Matthew Norman: Gordon has shown who’s really in charge
Politically, then, Gordon was wise to stop the pay rise, because the general British attitude to offenders is as brutal and vindictive as it is pig-headed and self-defeating. If a study were published tomorrow establishing beyond the tiniest doubt that awarding the extra £1.50 would reduce reoffending rates by 60 per cent, and save an annual £6bn for an outlay of £6m, the phone-ins and blogs would still resound to that ritual hunting cry of political correctness gone mad, from representatives of the vast majority of voters who favour the reintroduction of capital punishment, however incontrovertibly proven its worthlessness as a deterrent may be.
Posted on May 2nd, 2008 at 8:32am under Brown
He’s not entirely wrong, but I think he might be a bit pessimistic. After all, support for the death penalty has declined to below 50%…
john b’s latest blog post… If you disagree with this, you have no soul and no brain