My morning after the day before fear is that Lucy Letby becomes the black swan to deliver the Conservatives another landslide.
Are Rishi and Suella really cynical enough to use the Letby case as reason enough to call for the ultimate sanction? Who wouldn't vote to see Lucy Letby's televised hanging by the neck until dead? I am not sure about Sunak, but I would bet my boots the thought has already entered Suella's head.
The death penalty would be the easy way out. She should spend her life thinking about her actions.
And if God forbid the CPS have got it wrong, they have killed the wrong person.
I would have to consider leaving the UK were the death penalty reinstated. My point was, do you think this awful version of what was once the Conservative Party would consider such a ploy to keep themselves in power? I certainly think some would.
I would rip up my Labour membership card right now if they proposed to introduce the death penalty. It is absolutely appalling and I also would emigrate on principle.
I am sure they will do it - and it is absolutely disgraceful.
SKS has personally campaigned internationally against the death penalty. I am certain that he would oppose it 100%, even for cases like this.
Let's hope Sir Keir lives up to that.
I am appalled that anyone here would support the death penalty.
Is it the possibility of miscarriages of justice that you find most appalling?
No it is the killing of people. You know, like Letby did.
Three practical thoughts: Over the years, the US has tried, in a number of ways, to mitigate these bureaucratic problems. One way, often used by large police departments, is to establish an internal affairs unit, "a division of a law enforcement agency that investigates incidents and possible suspicions of criminal and professional misconduct attributed to members of the parent force". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_affairs_(law_enforcement) (i believe they have had some success, but don't know of any large-scale study of them in the whole United States.)
Second, there are, in some cases, bounties for whistleblowers. They seem to have had some success in encouraging people to report tax cheats, and in uncovering waste. (The bounties can be quite large, since they are often a percentage of the money involved.)
Third, the federal government has Inspectors General: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inspector_general If that Wikipedia article is roughly right, they are more common in the US than the UK. (By the way, reporters often use their findings as the basis for articles, so their reports aren't always buried, along with all the rest of the paper the federal government puts out.)
(Good to see you back, Cyclefree.)
The track record of corruption and cover up in US police forces does not suggest that they’ve found a solution to the problem.
Nonetheless, it may be that the NHS needs an internal (or external) investigations unit that can sit somewhere between "do nothing" and "call the rozzers" so that investigations can start at an earlier stage when there is smoke but not enough to trigger the fire alarm. There might also be a case for automatically trawling data for anomalies.
One problem in Chester is that the Trust did not report the deaths correctly, so they wouldn't have been picked up in the national figures. We don't know why just yet.
I have participated in and even led a number of investigations both internal and external to my Trust, though nothing close to this in terms of seriousness.
The biggest problem encountered is getting evidence of a level sufficient for action. Almost always along the way someone hadn't followed procedures correctly, meaning that the case would fall apart if it went to the Employment Lawyers.
We often wound up with action short of suspension or sacking. Someone would leave the Trust, but no sanction after that was enforceable, usually to employment elsewhere. Not very satisfactory, and often it would be the wrong person leaving.
Cases of wrongful dismissal are often very expensive, due to loss of earnings awards, sometimes stretching into the millions of pounds, as well as reputational damage. I know of some (external to my Trust) where I was staggered that the person had walked away with millions, rather than being struck off.
There is a need to correctly blame and sanction people where blame is due, but the problem of such a system is that it leads to a culture of omerta and cover up. There is a widespread recognition that safety improvements are more likely in a "no blame" culture but "no blame" is not always compatible with justice.
And if we have to choose one, which one do we really want?
My morning after the day before fear is that Lucy Letby becomes the black swan to deliver the Conservatives another landslide.
Are Rishi and Suella really cynical enough to use the Letby case as reason enough to call for the ultimate sanction? Who wouldn't vote to see Lucy Letby's televised hanging by the neck until dead? I am not sure about Sunak, but I would bet my boots the thought has already entered Suella's head.
The death penalty would be the easy way out. She should spend her life thinking about her actions.
And if God forbid the CPS have got it wrong, they have killed the wrong person.
I would have to consider leaving the UK were the death penalty reinstated. My point was, do you think this awful version of what was once the Conservative Party would consider such a ploy to keep themselves in power? I certainly think some would.
I would rip up my Labour membership card right now if they proposed to introduce the death penalty. It is absolutely appalling and I also would emigrate on principle.
I am sure they will do it - and it is absolutely disgraceful.
The Labour Party or the Suella Party?
I am not voting Tory anyway after what they did to the economy and the last thirteen years of incompetence and failure and making people like me pay for it. But there's an absolute possibility I could vote for them in the future. If they introduced the death penalty that would disappear instantly. The thought is an abomination to me.
