Parliament and Mob Rule

Old Holborn

A Libertarian does not adversely affect the lives of others - it's our only rule.

Can't see how granting the State the authority to try and execute citizens can sit with a Libertarian in any way.

Guido Fawkes

I will take a referendum, a petition or whatever to put this issue back on the agenda.
The problem isn't representative democracy, it is unrepresentative democracy that is problematic.

Libertarians that I hang out with support just laws, and a judicial system which after due process executes child killers in no meaningful sense diminishes liberty.

Rhoda Klapp

Libertarianism is a philosophical approach, but it cannot act as a political philosophy. It should giude the actions of governemnt, but not take precedence in deciding them.

But anyway Alex, remember when I used to call you an eloi? Your post is a perfect example. If you know better than the people in one thing, then why not all things? Then why not dispense with the opinions of the people entirely?

ndm

Tragic as was Milly Dowler's fate, I find it reprehensible that people use her fate to promote revenge over justice. This is the import of a despicable system of justice that should have died with the wild west.

The death penalty is as anti-libertarian as you can get, since if the State can take a life what is left of OUR Liberty. Frankly, Guido, you need to hang out with a better type of libertarian - one that actually has an understanding of the ways liberty can be compromised.

As for the death penalty, there is indeed a slippery slope. First for child killers, then for cop killers, then for politicians, then for first responders, then for someone in the line of duty, then for ...

Bad as the extra-judicial killings were during the Irish Troubles - a time when mainland Britain was never subject to the draconian laws Islamophobia gave political cover to - they would have been immeasurably worsened had the legal system put people to death who were later found to be innocent. It is not as if rampant execution worked so well in the time of the real Guido Fawkes, whatever his eponymous imposter believes.

Thirladean

Children are never murdered in those American states which retain capital punishment.All those tempted to murder children are successfully deterred. Every fool knows this. Same goes for China.

Russell

Same old, same old from faux libertarians. The state is evil.....unless it's killing people. Then it's just awesome.

Rhoda Klapp

Old holborn, by your argument not only can you not execute him, you can't lock him up either. Is there a place in libertarianism for those who break the rules and hurt others?
Do they retain their rights? Not rhetorical, seriously, but you need to ddebate just that kind of question. A debate that led me to the conclusion that libertarianism is not a political philosophy, it cannot work in practice, any more than, say, communism.

Baron

where to begin

ndm: “…that people use her fate to promote revenge over justice” What justice would it be then?

Alex: “The fact that the public may be in favour of a given policy is not a sufficient argument for that policy”.

Why not? Why should the views of the tens of millions who bear the brunt of the policy in their every day life be ignored, not listened to?

Alex again: “it's silly to suggest that MPs fail their constituents unless they heed the demands of the mob”.

The mob? Hmm, so two thirds of the burghers of the country are the mob, are they? Do come up with describing the voters when soliciting for their support during a general election as the ‘mob’, Alex, do, we’ll see how well will it resonate with the electorate.

As Rhoda points out libertarianism is indeed a school of philosophy, a set of tenets, principles, beliefs, but as one of the practitioners of philosophy, the darling of the Left, Karl Marx, observed ‘philosophy is to real life what masturbation is to sex’, quite so, too, the former will never fully embrace the fullness of reality, replicate or penetrate the vastness of life, the great Edmund Burke didn’t have a take on capital punishment, what he did argue though was that principles, beliefs, postulates ought to inform, not rule one’s behaviour whether that of an individual, or the government, and anyway, I’ve never had time for people who couldn’t have a piss without a principle.

the unarguable rational reason for retaining capital punishment on the statute books is that it saves lives, more to the point, it saves lives of the law abiding.

Guido, sir, you’re a superstar, if and when the time comes, give us a shout, I will volunteer for whatever you may want me to do, and you so unquestionably right about the unrepresentative democracy, it may be in the end the thing that will kill your noble effort.

Baron

Old Holborn, yes you, the stalwart libertarian, when you have the time ponder, then answer a simple question:

the killing of one saves the lives of ten, keeping the one alive, ends the life of the ten.

which of the two options would you go for then? Please, try avoiding yapping about it depends and stuff, just plump for one or the other, explain why.

The example ain’t silly, it has been the dilemma faced by many statesmen, military leaders, ordinary men and women, I’ll tall about some you if you respond.

