Oh, I see. UK doesn't have capital punishment. Am I correct in assuming people want some form of capital punishment, not necessarily hanging?

@abgemacht
''Oh, I see. UK doesn't have capital punishment. Am I correct in assuming people want some form of capital punishment, not necessarily hanging?''

Not unless we want a trans-Atlantic murder rate!

@ful

Well, then I'm very confused about what Maniac is talking about...

@Maniac: I completely disagree with the second of what you see as the 'four big desires in the UK'. The people that do want to bring back capital punishment are in a minority and even within that group, hanging is hardly ever mentioned as the method they would choose. Hanging is a utterly barbaric form of punishment and is never discussed anywhere in the UK but the blase way you address it as one of the '4 desires' that you see certainly gives the impression, a wrong impression, to others such as our American friends that this is a popular notion here. It is not.

@abgemacht: I am sure he means hanging in the same way that you mean it. It means nothing else in the UK.

@ abgemacht......to be fair if we had government by plebiscite the death penalty would be introduced tomorrow. We, however, have a representative government, as do you I believe, for better or worse. Although I have to say, particularly in the light of the banker’s bailout, I increasingly believe that it is the latter

Incidentally my view on the UK riots is that in the final analysis it is a matter of personal choice/free will. Of course some people's choices are more constrained than others, but I do believe that ultimately whether one puts in a shop window and steals a television is a conscious choice. And those who make that choice are unequivocally wrong (says he getting ready to duck as the moral equivalence arguments come hurling in).

"to be fair if we had government by plebiscite the death penalty would be introduced tomorrow."

I doubt that.

"for better or worse. Although I have to say, particularly in the light of the banker’s bailout, I increasingly believe that it is the latter"

The banks needed bailing out. If banks like RBS and Barclays had been allowed to collapse things would be much much worse.

"Of course some people's choices are more constrained than others, but I do believe that ultimately whether one puts in a shop window and steals a television is a conscious choice. And those who make that choice are unequivocally wrong (says he getting ready to duck as the moral equivalence arguments come hurling in)."

You are right, they have a conscious choice. There are other options they can do as opposed to resorting to stealing to obtain an LCD TV. It is wrong and there is no justification.

Did you see the mother on the BBC News saying how she told her sons to join in because it gave them something to do? Purely shocking.

Most Britishers when polled claim to be in favour of capital punishment (and despite Sarg's comments hanging is the method most commonly mentioned), but I doubt this would be true after a proper debate on the issue. I don't think hanging is any more barbaric then other methods of execution. A good hangman can kill you in a relatively quick and painless fashion. Finding a good hangman these days, however, would be problematic. Globally it's a dying trade ;)

You can still find a good Hanged Man if you look in the right places. ;)

Perhaps hanging seems particularly barbaric to me because the US has a bad history of lynching.

Fulhamish said - "to be fair if we had government by plebiscite the death penalty would be introduced tomorrow."

Sarmacher said - ''I doubt that.''

I sympathise with you view and wish it were true myself, but there is there is good evidence to the contrary: http://www.gallup.com/poll/1606/death-penalty.aspx

Ha, Octavious. In private we seem more or less on the same page yet in this thread we seem to be on opposite ends of the table.

I stand by my comments. I agree with your point that there hasn't been a proper debate - that's why the time when it is brought into discussion is usually people turning to it in a reactionary fashion when discussing crime rates. Few educated people actually raise support for reinstating capital punishment in any political debate on dealing with crime in Britain.

@fulhamish: That poll is for America.

@sarge ''The banks needed bailing out. If banks like RBS and Barclays had been allowed to collapse things would be much much worse.''

I am not entirely clear if this is true, there was for example a £50 000 deposit guarantee. What we have effectively done is allow people to gamble, and hence bump up their bonuses, without the possibility of losing.

But let’s assume that you are right, how can one justify the continued completely obscene level of banker's remuneration? This even applies to the organisation where the government has a large shareholding; it is Alice in Wonderland stuff.

Of course the distribution of wealth and opportunity is more uneven now that at any time in the last fifty years. The only logical explanation is that the bankers and politicians have a communality of interest. In my view this is unequivocally wrong.

@ Sarg

I'm not in favour of hanging myself, and haven't been since my angry teenage years. The reasons we got rid of it are as good now as they were at the time. British juries just don't like the idea of sending someone to their deaths. Far too many bastards were found innocent just because people couldn't live with the idea of someone dying because of their choice. And it's all rather expensive, unpleasent and not much of a deterrent. When push comes to shove, I'm sure most Brits would vote against hanging. When asked on the streets and at certain sorts of dinner party, quite the reverse.

"I'm not in favour of hanging myself"

One would hope not : )

@ Abe

Permission to make a joke about already being well hung?

@fulhamish: That poll is for America.

Opps thanks for the correction Sarge. In my defence may I offer another link please?

http://today.yougov.co.uk/sites/today.yougov.co.uk/files/YG-Archives-Life-YouGov-FirstDegreeMurder-100910.pdf

@Oct: I didn't get the impression you were in favour of it. I'm sure quite a variety of dinner parties would have guests support capital punishment - I still don't think the majority of the country would vote for it in a referendum.

@fulhamish: The YouGov poll you cite is very interesting indeed! A lot of noteworthy points of interest. The poll does show, however, that in the places where there is a majority in favour of capital punishment it is only by a couple of percentage points.

Interesting that the poll shows as you get further north, deeper into working-class areas, support for capital punishment increases.

Srge says:@fulhamish: The YouGov poll you cite is very interesting indeed! A lot of noteworthy points of interest. The poll does show, however, that in the places where there is a majority in favour of capital punishment it is only by a couple of percentage points.

While there is only a small overall majority in favour of the death penalty, after taking into account the ''don't knows'' the majority in favour is significant. I wish to repeat that I am not in favour of it myself, with the possible exception of child killers. I know that this probably defines me as a reactionary bigot, but there you are.

'The banks needed bailing out. If banks like RBS and Barclays had been allowed to collapse things would be much much worse.'

I believe that the same amount of government money could have been used to setup a new national bank which would have been in the happy position of hiring experienced RBS and Barclays employees (once those private companies failed) and given the public a sense that they were paying to have a banking system but not bailing out bankers who had messed up.

when it comes to the death penalty, i am pleased to say that the continent (well 46 european countries, the major exception being russia) has signed up to the European convention on human rights which prohibits the death penalty, (except in times of war or imminent threat of war...)

which given today's riots and how the British government has interpreted 'imminent threat' from Iraq's weapon of mass destruction program could be any day now...

"which given today's riots and how the British government has interpreted 'imminent threat' from Iraq's weapon of mass destruction program could be any day now..."

Haha. 45 minutes.

You guys should look at this video of the rioting, it is downright over the top. Glad I'm stateside.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cbVW_QS2eE

hooligans!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZnEpaSOFwk

+ 1 fiedler

@Sarg - for the record I am totally against reintroducing any form of capital punishment in the UK. However according to wiki "A November 2009 television survey showed that 70% favoured reinstating the death penalty" I agree that I should have referred to capital punishment instead of hanging.

My point was, was the point of having a democracy if 70% of the people want something for 40 odd years, but their elected representatives don't debate it.