Lord Herbert wrote on Sep 14
th, 2013 at 5:15pm:
Proud legacy.
Proud cultural inheritance.
Nothing to see here, folks!
Lord Herbert wrote on Sep 15
th, 2013 at 8:21am:
True Colours wrote on Sep 14
th, 2013 at 9:37pm:
Perhaps you are talking about England where until fairly recently they publicly executed poor hungry people for stealing food?
"until fairly recently ... " ?
Don't embarrass yourself with such nonsense.
Get to know your history.
It was not so long ago that is was all open slather for hanging, beheadings and quarterings for man, woman and child in the UK.
The UK was still publicly executing pickpockets in 1808.
Public executions were still carried out for other crimes in the UK until 1868.
Beheadings and quarterings were not stopped in the UK until 1870.
The UK was still executing children in 1889, and only removed the execution of juveniles as option in 1933.
The UK executed 657 people in the 20th century - including 11 women, and 26 German prisoners of war.
A Jewish mp introduced a bill to abolish the death penalty in non-Irish parts of the UK in 1965. It was passed by the parliament - and it is thought that abolition movement was helped a number of botched murder investigations/prosecutions/trials which were perceived to have possibly seen innocent men executed.
The death penalty was only abolished altogether in the UK in 1973 - I am sure there are a few of us on the forum who can still remember 1973 .
Since then, parliament has voted 20 times on bills to reintroduce executions. Each bill has failed to pass, but there has been a lot of support for it. Half of those bills were supported by 200 or more mps. In 1983 263 mps voted to reintroduce executions - but that was not quite a majority.
A new bill to allow executions was introduced to the UK parliament just a few months ago.