Russell

Auld Tories like The Guido™ love to dress themselves up in libertarian finery because it looks good to their hip friends in the miedja, like Alex. But in the end they are just hang 'em and flog 'em Sir Bufton Tuftons, with knobs on. They also believe wogs begin at Calais but are afraid to say it.

ndm

Baron writes:

-- the unarguable rational reason for retaining capital punishment on the statute books is that it saves lives, more to the point, it saves lives of the law abiding.

This is only unarguable because it is not true.

Hugh

Perhaps what he's pointing out is that, despite a majority in favour, there is not a single Parliamentarian calling for it (odd, no, in a "representative" democracy?) nor even the faintest sign of interest in the public's opinion on the issue, reflecting a certain smug superiority?

DavidDP

I find the notion of giving the State the power to kill citizens rather terrifying. As a small state Tory, I'd prefer not to see that sort of expansion in state power.

Further, justice needs to be based on solid law and principle, not emotion. There's no question that it's right that victims feel the need for vengeance, but that is the reason that we remove them from the legal process and place the decision in the hands of people with no connection at all to the crime or people involved.

Finally, a mistaken imprisonment is bad enough, but that person can seek restitution. A mistaken execution is final. Which somewhat links back to the first point - overmighty governments can falsely imprison people, but there is hope at reversing that. Overmighty governments that have the option to kill people can't be reversed.

Jeff York

@Baron, June 24th, 2011 9:19pm

"the killing of one saves the lives of ten, keeping the one alive, ends the life of the ten.

which of the two options would you go for then?"

In the case of capital punishment that's a false dichotomy as there's another option available that's equally effective in protecting the public at large - namely life imprisonment, where "life" really means life.

Viscerally I can see justification for executing some killers. Intellectually, having seen far too many miscarriages of justice in my 60+ year life, I realise that no justice system is ever perfect - and though a posthumous reprieve might make the lawmakers feel good about themselves it does toss-all for the poor sod who's been executed "in error".

"Life" imprisonment where that can sometimes mean "until you die" is a safer and more "libertarian" solution.

Purpleline

I am not a libertarian just a die in the wool honest truthful person. I hope the Conservatives press ahead with their policy on primaries and this is adopted by the other parties as the first question a new candidate will be asked is if they will represent the majority view of their constituency above the party line.
If they cannot answer that then they will get rejected and this is the way we will get the return of the death penalty or at least a referendum on it. Primaries coupled with recall will give us more power to effect changes the public want & not what the politicians want so they can sleep easy.

You want to be an MP then represent the educated electorate or get another career.

Parting questions for all those people against the return of the death penalty has society got better or worse since abolition?
And do you regard the US as barbaric for retaining the death penalty in some states?
Answers on a postcard.

Rhoda Klapp

MPs cannot return the death penalty, it was signed away in one of the euro treaties. Also they are largely not inclined to do so, if you want it back you are effectively stymied. Still not seeing why locking you up for life is any more libertarian than the gallows, myself. The libertarians here are failing to make the argument of what you do with those who do commit harm. Probably because libertarianism can only answer those questions by departure from its basic principle, so we end up debating over just what and how many exceptions are to be made.

Mercian

Let's not get sidetracked into what is, and what is not libertarian. The fact is that we are supposed to live in a democracy, which means rule of the people. Therefore MPs should carry out the wishes of their constituents.
So-called representative democracy (elective oligarchy) only came about because of poor communications. There is no excuse for this nowadays.

Old Holborn

Ah, so the "Majority" have the right to persecute and inflict their views on the minority do they? I love this democracy thing of which you speak.

Kevin T

To slavishly follow any ideology, whether it's communism or libertarianism, is foolish. None of them is perfect. There's nothing more tiresome than those tribalists who just parrot their party line on everything (eg: Fabian Solutions on the Telegraph comments), they come across like brainwashed cultists.

Incidentally, those who say that full life sentences would be adequate have a fair point. You're taking the culprit's life away and dealing with the one argument against CP I would accept, the possibility of killing the wrong man. But this raises the question, why is this also apparently beyond the pale to our political "representatives"? No one arguing that a paedophile who kills their victim deserves to be free one day would win the argument, so why is it policy?

Old Holborn

"the killing of one saves the lives of ten, keeping the one alive, ends the life of the ten.

which of the two options would you go for then?"

You make the argument for the plunder of the organs of a healthy citizen to save 9 sick ones very well. I congratulate you on your ruthless logic. You'll go far.

BJK

All this talk of not giving the state the power to take life is hypocritical nonsense. The state has the right in so many ways to take another's life.

