Best Of

Polls on any given issue only really mean much if the said issue is particularly salient. The electoral system clearly isn't, and indeed it wasn't much when there was a referendum on the issue in 2011.

Socialists often point out polls showing overwhelming public support for nationalising various industries. Ultra tough-on-crime types often point out polls showing strong support for capital punishment. Again, these issues aren't particularly salient and do not necessarily indicate the levels of support if they did become salient and/or referendums were held on them.

Farage should offer a referendum on capital punishment

“Let the people decide”

Who could argue with that?

Be careful, if you have too many referendums you might end up with votes on 90% tax for multi millionaires like globe trotting high earning travel and thriller writers 'to fund our nurses'

Bad news: can’t see any Russian oil refineries on fire today.

Good news: have a massive gas processing plant on fire instead!
https://x.com/sumlenny/status/1886345671256461500

Other bad news: Senator Susan Collins is going to support Tusli Gabbard’s nomination.

I blame Covid. In the first Trump administration the lunatics hadn't completely taken over the asylum like they have now. We all know people who went down rabbit holes during lockdown, and never came back. Happened to plenty of us ourselves to a certain extent.

I'm coming round to the idea that *none* of the lockdowns were worth it. Yes, more people would have died, health systems would have been overwhelmed, and elected officials would have been punished for that, governments may have fallen. But suspending people's freedoms to such an degree has radicalised large numbers of people in a way that is not healthy for democracy. Why are so many young people willing to say democracy isn't all that, and maybe they'd prefer a dictatorship? They've already been kept under house arrest in a democracy.

It sounds like there are serious questions to answer about the Sheffield stabbing. The perpetrator had apparently previously taken a machete into school and threatened to stab another student.

On latest figures, there are 244 knife homicides per year in the UK. That's one of the lowest rates in the whole world (per capita). It's half the rate they have in Germany, and a third of the rate they have in the Netherlands. The rate is five times higher in Puerto Rico and nearly seven times higher in the US. It's about eight times higher in Romania. Maybe it's worth reflecting that, while each such death is a tragedy, we are doing well overall as a nation.

I looked at the numbers a week or so ago. Homicides involving knives are surprisingly consistent at 40% or so of the total year in, year out. To the extent that such crimes rise it is in proportion to homicides overall. I genuinely do not think the knives are the problem, the real problem is why do crimes involving violence occur at all? Of course there are no simple answers to that, and any solution will likely be labourious and expensive. If we really want to drive knife crime down, particularly amongst young people, then it will be things like education, social services, youth services that need funding and programmes, not focusing on particularly types of knives and how they are purchased.