22 September 2012 10:00 PM
Of course hanging won't end all murders - but it will make criminals afraid to carry guns
Parliament sentenced hundreds of innocent people to death when it arrogantly abolished hanging in 1965. Many of those innocent people have yet to meet their killers, but that meeting will inevitably come.
Hundreds more, also thanks to the smugness of our sheltered power elite, will instead be horribly, terrifyingly injured.
But – because our medical skills have grown while our common sense has shrunk – they will survive to live damaged, darkened lives.
On the long list of Parliament’s victims, both dead and wounded, are many police officers. Fiona Bone and Nicola Hughes, may they rest in peace, are just the latest.
Nobody can really claim to be surprised by this. In August 1966, a few months after the death penalty was got rid of, three police officers were murdered close to Wormwood Scrubs Prison.[related]
Our once-peaceful country was so shocked that a memorial service was held in Westminster Abbey for the three – Geoffrey Fox, Stanley Wombwell and Christopher Head.
But the Prince of Liberal Smugness, the then Home Secretary Roy Jenkins, airily dismissed calls for a return of the gallows. ‘I will not change my policy in the shadow of recent events, however horrible,’ he said, in a statement of such bone-headed obstinacy that it ought to be carved on his tombstone.
If the murder of three policemen by an armed gang of crooks, months after hanging was abolished for that very offence, was not a reason to change a policy, then what would change his mind? The answer was that nothing would.
Like all such people, he knew he was right, and ‘civilised’ – and neither the facts nor common sense would change what he pleased to call his mind.
Now, after the Manchester killings, there has been an attempt to divert us into an argument about arming the police. Almost every account of these deaths, rather oddly, stressed that the two officers were unarmed.
Nobody can really claim to be surprised by this. In August 1966, a few months after the death penalty was got rid of, three police officers were murdered close to Wormwood Scrubs Prison.[related]
Our once-peaceful country was so shocked that a memorial service was held in Westminster Abbey for the three – Geoffrey Fox, Stanley Wombwell and Christopher Head.
But the Prince of Liberal Smugness, the then Home Secretary Roy Jenkins, airily dismissed calls for a return of the gallows. ‘I will not change my policy in the shadow of recent events, however horrible,’ he said, in a statement of such bone-headed obstinacy that it ought to be carved on his tombstone.
If the murder of three policemen by an armed gang of crooks, months after hanging was abolished for that very offence, was not a reason to change a policy, then what would change his mind? The answer was that nothing would.
Like all such people, he knew he was right, and ‘civilised’ – and neither the facts nor common sense would change what he pleased to call his mind.
Now, after the Manchester killings, there has been an attempt to divert us into an argument about arming the police. Almost every account of these deaths, rather oddly, stressed that the two officers were unarmed.
Why? There’s no suggestion that Fiona Bone or Nicola Hughes would have been safer if they had been armed. Do we want to turn the police into executioners? In any case, the police of this country are armed, and have been for years.
Not all of them carry weapons, but the proud boast of this country in my childhood, that we were the only major nation whose police did not carry guns, long ago ceased to be true.
We weren’t asked about it. But then again, we weren’t asked about abolishing the death penalty. No political party ever put that policy in its manifesto. To this day it has not been properly discussed.
Few people understand that supporters of the gallows never pretended it would deter all murders. They believed it deterred criminals from carrying lethal weapons.
Not all of them carry weapons, but the proud boast of this country in my childhood, that we were the only major nation whose police did not carry guns, long ago ceased to be true.
We weren’t asked about it. But then again, we weren’t asked about abolishing the death penalty. No political party ever put that policy in its manifesto. To this day it has not been properly discussed.
Few people understand that supporters of the gallows never pretended it would deter all murders. They believed it deterred criminals from carrying lethal weapons.
We have in fact had two experiments to see if this is so. The death penalty was suspended in this country for much of 1948, while Parliament debated (and rejected) its abolition. It was suspended again from August 1955 to March 1957, during a similar debate. After 1957 the penalty was much weaker, though it still protected police officers.
Colin Greenwood, a retired policeman, studied the statistics and found a marked leap in violent and armed offences during 1948, followed by a return to the previous level. There was another rise in 1956-57, followed by a slight fall. There was a third significant rise in the mid-Sixties, which has continued more or less ever since.
The carrying and use of guns and knives by criminals just grows and grows. Jay Whiston, whose dreadful death I mentioned last week, is one victim of this. The Manchester police officers are two more.
But these are the cases we all hear about. Far, far more common are dreadful events in which heroic doctors and nurses save the lives of people who would undoubtedly have died of comparable wounds 50 years ago.
Last week, in my beautiful, civilised home town, Oxford, two men were jailed for attacking Kirk Smith in his home, in a petty, moronic robbery – of £20 and two phones.