Do you believe when the state sends the troops into action they expect to see everyone of them return? That the loss of life does not enter the minds of those instructing deployment?

When deciding budgets for the NHS, are we to believe that the state is not aware that without apportioning unlimited funding lives will be lost needlessly?

The issue is not about denying the state the power to take a life - such a postulation is (willfully or not) ignorant of the fact that the state already has such power.

The real issue is why should criminals such as Bellfield be exempt from this state power when all others are not?

Geo

"it's silly to suggest that MPs fail their constituents unless they heed the demands of the mob."

umm ... it may have escaped your notice but if the 'mob' is big enough - it constitutes a majority and therefore MP's are being elected by the people whose wishes they are ignoring.
Liberals and the left may not want capital punishment but after 13 years of apparent pandering to extremists, terrorists and murderers/rapists that we cant seem to deport (due to blatant twisting of EU human rights legislation) you may see this issue become a real issue in a parliamentary sense.

Matthew Hopkins

In the dilemma of "the killing of one saves the lives of ten, keeping the one alive, ends the life of the ten."

I still would not sanction the active killing of one on my behalf. The act of actively taking a life is not equitable to the failing to save one (or indeed 10)

If I am unable to save someone (assuming I wish to) then that is sad, tragic and so on. That does not immediately transpose to I would be happy to cause a death in order to do so, especially one that would rely on our fallible justice system.

Corsair

I’m a libertarian. Libertarians, as I understand it, argue that the only valid role for the State is to protect the rights of the citizens. Implementing the death penalty for those who violate their fellow’s rights by murdering him seems a perfectly good way of protecting our right not to be murdered, and not at all contrary to libertarianism.

In fact, if it is the case that more murders are deterred by the death penalty than innocent men hanged (and we know, for example, that gangsters used to frisk each other for guns before going out on a job) then it is clearly the case that the State is failing in one of its fundamental duties if it doesn’t implement the death penalty.

Simon Stephenson.

To all those in favour of bringing back the death penalty.

Can you confirm that your opinion on this matter is absolute, irrespective of whoever it is to which it is to be applied? So that your approval of the state's right to end a person's life would not be diminished if this person were, for example, your father, husband, brother or son?

Or is your stance in this matter unconsciously conditional on you having no emotional attachment to the people who are sentenced to be executed under it? And that therefore you taking such a position is in fact a double-standard, even though you do not anticipate a personal involvement forcing this out on display.

Mercian

It depends on the crime, not whether the person is a relative. For instance, if my daughter stabbed an abusive partner in self defence, I would support her. However if my son raped a toddler to death, I would expect him to be executed, whatever grief it caused me.

Rhoda Klapp

Simon, this isn't the debate against the death penalty. This is the debate about how much the wishes of the demos matter in a democracy. May the majority tyrannise the minority? Ask a smoker.

Corsair

Simon, I agree with Mercian on this one: s/he puts the answer very sucinctly. I mean to raise my sons not to rape toddlers to death, and if they were to suffer such a fate, I justice could only be served by hanging the perpetrator.

However, I do accept Massie's point that MPs are representatives not delegates. If it is the case that people in the UK favour the death penalty (and I suspect it's a close run thing) then the answer is either a) a referendum or b) stop electing political-class opponents of the death penalty.

Every state at (almost) all points in its history has applied the death penalty. The current opposition is, I suspect, a historical fad related to the other moral and political lunacies of the 20th century. I'm in my mid-forties. I would not be surprised if the death penalty was reintroduced within the time-frame of my average life-expectancy - though probably for political rather than common crimes. I strongly suspect that many 'opponents' of the death penalty are really rather in favour of it - for things their sect (green or red) disapproves of.

Simon Stephenson.

Mercian : 6.10pm

"However if my son raped a toddler to death, I would expect him to be executed, whatever grief it caused me"

What, even if he was borderline insane, but according to the black/white requirement for competence to stand trial he was just on the side that allowed this to happen?

I wonder just what proportion of those who do such terrible things are genuninely, calculatingly evil, and what proportion are just mentally deficient, and have no conception of the monstrousness of what they have done.

Rhoda Klapp : 6.11pm

With respect, I think my point bears directly on the representation of the rights of the majority. Most people do not form an independent opinion on such matters, and what independent thought they do put in is, for 99.9% of them, restricted to looking at the matter as an academic exercise, from a non-involved point of view. I'd suggest that the question they should be considering is not:-

"what should the penalty be in such cases?"

but

"what should the convicted man's families and loved ones be considering as a fair sentence, bearing in mind the harm that this person has caused to other people in our society?"

