WATCH: Jacob Rees-Mogg CHALLENGES human rights lawyer who defends Lucy Connolly prison sentence

Thank you very much for joining me

Doesn't it smack of two-tier justice that 31 months for a tweet

when people like Hugh Edwards, which is, you know, nasty pictures and so on

didn't even go to prison at all? I know. I mean, I don't, actually

I mean, firstly, we've got the Court of Appeal judgment anyway, and I think it's slightly easier for me to argue this case now

since we've actually got it there. If you had asked me that yesterday, it would have been a different thing

And obviously, they're a very senior, you know, a very senior court, the second highest court in the land

And it's a unanimous decision. But the point is, I mean, I think all this talk about two-tier justice

And I mean, first, just to start off with, I do think that in this country, we lock up far too many people for far too long

And that's usually counterproductive or definitely harmful, not a good thing. And from that starting point, if you, you know, if I had no idea about the laws of this country and what goes on

and you just told me, you know, a woman sent a tweet, this is what she said, you know, almost three years

I would say that is far too long. But that is the law of the land. And people have been sentenced, according to this, for years, for decades. That is the punishment that we give. And obviously, like I said, personally, I don't agree with that. But otherwise, yes, I mean, I think obviously the point even made now, I mean, it was a very specific, inciting tweet, you know, basically saying, let's go down, let's go burn down these hotels

Now, whether or not, you know, anyone actually acting on it to me personally right now is irrelevant

I think, you know, in fact, if anyone had actually said, fine, Lucy, you know, here's a group of us

We're going and we'll go and burn down this hotel. I'm sure this sentence would have been much longer

But it's not quite what she said. She said and she used some impolite language, but she said she wouldn't mind if the hotels were burned

She didn't say that she wanted people to burn them. That seems to me to be a fundamental difference

She wasn asking people to go and do it She just said if it were done she didn care I don think I mean I know there has been lots of ysis of her language but I don think that what she saying I mean when basically

you say, you know, her exact words, you know, for all I care, I think

that's what she says. That's not really meaning, you know, I don't care

What it means is, if that happens, as far as I'm concerned, that's a good thing. That's how I

read it anyway. It's not saying, you know, if it's something, for all I care

I don't care about it, you wouldn't tweet about it. But it doesn't mean you're doing anything about it

which is why I think it was just opinion. It was a nasty opinion. It was a bad opinion

But she was just saying, these people are awful. I don't care if the hotels are going to get burnt down

That's a lack of sympathy. It's a lack of empathy. But she's not telling people, you know

go and get your Molotov cocktails and burn the hotels. No, but I mean, that's the thing

I mean, if she made it more specific, if for instance she had said okay there's an asylum seeker on my road for all i care i wouldn't mind

if someone budges house down or to take a more you know serious example if someone says that

about the prime minister or a named idol tory um or someone else i mean would we still have said

well you know it's just a view no it's not just a view um and obviously like your previous guest

was just saying you know we have to consider the situation at the time but in fact the situation

made it worse not better it's not okay that's the thing you know at that time of heightened

tensions, we need to be even more restrained. We need to be even more careful about what we're

saying, not more careless and say, well, it was a time of heightened tensions. So both sides could

be even more inflammatory. And I think that's the point. And that's the point the judgment makes

that of that whole year, that evening, those few hours were the time of the whole year

those few hours were the most sensitive, when everyone had to be careful about what was being

said, the misinformation being spread, and you have to be careful not to further that misinformation

information. All right. Well, thank you very much, Shubh and Jan. I'm with Nanny, really

as she would say, if sticks and stones may break your bones, but words can never harm you