Hi Martin,

First of all a million congratulations and thank you's for the site (why isn't more of the internet like this, dammit!). I am a 16 year old college student who lives in Leeds. I was wanting to start a correspondence up with you and I've finally got some interesting things to talk about (or at least things I think are interesting :-)). I am a little tired though so I'll keep this short and sweet.

Capital Punishment

Some days I think its entirely hypocritical and wrong, other times I'd punish burglars with it. What are your thoughts on the matter?

Marriage

After thinking about it, I just can't see the point. Why is it that I can only truly be in love with someone if I endure some archaic religious ceremony? Again, I'd like your input.

Moron Tax aka The National Lottery

Any suggestions on how to deprogram my family from chucking money down the toilet.

(This one's not too serious :-))

House of Lords

On your page about politics in England you mention some ideas about what to put in it's place. I be very interested to hear them. So, some food for thought there. I look forward to your reply.

Cheers

James

Capital punishment

I don't start from the basis of human rights, that is a fiction. What matters is does hanging people actually work. On the positive side it has a provable zero rate of recidivism, by far the best of any form of punishment or rehabilitation. I am unaware of a single case of a hanged man re-offending.

Also on the plus side we have the removal of the bad example. No young lad is going to share a cell with a hanged man and learn his methods or his values.

Finally there is the sheer economy of it. A few metres of hemp rope and a trapdoor. Wage costs no more than any other day in prison, but with no prospect of overtime payments. In the USA they argue that it costs more to execute a man than to imprison him for life because of all the appeals and so on. I know lawyers are expensive but I still find this hard to credit.

The biggest drawback is the probability of miscarriages of justice. Pardoning innocent men and letting them out of prison is easy. So is pardoning those bastards you know are guilty but you got caught out with planting evidence. Pardoning a bloke who has spent the last twenty five years buried in quicklime is a bit more problematic and considerably more futile. On the whole I think it is a tough call, no obvious solution. It is one I would bend with the wind on, I think now on balance it is more likely to be politically expedient to stay with the liberal consensus and to continue to operate without it.

The statistics are not clear either way as to whether it saves money or lives, neither does it appear obvious whether the deterrent effect against murder is very clear. Perhaps this is where we have been going wrong. We have been executing the wrong people.

Most murders are domestic and not part of any pattern of criminality. My mother was a prison officer for many years and was well acquainted with many women who had killed their husbands and lovers. They were the most reliable prisoners she had to deal with. In contrast it was the shoplifters and cheque fraudsters who were the dyed in the wool evil bitches.

Some crimes need a strong deterrent, for others the punishment is irrelevant to the chances of an offence being committed because the offender either does not think about being caught or does not think at all. What matters is not the nature of the offence but the nature of the offender. For the classic murder for greed hanging and life imprisonment are equally effective as deterrents. For the lunatics life imprisonment is a bigger deterrent. For the woman who snaps after fifteen years of abuse no punishment would deter.

The biggest deterrent effect of capital punishment would be against the career petty criminal. Imagine the effect of being told by a judge

"When you were fourteen and first arrested you were cautioned and let off, the second time you were let off again with a suspended sentence of imprisonment. On the third occasion you were sentenced to imprisonment. I now have to inform you that this repeat offence after a period of imprisonment makes you eligible for sentence review by a panel of experts who will assess your suitability, or otherwise, for imprisonment. If it deems you incapable of rehabilitation you will be executed. I trust I will not being seeing your sneering face in this court again. Goodbye."

Juries should be given the job of deciding the facts. Judges given the task of deciding the matters of law and specialists on criminal behaviour should be given the task of deciding the most suitable sentence, with judges free to make or refrain from making their own recommendations.

Marriage

Marriage is not about love, or religion, it about commitment. It is not a test of faith or a measure of love it is a long-term contract to live together in a special trusting relationship. Seeing it in any other way is naïve. Forget the hearts and flowers, forget the love of God, marriage is about making a working day-to-day relationship that involves a shared agreement on the nature and extent of that commitment. Love will not conquer all, you can't live on a prayer. You have to negotiate an evolving partnership.

There are thousands of ways to have an unhappy relationship, more ways are being discovered all the time, but successful relationships rely on trust, forgiveness, shared interests, not too much secrecy, not too much jealousy. An agreed level of shared interests and behaviour, agreed levels of personal growth space. Marriages are not made in heaven and they are not made in a moment of reciprocated sexual attraction. Marriages require effort. At the best they are the surest way to a happy and fulfilling life, but not always, not every time and for many people it never could happen.

There are millions of myths about marriage which help to make the current situation the way it is. People get damaged because they expect marriage to solve problems or they see a wedding as the fairy tale happily ever after ending. People need to be taught the truth about marriage, that it is about give and take, accommodation, a working and evolving relationship. The media is full of crazy stereotypes of impossibly happy marriages.