In other words, the invitation should be to arrive at a conclusion based upon what an involved person ought to consider to be fair and just.

Personally, I'm terrified by the idea of a democracy based upon the inviolability of majority opinion. I'm haunted, as an example, by the white majority's treatment of American Deep South blacks right through into my lifetime. Not for me is the thought that there is any dignity in majority opinion.

No, I'm for aristocracy (*) rather than direct democracy.

* aristocracy in its original sense of "rule of the best"

*ttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristocracy

(h for *)

Mercian

Simon Stephenson
"What, even if he was borderline insane, but according to the black/white requirement for competence to stand trial he was just on the side that allowed this to happen?"

Certainly. What has been the point of keeping Ian Brady in a mental asylum for 50 years? It has cost a vast amount of money and he has contributed nothing at all. In fact he even tried to starve himself to death, so the man himself wanted to die. Isn't it less humane to keep him alive?

Rhoda Klapp

Dimon, for democracy to work and not become tyranny, it requires the restraint of the mob. I suppose that our representative layer is the instrument of this. But then you will have a political class who feel they can ignore the majority when it is convenient, which pretty soon becomes all the time. Then you get things like immigation, the EU, unpopular wars and so on which are just not debated any more because the people cannot be trusted on them. The death penalty is a prime example. In fact our right to re-introduce it has been given away, but it still comes around every so often, usually in reference to some extreme example such as Bellfield. Best not to make decisions about law on extreme examples.

( I think the feelings of Bellfield's relatives are of no interest to the law. Just as it does not take into account the victim's family. That's the way the law is. We deal with offences against the Queen's Peace, not individuals. I think it is better that way. Emotion is not the best judge.)

Rhoda Klapp

Fat fingers addressed the last comment to Dimon. Simon S is who I meant, apologies. Wouldn't it be nice to have an edit function to pick up those errors which (seem to) occur immediately after hitting enter?

Norman Dee

Can't see how killing a politician can be a hanging offence, "justifiable homicide", or at worse "manslaughter"

Baron

Old Holborn, sir, I’m unlikely to go far in the few remaining days I have left, you worry not on that score, the next substantial going of mine, in a passive form so to speak, will be to the nearest cemetery, my support for capital punishment rests on an irrefutable evidence, it saves lives, it saves lives for it raises the barrier to entry for the most heinous crime, murder, however much the backing of the execution of a child killer sickens, the knowledge that the failure to support capital punishment for such vile creatures endangers the life of another toddler, then another, and another, sickens more.

Baron

Matthew Hopkins @ 4.37.

It’s up to me, only up to me to take every step I possible can, within the law of course, to enable me to survive, to enable the survival of those I care about most, as it’s up to you to ensure the same, the duty of the state ain’t to ensure either my survival or yours, it’s to ensure the survival of as many of those the state has jurisdiction over. Since we live in representative democracy, it’s up to the representatives to deliver on it. If standing on their heads for an hour each day will do it, fine. If not, then the best system to keep as many of us alive should be what they ought to go for, whether I or you like it or not, capital punishment scores the highest for it prevents the highest number of murders, rapes.

Corsair @ 5.18 puts the case so elegantly, I’m tempted to pinch his argument, use it later.

Baron

BJK @ 2.24 hints well at the hidden hypocrisy over the issue of capital punishment, why indeed are we so repulsed by the idea of executing, after a costly and lengthy due process, a vile murderer of a child, but think nothing of it when our soldiers kill, either on purpose or by mistake, human beings who have done us no harm, would have never done us harm, whom we didn’t award the courtesy of the due process of law.

Simon, my blogging friend, Mercian @ 6.10 has answered for me.

Simon Stephenson.

Rhoda Klapp : 8.20am

I think you're misinterpreting my position. I'm not suggesting that sentencing policy should be decided out of emotion, merely that the totality of consequences need to be taken into account, not just those which apply to the victims and to the non-involved. Like it or not, there are consequences too for the offender and his loved ones, and also, in the case of execution, for those amongst us who are horrified by the fact that the ending of a human life should be one of the rights given to state authority.

It's very easy to build a contentment with policy by exaggerating the pluses and minimising or ignoring the minuses. I'd just like people to be clear that they've not done this when giving their opinions about judicial execution. Reaching a good society is about more than being slavish to intuition and gut feeling.

