Killer Instinct

"And, the worst part of my day, was the private contractor in charge of the investigation is an ex-copper."

I nodded in a manner that was no doubt sagely. If I had a beard, I would have stroked it. I don't have a beard, because if I had a beard I would spend all day stroking it like a weirdo.

"I just hate pigs," I replied.

You can guarantee, as soon as I have expressed a concrete opinion on just about anything, something will immediately come up to make me look like a magnificent bastard. So it is no surprise that when I flopped down in a chair, cigarette dangling from my mouth and looking every inch the rockstar, Karma triumphantly announced that two police officers had been gunned down in Manchester mere moments before. A cause for celebration, right? Because I'm obviously a fucking psychopath?

Conversely, at the end of the day I'm drinking vodka, shovelling shredded duck into my mouth like it is going out of fashion, and watching 'Speeders' on Dave. You know, Speeders? That cop show where a retired woman has been chased down by a guy called 'Officer Slaughter' and the funny out-takes at the end has a 15 year old girl accidentally reversing into a police cruiser before having two guns pointed at her and men screaming to 'GET OUT OF THE CAR. GET ON THE FLOOR. ON THE FLOOOOOOOORRRRRRR.'. Uh, yeah. True story.

Police medic in action, G20.

Now, it isn't unusual for me to express my dislike for 'da police'. It is not unusual for my friends to express dislike for the police. But, I think, if the idea of shooting two people in cold blood doesn't send a chill down your spine, regardless of your ideological persuasion, you might have lost your way a bit. When people have began to resemble animated pieces of meat you should probably get your shit together.

Which brings me neatly on to Lord Norman Tebbit, a man whose leathery face and thousand yard stare marks him as a person who could comfortably bathe in people's entrails without being the least bit upset. Which is, weirdly, almost what he said. Tebbit wants to bring back the death penalty for people who murder other people. This is why:

""The hard fact is, as violent criminals know perfectly well, a credible threat that a man will lose his life unless he complies with a demand usually results in obedience.""""

The small problem with that otherwise deadly sane argument is this.

The credible threat that the "man with the gun will empty it into your face unless you hand over enormous piles of someone else's money" doesn't have the same motivators, the same passion, or the same risk/gratification as the possibility of being executed for murder. The idea that "if you kill someone, hopefully we will eventually catch you, subject you to a lengthy trial, and then maybe get a group of jurors to decide if you live or die," is not any sort of deterrent to the possibly deranged and extremely angry person who, after years of abuse, puts a live hand grenade into the Go-Compare singer's mouth. Putting murder - be it heat of the moment or coldly premeditated - on a par with a street mugging is a non-argument. It's like watching a three-year old try to push a square through a triangular hole in a puzzle box. You just want to scream obscenities in his face to make. him. listen.

And nothing screams "justice!" from the rooftops like killing someone because they killed someone. There are complications though, like, what if we convict and kill an innocent person?

Lord Tebbit said concerns that such a penalty would lead to miscarriages of justice - with the innocent executed - would be mitigated by the care juries would take deliberating when they knew a person's life was at stake.

Seriously? I wouldn't trust 99% of the peasants in this backwash pisshole to even know what a jury was, never mind avoid being whipped into a fanatical frenzy by ignorance, Stella, and whatever gutter-trash paper their chips came wrapped in. We would have trial by The Sun and - like shooting innocent people - if that doesn't send a very human shiver down your spine then you need to see a therapist. The moment my life hangs before twelve people who have purposefully dyed their skin orange and managed to abbreviate three letter words, then I will know that all human endeavour has been fruitless. That said, I really don't want my last image to be a fat man with a greasy chin leering down at me over his KFC bargain bucket and screaming "Ere, cut 'is balls uff an feed um ta whippets!"

He said:  "I have kept track year by year since the death penalty was suspended, then abolished, of the number of people who have been killed by persons previously convicted of homicide.

"It has averaged three people a year. About 150 people killed because their killers have been freed to kill again.

"Would our courts have sentenced to death three innocent people a year, year in year out? I doubt it.

 I doubt it? Possible, but unlikely. More like one innocent person, or two. What right does one innocent person have to live if we get to prevent the death of three innocent people by executing murderers? A mistrial here, a tabloid witch-hunt there. It doesn't matter, right? It is all acceptable losses.

Here are four people. We eventually killed John Lennon to save the Beatles.

Perhaps if we brought back the death penalty for everything, crime would evaporate completely and we could spend the rest of our limited miserable days rotting in a false Utopian hell, driven mad by the pure perfection of it all. That'd be pretty sweet.