If Labour were in government and introduced it I would write to Keir Starmer directly, I would rip up my membership card and I would leave the country.
The thought that any party would go there makes me so angry, Pete.
I know Starmer is noted for U turns, but this would be a step too far. Populists might go for it. It's an easy win.
There would certainly be a majority in this country for the death penalty by lethal injection for serial killers, terrorists and child murderers even if not for all murderers. I would expect redwall voters would be even more pro capital punishment than bluewall voters. Perhaps another reason not to have referendums
Absolutely right. I assume you would thus be appalled should Suella float the idea to a receptive public. And what of Rishi? A win's a win.
This is a very sad story. Beyond the facts and the verdicts I'd be cautious about everything else. Understandably given the stakes, some people are using today to set out their viewpoint to the media. There will have to be an inquiry where all sides are heard.
Three practical thoughts: Over the years, the US has tried, in a number of ways, to mitigate these bureaucratic problems. One way, often used by large police departments, is to establish an internal affairs unit, "a division of a law enforcement agency that investigates incidents and possible suspicions of criminal and professional misconduct attributed to members of the parent force". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_affairs_(law_enforcement) (i believe they have had some success, but don't know of any large-scale study of them in the whole United States.)
Second, there are, in some cases, bounties for whistleblowers. They seem to have had some success in encouraging people to report tax cheats, and in uncovering waste. (The bounties can be quite large, since they are often a percentage of the money involved.)
Third, the federal government has Inspectors General: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inspector_general If that Wikipedia article is roughly right, they are more common in the US than the UK. (By the way, reporters often use their findings as the basis for articles, so their reports aren't always buried, along with all the rest of the paper the federal government puts out.)
(Good to see you back, Cyclefree.)
The track record of corruption and cover up in US police forces does not suggest that they’ve found a solution to the problem.
Nonetheless, it may be that the NHS needs an internal (or external) investigations unit that can sit somewhere between "do nothing" and "call the rozzers" so that investigations can start at an earlier stage when there is smoke but not enough to trigger the fire alarm. There might also be a case for automatically trawling data for anomalies.
One problem in Chester is that the Trust did not report the deaths correctly, so they wouldn't have been picked up in the national figures. We don't know why just yet.
I have participated in and even led a number of investigations both internal and external to my Trust, though nothing close to this in terms of seriousness.
The biggest problem encountered is getting evidence of a level sufficient for action. Almost always along the way someone hadn't followed procedures correctly, meaning that the case would fall apart if it went to the Employment Lawyers.
We often wound up with action short of suspension or sacking. Someone would leave the Trust, but no sanction after that was enforceable, usually to employment elsewhere. Not very satisfactory, and often it would be the wrong person leaving.
Cases of wrongful dismissal are often very expensive, due to loss of earnings awards, sometimes stretching into the millions of pounds, as well as reputational damage. I know of some (external to my Trust) where I was staggered that the person had walked away with millions, rather than being struck off.
There is a need to correctly blame and sanction people where blame is due, but the problem of such a system is that it leads to a culture of omerta and cover up. There is a widespread recognition that safety improvements are more likely in a "no blame" cuculture but "no blame" is not always compatible with justice.
Excellent post.
There is a very clear and indeed institutionalised conflict between the 'justice' - police investigation, etc. - and 'engineering etc lessons to learn' in accident investigation in rail and plane crashes, as I understand it.
Just Culture in aviation accident investigations has collided with the police, in the U.K.
In the case of a Scottish helicopter crash, IIRC, the police tried to take the confidential interviews. The whole thing ended up in court.
My morning after the day before fear is that Lucy Letby becomes the black swan to deliver the Conservatives another landslide.
Are Rishi and Suella really cynical enough to use the Letby case as reason enough to call for the ultimate sanction? Who wouldn't vote to see Lucy Letby's televised hanging by the neck until dead? I am not sure about Sunak, but I would bet my boots the thought has already entered Suella's head.
The death penalty would be the easy way out. She should spend her life thinking about her actions.
And if God forbid the CPS have got it wrong, they have killed the wrong person.
I would have to consider leaving the UK were the death penalty reinstated. My point was, do you think this awful version of what was once the Conservative Party would consider such a ploy to keep themselves in power? I certainly think some would.
I would rip up my Labour membership card right now if they proposed to introduce the death penalty. It is absolutely appalling and I also would emigrate on principle.
I am sure they will do it - and it is absolutely disgraceful.
SKS has personally campaigned internationally against the death penalty. I am certain that he would oppose it 100%, even for cases like this.
