It increases maximum sentences by up to 300 per cent. Indeed the hostility could be merely transient. A bomb attack in Belfast, Jerusalem or Colombo could well provoke a generalised hostility towards the nationality or race of the perpetrators which might fade after two or three weeks. Let me show how this law would work in practice if it is not amended. Let us consider road rage.
Tempers are at their shortest when people are trying to drive on our overcrowded roads.
A man in the south of England may buy a new car of which he is extremely proud. He polishes it every Sunday and does not let anyone else touch it. One day, about a month after buying it, he is stationary at traffic lights with his handbrake on when someone drives up behind him who is chatting to his passenger or twiddling the knobs of his radio and crashes into the rear of the car in front, smashing it up considerably and breaking the tail lights. The enraged driver of the car in front gets out of his car intending to hit the person who did it. That is no doubt naughty, but this is what happens on such occasions.