Rhoda Klapp

Simon, I was trying not to debate solely on the death penalty. It is not even a subject on which I have a well-formed opinion. I'd rather judge case-by-case. I see little objection to executing Brady or Bellfield, or any other multiple-occasion killer where there can be no doubt as to guilt, but I wouldn't like to formalise any guideline. And of course the execution itself demeans the state. But lots of things demean the state. Shooting brazilians in the undergound system and then punishing nobody, for one particularly egregious example.

I was trying to debate the right of the political class (or bien-pensant, or eloi, or whatever) to take some issues off the table because the public cannot be trusted with them, and peripherally what that has to do with libertarianism and the questioning of people's libertarian credentials.

Clearly we are talking across each other.

Baron

Simon-san, you both confused and confusing.

you say “reaching a good society is about more than being slavish to intuition and gut feeling’, by which you probably mean those in favour of CP are so inclined because of their intuition and gut feeling, right? if so, you absolutely wrong, sir, gut doesn’t come into it, it’s evidence, bloody hard evidence, when the burghers of this country lived under CP the incident of crime, any crime, was immeasurably lower than ever since its abolition, that’s a fact, no argument about it.

as it stands, the law says those who murder get life, life however means in virtually every case less than 25 years (there’ve been only some 27 real lifers since CP got scrapped), with ‘good behaviour’ the miscreant could be out on license in 5-10 years (the average number of years a murderer spends inside is less than 8 years), well, it that’s what a murderer gets then the law has to adjust down the length of sentences for lesser crimes, too, as I keep pointing out, the length of sentences IS a deterrent, the gradual ‘hidden’ cuts in effective sentencing (the time actually served rather than the sentence handed down by a judge) lowers the barrier of entry to crime for a whole range of offences, more to the point, since 1964, over 130 murderers who got let out murdered again.

what would you say to the relatives of those dead souls who may still be alive were it not for your enlightened principle, ha?

you also muse “those amongst us who are horrified by the fact that the ending of a human life should be one of the rights given to state authority” well, sir, the state did have the right before, and there’re those amongst us, in number a bigger chunk of the population, who are equally horrified, if not more, by the rising violent crime under the policy you favour, many of us still remember the days when crime was low enough for each and every case of murder to be celebrated for it was rare indeed for it to occur.

you reckon then Britain under Attlee, Winston, pre-war Britain was more barbaric than Britain under the enlightened criminal justice regime you’re backing, do you?

I wouldn’t give a toss if the policy you’ve embraced worked, it patently doesn’t, in one of the debates organised either by the BBC or Channel4, Clarke turns to the guy who’s running one of the prisons housing some of the more serious offenders, asks: ‘what do you see as your main task in the job?’ Without hesitation, the guy says (I quote from memory): “to make the time they have to spend in prison as easy as possible”.

Fuggme (if you forgive the French), if this is how prison governors see their job we might as well scrap the whole costly system, let those who harbour evil keep on murdering, raping, after all there are some 60mn plus of us, before they murder, rape us all they’ll be most likely dead, or we can go for an anglicized version of sharia, that will sort it out.

and lastly, Rhoda’s spot on, not only cannot we have proper justice, we cannot even have a proper debate about it. Madness.

Simon Stephenson.

Rhoda

I understand what you are saying and I'll come back to you either on this thread or another.

Baron

I appreciate the sincerity of what you feel, but I'm worried that you are so convinced that more lenient sentencing is the principal cause of increases in the crime rate that you've allowed yourself to think that all will be well if we show a bit more harshness to offenders. Obviously I can't prove that you are mistaken, but, equally, you can't prove that you are not. But there have been many huge changes in society over the last 50 years just as coincident with the crime increase as has been the changes in sentencing policy. It's just not valid to claim that there's evidence that sentencing policy is the prime determinant of crime levels.

The inevitability that I see is that the political system in this country is such that we do precious little to attack the generation-on-generation assignment to the underclass. The universal education we supply is structured to give far more to the middle-classes who need it less, and far too little to the underclass who need it more. To me, it's intolerable that so much resource in education is concentrated on soft "problems" and non-problems, while those at the foot of the ladder, who really need the extra help, are denied it.

