That article raises a very interesting point with which I agree, "
European Court of Human Rights later ruled that whole life tariffs were unlawful if
passed by a politician rather than a member of the judiciary". The trouble is that we are let down by the judiciary who, because they are all drawn from such a narrow social class, don't seem to live in the same world as the rest of us.
This is how things went totally wrong with the sentencing in the James Bulger case. The presiding judge set an 8 years minimum tarrif, which was then increased by the Lord Chief Justice of the day to 10 years. Then the home secretary of the day Michael Howard (for purely populist reasons in my opinion) increased it to 15 years which left the door open for a challenge in the European court of human rights.
They were initially sentenced to be detained at her majesty's pleasure with a recommendation that they should be kept in custody for "very, very many years to come", with an 8 years, increased to 10 years minimum tarrif and if Michael Howard hadn't of interfered they would have served at least 10 years instead of getting out after only 8 years once the ECHR had become involved.