the abililty to pay.
We can all complain about loutish kids and their bad parents, but what do we want: medals for being better than them? For all his faults (and I'm no fan) Tony Blair didn't generate these lawless people, and they've always been around, under governments of all political persuasions. And I'm not sure what that's got to do with the topic in hand, anyway.
And let's be fair, you've only got to read some of the threads around here about speeding to see that we all (well, most of us
) can be pretty selective about laws we obey.
[Edited on 16-1-2005 by moto748]