Divorce is an essential escape route for many people trapped in unworkable marriage but it is too easy to get yourself caught up in the divorce industry and fleeced by lawyers who have no option but to see marriages like scrap merchants see older cars. My sister is a solicitor specializing in family law and she agrees with me on this point.

A world without marriage would be a nasty place to live. Women are controlled by their biological imperatives to a degree that nobody these days is comfortable with. A secure future for their children is what women want, with marriage this urge can be dealt with in a socially acceptable way, without it things can start getting complicated and dysfunctional. Marriage is on the decline and so are moral standards. Children raised without security are very much more likely to become delinquent. It is not an iron law but the relationship is easily demonstrated with statistics. If you are a murder victim under the age of 16 the single most likely culprit is your mother's lover.

Moron Tax

I am against the lottery because it gives false hope to millions of people. Their real interests lie in realizing that they will never be rich and acting accordingly. The lottery stops them from seeing their true class position. Millions of people say "good on them, if they can get away with it" when they hear of footballers or pop stars making a fortune or some ordinary bloke inventing something and getting rich off the back of it. What they are really saying is "bastard, that should have been me, if I make out I don't care perhaps when I make it big people will not be jealous of me." People have a crazy faith in their ability to discover some unknown talent for invention, singing, bank robbery, having unknown rich relatives die or picking random numbers and think that they too one day will be rich.

As long as there is that one chance in fourteen million each week that idea cannot be totally ridiculed. The best advice I can give is to ask them to calculate the odds and then count up to that number, if they count quickly they might be finished before they are due to retire.

House of Lords

The more I think about the second chamber the more I think it is unnecessary. Some democratic countries have second chambers to accommodate different interests such as states. The House of Lords was there to give a voice to the Lords, a voice they are not entitled to. There is no need for a second chamber, just a more thorough review by the Commons and their committees.

New ideas on the House of Lords

Hello again Martin

Thanks for the speedy response to my e-mail. You've certainly clarified a lot of things for me.

Capital punishment

Yes, I see you're point about human rights. After thinking about it I agree totally that the nature of the offender is the main issue in deciding judgement. I think for Murder One (where you decide to kill a specific person and then plan out how and when to do it) and similar crimes, the sentence should certainly be death. But only if the evidence is completely conclusive and there is no chance that the accused is innocent (a rare occurrence, I know!). The other system you mentioned for petty criminals, similar to the "three strikes" they have in America, is also, in my opinion, a good idea. Although perhaps it would be best to raise the bar to "five strikes" or something more sensible. (My great-grandfathers brother was actually the last man in Leeds to get the birch for stealing a packet of sweets!)

Marriage

I have always considered marriage a ancient religious ceremony and never a "contract of commitment" before. Perhaps it should be used as a method of ensuring security for children (and keeping the population down), by saying only state recognised marriages are allowed to bear any children. Adoption and surrogacy could be used for homosexual marriages. Any unwed parents having children would be subjected to heavy fines and possible criminal charges. This all sounds a bit extreme and I realise that marriages are not the start-and-finish when it comes to successfully raising children (I myself am legally a bastard :-)) but perhaps something similar could be considered.

Which leads me nicely on to.....

Lowering the population and destroying the underclass

Er.. don't look at that title and think I'm advocating the gas chambers or anything. But I have a system that might just do what that title says without having to kill anyone (hooray!). (Apologies to Kim Stanley Robinson from whom I have blatantly ripped this off :-))

Picture this. To have a child you need a certain amount of credits, one to be precise. According to the law, everyone is born with three quarters of a credit. Therefore when two people get together they will have one and a half credits combined. If and when they have a child (costing one credit) their total will be lowered to one half of a credit. Now comes the clever bit. That couple can now either sell that half to a richer couple, so that this second couple can have two children, or buy another half from someone else if they themselves wish to have a second child. As you can imagine the price of half a credit will be pretty expensive (after all you are selling you're chance to have another child), and the cash bonus that could give to a poor couple would certainly encourage them to sell their half. This would also ensure that second children are born to financially secure couples.

Although it needs some refinement, the system could work. The chances of it being actually enforced are somewhat low however and I can only see it happening if the population becomes ridiculously high (the way things are going however that won't be too long).

House of Lords

I AGREE TOTALLY, 100% AND COMPLETELY!!!!

Ahem..

I have never seen the point of a upper house and if Sweden can get along fine without one, so can we.

So. I think that will do for now. If you've got some free time from running that brilliant site if yours (the last thing I want to be is a burden :-)), then please don't hesitate to reply, I look forward to it.

James

P.S. Thanks for the advice on the lottery, my dad has actually decided to stop (yippee!)