So rather than bashing our heads against a wall trying to force unfortunates to behave in the way the fortunates would prefer, why not make a concerted attempt to change the outlooks and worldliness of the unfortunates so that social and constructive behaviour becomes their normal way of living? Then we'll start seeing crime rates plummetting without any additional harshness of sentencing.

Rhoda Klapp

When it comes to sntencing, I believe the high probablity of not being caught at all, or of escaping a guilty verdict, is what motivates criminals. In some ways the law in this country is optional. There can be no deterrent sentences for those who don't expect to be caught.

I totally agree with Simon on the underclass. The politicians seem to have marked the problem as too difficult.

LibertarianLou

Absolutely spot on as usual Mr Massie.

LibertarianLou

Surely the difference between representative democracy in a free country, and mob rule, is that people get to make the laws unless they violate someone else's human rights? If the majority wants to start taking away minority rights, that is counter to freedom, even if it might feel 'democratic.' That is why we speak of freedom AND democracy; the two are not necessarily the same.

When you ask "if killing one person saves ten... would you kill them," the crucial word is IF. You have no way of knowing if it will save any lives at all. What the death penalty amounts to is, would you suppport killing one person IN CASE it saves some lives? My answer is absolutely not.

And yes I must admit I do think it's slightly barbaric of the US states which choose to keep the death penalty, especially where they executive minors. It's their country though, so it's up to the citizens of those states to change that law.

Baron

Simon, thoughtful and instructive response as one would expect from you, but for this, you reckon huge societal changes have inflicted this little island of ours only in the last 50 years? Hmm, what about the decades of the industrial revolution, the other observable waves on immigration in the last 300 years or so.

consider the following, it comes from data compiled by the criminologist Manuel Eisner who’s neither for or against the CP, he tracked the cases of homicides per 100,000 population for major European countries over large spans of time, the averages for the time shown for England and Wales are as follows: 13th and 14th centuries - 23.0; 15th century: na; 16th century - 7.0; 17th century - 5.0; 18th century - 1.5; 19th century - 1.7; 1900 to 1949 – 0.8; 1950 to 1994 – 0.9; 2009 – 1.4 (Home Office data).

it’s unfair, of course, to compare the average for the two chunks of the last century with just one year (2009), I could have dug out the years 1995 to current, but am short of time. Since violent crime is the one category that has shown an uninterrupted underlying rise in the last 2-3 decades, the level for the period 1995- current is unlikely to differ much from the 2009 figure of 1.4, may be even higher.

For a number of centuries, with conditions for human life up and down, the homicide rate for England and Wales has been trending south, hit bottom mid-20th century, has been on a way up since, relentlessly. Can you think of anything that may have caused the reversal?

you may like to know that the three countries with the lowest current homicide rate per 100,000 of population are: Japan at 0.49, Saudi Arabia at 0.39 and Quatar at 0.11, all have CP on the statute books, Japan’s racial purity is the highest amongst developed countries (over 99%), the two Arab countries have sizeable number of immigrants.

ndm

LibertarianLou writes:

-- And yes I must admit I do think it's slightly barbaric of the US states which choose to keep the death penalty, especially where they executive minors. It's their country though, so it's up to the citizens of those states to change that law.

The United States Supreme Court banned the execution of minors in 2005.

Of course, it remains a bit dull-witted on the meaning of "cruel and unusual punishment" for everyone else. The US stands pretty much alone in the civilized world in its love of executions. Indeed, pretty much every other country performing executions today is regarded as a moral pariah.

N J Mayes

Why cops? That seems the silliest thing about it to me. Why should a policeman's life be worth more than mine or the next person's? If anything the incentive should be set up the other way round, as policemen are already entitled to protect themselves in ways that the rest of us aren't.

indy

There is actually no reason why the views of the millions of people who apparently support the death penalty should not be listened to or represented. And if there really is such a clamour to re-introduce the death penalty, there would seem to be an obvious gap in the political market wouldn't there?

But the fact is those alleged millions of people who want to bring back hanging vote for parties which don't.

If people like Guido want to challenge that perhaps they should consider setting up a new party specifically for the purpose of reintroducing the death penalty. You would then need to persuade those millions of people to vote for you.

To me that is the only realistic way you ccould achieve your aim. The idea that you could force such a major policy shift either by harrying existing political parties into toe-ing your line or by submitting a petition is unrealistic.

AndyinBrum

because the death penalty works so well in preventing these crimes in countries were they are inforce and prevented the crimes in this country where the death penalty was the punishment?

God Save the Queen

Unrepresentative democracy = Tyranny