Matthew Barrett: Britain should never have abandoned capital punishment - but it's now too late to return to it

By Matthew Barrett
Follow Matthew on Twitter.

The debate over the death penalty is the classic public/political class divide. The public has backed the death penalty ever since it was abolished, while the political class has been against it for decades.

Why? It's hard to tell. The paradox within the public/political divide is that in general, working class Britons support the death penalty far more than do the middle classes, yet the only party which stood up for the death penalty in any meaningful way was the Conservative Party until the 1990s. Labour have been against it (as the Lib Dems have) for much of that party's history, despite most constituents in many Labour seats backing it. Ditto, historically the Tories defied their middle class constituents to vote in support of the death penalty. 

The penalty was abolished under the Murder (Abolition of Death Penalty) Act 1965. While this is a terribly official-sounding piece of legislation, it wasn't a grand government Bill. It was passed as a Private Members' Bill by the Labour MP Sydney Silverman. Silverman was an interesting figure on the hard-left of British politics. He refused to fight in the First World War on socialist grounds, he co-founded the CND, and was opposed to European rearmament after the Second World War. This latter cause meant he was expelled from the Labour Party twice during the 1950s and '60s. But his most important legacy, of course, was the abolition of the death penalty.

Hoping to capitalise on Britain's war-weary mood, Silverman first tried to get abolition through the House of Commons in 1948. After passing the lower house, the Lords rejected Silverman's Bill, so the Labour Home Secretary of the day, James Chuter Ede, created a Royal Commission instead to investigate "whether the liability to suffer capital punishment should be limited or modified". The Royal Commission made some recommendations regarding the treatment of mentally ill prisoners, and prison conditions, and even said that abolition would be preferable for ethical reasons, but the Commission's report concluded that unless there was overwhelming public support in favour of abolition, the death penalty should be retained.

Matthew Barrett: Time to end the "War on Drugs"? I'm still waiting for it to start.

By Matthew Barrett
Follow Matthew on Twitter.

Calls for the legalisation of drugs in Britain are repetitive. Prohibition has failed! The government must end the War on Drugs! There are liberals in favour of legalisation on the left. There are libertarians in favour of legalisation on the right. Both say Britain (or the West)'s terrifying crackdown on illegal drugs has been tried for 40 years, and has failed miserably. 

There are arguments in favour of legalising drugs. There is the argument that we should allow Britons to smoke, snort, swallow or inject whatever they like. Do whatever you want in your own home as long as it's not hurting anyone else sort of thing. There is the argument that drug users are not criminals but victims, and they must be helped by not attaching stigma to them. There are also arguments against legalising drugs. I seek not to deal with the issue of legalisation itself, but of the current situation.

In Mexico there is what could be described as a war between the Mexican state and the drugs cartels that operate in that country. That conflict spills over the American border. Critics of British drugs laws are all too quick to point to the situation in those countries, and call British drug policies, and those of the West in general a "war" against drugs. But legalisers on both left and right ignore a rather important point: the "war" label is a red herring, and the language used to describe Britain's response to drugs is extremely misleading. Britain has never had a "War on Drugs" (See Peter Hitchens' new book, "The War We Never Fought").

We currently have a system where the production and sale of illegal drugs is punished to some degree, but there exists an intensely relaxed system for the personal use of the same drugs. The legal establishment, law enforcement and political class regard personal drug use as a small pleasure, which many teenagers and some adults will experiment with, and should be allowed to do so as part of the natural growing up process, or for coping with boring everyday life. That creates an organised hypocrisy whereby our politicians tell us drugs are wrong and evil, and destroy lives, but then do nothing to prevent the personal use of illegal drugs.

This view of widespread drug usage as inevitable is precisely what motivates many legalisers. We will all end up experimenting with drugs, or enjoying a bit of cannabis now and then, so we might as well end the drugs war now and admit it has failed, they say. But what we have at present is the unsatisfactory settlement I described above - an effectively legalised regime for personal drug users, and especially for cannabis users. And it's not just cannabis users, but cannabis dealers who have it pretty easy: seizures of cannabis have fallen by 34% over the last ten years. Critics of British drugs policy are, effectively, criticising a regime that is extremely lenient and relaxed towards personal drug use.

Matthew Barrett: A special offer for ConHome readers on the excellent "Yes, Prime Minister"

By Matthew Barrett
Follow Matthew on Twitter.

Last week I went to see the West End production of Sir Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn's classic series "Yes, Prime Minister", which has been re-launched and updated for the 21st century. It was very enjoyable, with an excellent perfomance from Robert Daws as Jim Hacker and great timing from Michael Simkins as Sir Humphrey. The update was very well done: the Brown and Cameron eras were merged, resulting in references to the Coalition Agreement in one scene and a "Twitter tsar" the next, civil service reform, cuts to the BBC, the crumbling European empire, the collapse of the banking system, and so on.

Two minute Today interview underlines rationality of Manchester's young looters

By Matthew Barrett
^{Follow Matthew on Twitter}

This two-minute interview, which was on Radio 4's Today programme this morning, with a group of last night's young looters shows how their decision to go into Manchester and loot was rational and calculated.

• The first line of defence against crime, the justice system, is not seen as sufficiently threatening to deter the youths. One of the group says this would be my first offence, "the prisons are over-crowded. What are they going to do? Give me an ASBO? I'll live with that."
• The government has failed to keep order, according to the group. They agree that their motivation is partially that "the government aren't in control - because if they was we wouldn't be able to do it could we?".
• The low rate of arrest of looters is then also brought up as an incentive to loot, with one youth saying "they failed, innit? How many people have they arrested really, though? Ten." He then says "I'm not really bothered. I'll keep doing this every day until I get caught."
• The incentive to make money from their crime spree is clear: one of the youths says he has been looting because he didn't want to "miss the opportunity to get free stuff that's worth, like, loads of money". 
• Powerless families are also shown to be a major factor in allowing the looting to take place. One youth admits to warning his family he was going to be present at the riots, and then describes a subsequent telephone conversation with a family member: "He said 'get home, you're in trouble' I said 'no' and just put the phone down. They can't get into town, they can't get me, and when I get home, nothing's going to happen to me, I'm not going to get grounded or shouted at. I might get shouted at but that's it, I'll live with it and keep doing it."