Let's hope Sir Keir lives up to that.
I am appalled that anyone here would support the death penalty.
I’m completely opposed to the death penalty on practical grounds. Wrongful convictions etc. Given the low rate of relevant crimes, locking the criminals up for life is a practical solution.
Why is state killing in this form such a terrible shibboleth, though? Genuine question.
Three practical thoughts: Over the years, the US has tried, in a number of ways, to mitigate these bureaucratic problems. One way, often used by large police departments, is to establish an internal affairs unit, "a division of a law enforcement agency that investigates incidents and possible suspicions of criminal and professional misconduct attributed to members of the parent force". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_affairs_(law_enforcement) (i believe they have had some success, but don't know of any large-scale study of them in the whole United States.)
Second, there are, in some cases, bounties for whistleblowers. They seem to have had some success in encouraging people to report tax cheats, and in uncovering waste. (The bounties can be quite large, since they are often a percentage of the money involved.)
Third, the federal government has Inspectors General: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inspector_general If that Wikipedia article is roughly right, they are more common in the US than the UK. (By the way, reporters often use their findings as the basis for articles, so their reports aren't always buried, along with all the rest of the paper the federal government puts out.)
(Good to see you back, Cyclefree.)
The track record of corruption and cover up in US police forces does not suggest that they’ve found a solution to the problem.
Nonetheless, it may be that the NHS needs an internal (or external) investigations unit that can sit somewhere between "do nothing" and "call the rozzers" so that investigations can start at an earlier stage when there is smoke but not enough to trigger the fire alarm. There might also be a case for automatically trawling data for anomalies.
One problem in Chester is that the Trust did not report the deaths correctly, so they wouldn't have been picked up in the national figures. We don't know why just yet.
I have participated in and even led a number of investigations both internal and external to my Trust, though nothing close to this in terms of seriousness.
The biggest problem encountered is getting evidence of a level sufficient for action. Almost always along the way someone hadn't followed procedures correctly, meaning that the case would fall apart if it went to the Employment Lawyers.
We often wound up with action short of suspension or sacking. Someone would leave the Trust, but no sanction after that was enforceable, usually to employment elsewhere. Not very satisfactory, and often it would be the wrong person leaving.
Cases of wrongful dismissal are often very expensive, due to loss of earnings awards, sometimes stretching into the millions of pounds, as well as reputational damage. I know of some (external to my Trust) where I was staggered that the person had walked away with millions, rather than being struck off.
There is a need to correctly blame and sanction people where blame is due, but the problem of such a system is that it leads to a culture of omerta and cover up. There is a widespread recognition that safety improvements are more likely in a "no blame" cuculture but "no blame" is not always compatible with justice.
Wrongful dismissal claims are breach of contract claims, as opposed to unfair dismissal which relates to the manner and reason for the dismissal. In most organisations the potential risk of a wrongful dismissal claim is the period of notice i.e. the organisation terminated the contract summarily without notice when not entitled to, usually limited to roughly 3-6 months pay.
I am utterly baffled as to how, in the NHS, contracts are drafted so that a breach can run to damages of "millions of pounds". Normally unfair (as opposed to wrongful) dismissal awards are capped at c.£105k (it goes up with inflation every year) but that cap is removed for whistleblowing and discrimination claims.
I think that is what you are thinking of, Foxy. The highest ever payout at an Employment Tribunal was to doctor Eva Michalak, who was awarded £4.5 million in compensation in 2011 after winning claims for unfair dismissal and sex and race discrimination against the NHS trust she worked for. She was subject to what her counsel described as a ‘get Eva campaign’ after her maternity leave and her subsequent request to receive the same pay as her colleagues. That is an extraordinary amount.
If the NHS is settling for millions in these circumstances it shows a risk averse nature that needs to be challenged
Three practical thoughts: Over the years, the US has tried, in a number of ways, to mitigate these bureaucratic problems. One way, often used by large police departments, is to establish an internal affairs unit, "a division of a law enforcement agency that investigates incidents and possible suspicions of criminal and professional misconduct attributed to members of the parent force". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_affairs_(law_enforcement) (i believe they have had some success, but don't know of any large-scale study of them in the whole United States.)
Second, there are, in some cases, bounties for whistleblowers. They seem to have had some success in encouraging people to report tax cheats, and in uncovering waste. (The bounties can be quite large, since they are often a percentage of the money involved.)
Third, the federal government has Inspectors General: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inspector_general If that Wikipedia article is roughly right, they are more common in the US than the UK. (By the way, reporters often use their findings as the basis for articles, so their reports aren't always buried, along with all the rest of the paper the federal government puts out.)