Abdul Adan, 21, was sentenced to eight-and-a-half years (in reality he will serve half that) for stabbing Mr Smith four times, after first smashing his nose. Mr Smith’s wounds were appalling. They ‘bared his intestines’, as the court report puts it. Adan’s accomplice, Michael Edwards, 25, got three-and-a-half years, which of course he will not serve in full.
Did these assailants care whether they killed him? Did they, in fact, fear the law at all? How many such crimes have been and will be committed in our supposedly civilised, liberal country this year? More than you think.
Are any of us safe in our homes, or on the streets, or on late-night buses and trains, from people such as this? Will anything be done to put it right?
You know the answer.
And people wonder why I despise politicians and all their works.
Colin Greenwood, a retired policeman, studied the statistics and found a marked leap in violent and armed offences during 1948, followed by a return to the previous level. There was another rise in 1956-57, followed by a slight fall. There was a third significant rise in the mid-Sixties, which has continued more or less ever since.
The carrying and use of guns and knives by criminals just grows and grows. Jay Whiston, whose dreadful death I mentioned last week, is one victim of this. The Manchester police officers are two more.
But these are the cases we all hear about. Far, far more common are dreadful events in which heroic doctors and nurses save the lives of people who would undoubtedly have died of comparable wounds 50 years ago.
Last week, in my beautiful, civilised home town, Oxford, two men were jailed for attacking Kirk Smith in his home, in a petty, moronic robbery – of £20 and two phones.
Abdul Adan, 21, was sentenced to eight-and-a-half years (in reality he will serve half that) for stabbing Mr Smith four times, after first smashing his nose. Mr Smith’s wounds were appalling. They ‘bared his intestines’, as the court report puts it. Adan’s accomplice, Michael Edwards, 25, got three-and-a-half years, which of course he will not serve in full.
Did these assailants care whether they killed him? Did they, in fact, fear the law at all? How many such crimes have been and will be committed in our supposedly civilised, liberal country this year? More than you think.
Are any of us safe in our homes, or on the streets, or on late-night buses and trains, from people such as this? Will anything be done to put it right?
You know the answer.
And people wonder why I despise politicians and all their works.
IS BEING HONEST REALLY SUCH A SHOCK?
I never thought much of Mitt Romney, but all these leaks have made me warm to him. Why is it a ‘gaffe’ to be honest?
Left-wing politicians do bribe millions of voters with welfare handouts, paid for from the taxes of Right-wing voters.
And the Arab leadership in Gaza and the West Bank have no interest in permanent peace with Israel.
We say we want truthful politicians, but when we get them, we fling up our hands in mock shock.
Left-wing politicians do bribe millions of voters with welfare handouts, paid for from the taxes of Right-wing voters.
And the Arab leadership in Gaza and the West Bank have no interest in permanent peace with Israel.
We say we want truthful politicians, but when we get them, we fling up our hands in mock shock.
SEEING SENSE ON A POINTLESS WAR
It is good to see that conventional wisdom is now coming round to the view that our military presence in Afghanistan is a pointless and bloody waste of time.
Parliament is actually debating it.
Why, in a few months, everyone will want to leave, and most of them will believe that they have thought so all along. Well, they didn’t.
When I began my long campaign for withdrawal, in November 2001, the Afghan war was a ‘good war’. In 2006, when Comrade Doctor Lord John Reid committed us more deeply, saying, absurdly, ‘We would be perfectly happy to leave in three years’ time without firing one shot’, the intervention was still popular.
Peter Mandelson said that you have to go on saying something long after you are sick of saying it before anyone will take any notice. This is true.
But so many have died in the meantime. Why are we so slow to see the truth?
Parliament is actually debating it.
Why, in a few months, everyone will want to leave, and most of them will believe that they have thought so all along. Well, they didn’t.
When I began my long campaign for withdrawal, in November 2001, the Afghan war was a ‘good war’. In 2006, when Comrade Doctor Lord John Reid committed us more deeply, saying, absurdly, ‘We would be perfectly happy to leave in three years’ time without firing one shot’, the intervention was still popular.
Peter Mandelson said that you have to go on saying something long after you are sick of saying it before anyone will take any notice. This is true.
But so many have died in the meantime. Why are we so slow to see the truth?
Sarah Catt goes to jail for eight years (four, really) for aborting a big baby, in the final week of pregnancy.
But it’s perfectly legal to abort a small baby, to call it a ‘foetus’ instead of a human being, and to sneer that it is ‘just a blob of jelly’.
You try working out the logic of this. It’s not nice.
But it’s perfectly legal to abort a small baby, to call it a ‘foetus’ instead of a human being, and to sneer that it is ‘just a blob of jelly’.
You try working out the logic of this. It’s not nice.
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