In today’s paper I read that some 17 people arrested, many held in jail, many held in house arrest, have agreed to a plea bargain.

In this bargain, 11 will go free and six will be sentenced to reduced charges. It is entirely possible that time served will suffice, but the courts have not ruled on this yet.

Reading more carefully, the arrests were done in a pre-dawn series of raids before the G20. The guilty pleas are, roughly, to counselling others to do bad things.

I infer that none of the window-smashers are in this group. How come?

Isn’t the damage done, admittedly by a small but violent minority, more important than some talk that may have gone on?

A cynic might suggest that this is window-dressing, to convince us that the police did get the malefactors while doing all that anonymous alleged beating of peaceful demonstrators, including the apparently pointless kettling of a crowd about a kilometre away from the protective fence.

Are we fooled? You decide.