(Good to see you back, Cyclefree.)
The track record of corruption and cover up in US police forces does not suggest that they’ve found a solution to the problem.
Nonetheless, it may be that the NHS needs an internal (or external) investigations unit that can sit somewhere between "do nothing" and "call the rozzers" so that investigations can start at an earlier stage when there is smoke but not enough to trigger the fire alarm. There might also be a case for automatically trawling data for anomalies.
One problem in Chester is that the Trust did not report the deaths correctly, so they wouldn't have been picked up in the national figures. We don't know why just yet.
I have participated in and even led a number of investigations both internal and external to my Trust, though nothing close to this in terms of seriousness.
The biggest problem encountered is getting evidence of a level sufficient for action. Almost always along the way someone hadn't followed procedures correctly, meaning that the case would fall apart if it went to the Employment Lawyers.
We often wound up with action short of suspension or sacking. Someone would leave the Trust, but no sanction after that was enforceable, usually to employment elsewhere. Not very satisfactory, and often it would be the wrong person leaving.
Cases of wrongful dismissal are often very expensive, due to loss of earnings awards, sometimes stretching into the millions of pounds, as well as reputational damage. I know of some (external to my Trust) where I was staggered that the person had walked away with millions, rather than being struck off.
There is a need to correctly blame and sanction people where blame is due, but the problem of such a system is that it leads to a culture of omerta and cover up. There is a widespread recognition that safety improvements are more likely in a "no blame" cuculture but "no blame" is not always compatible with justice.
Excellent post.
There is a very clear and indeed institutionalised conflict between the 'justice' - police investigation, etc. - and 'engineering etc lessons to learn' in accident investigation in rail and plane crashes, as I understand it.
Thankfully the police usually stay out of plane crash investigations, beyond securing the scene, the recovery of bodies, and toxicology on the pilots. When they do get involved, it’s usually when the accident invetigators come across something suspicious in the wreckage or the data, and call them in to take a look.
What absolutely works, and the NHS - hell, not just the NHS, everyone - should learn from, is the no-blame culture, where everyone discusses and in some cases reports, their own mistakes and those of others, outside of any disciplinary process, the intention being that everyone learns from small mistakes, before big ones happen.
My morning after the day before fear is that Lucy Letby becomes the black swan to deliver the Conservatives another landslide.
Are Rishi and Suella really cynical enough to use the Letby case as reason enough to call for the ultimate sanction? Who wouldn't vote to see Lucy Letby's televised hanging by the neck until dead? I am not sure about Sunak, but I would bet my boots the thought has already entered Suella's head.
The death penalty would be the easy way out. She should spend her life thinking about her actions.
And if God forbid the CPS have got it wrong, they have killed the wrong person.
I would have to consider leaving the UK were the death penalty reinstated. My point was, do you think this awful version of what was once the Conservative Party would consider such a ploy to keep themselves in power? I certainly think some would.
I used to say that to my wife. However she's American so I would logically be precluded from moving to New England where she's from - even in non death-penalty states the Federal death penalty can apply, as in the Boston Marathon bomber.
That's the issue post-Brexit. Where to go?
Only the USA, Japan and Singapore of western nations still have the death penalty
My morning after the day before fear is that Lucy Letby becomes the black swan to deliver the Conservatives another landslide.
Are Rishi and Suella really cynical enough to use the Letby case as reason enough to call for the ultimate sanction? Who wouldn't vote to see Lucy Letby's televised hanging by the neck until dead? I am not sure about Sunak, but I would bet my boots the thought has already entered Suella's head.
The death penalty would be the easy way out. She should spend her life thinking about her actions.
And if God forbid the CPS have got it wrong, they have killed the wrong person.
I would have to consider leaving the UK were the death penalty reinstated. My point was, do you think this awful version of what was once the Conservative Party would consider such a ploy to keep themselves in power? I certainly think some would.
I would rip up my Labour membership card right now if they proposed to introduce the death penalty. It is absolutely appalling and I also would emigrate on principle.
I am sure they will do it - and it is absolutely disgraceful.
SKS has personally campaigned internationally against the death penalty. I am certain that he would oppose it 100%, even for cases like this.
Let's hope Sir Keir lives up to that.
I am appalled that anyone here would support the death penalty.
Is it the possibility of miscarriages of justice that you find most appalling?
In my case the state carefully taking a life in my name is offensive. Even worse if the guilty turn out to be innocent. The police shooting a terrorist mid-crime is different.
My morning after the day before fear is that Lucy Letby becomes the black swan to deliver the Conservatives another landslide.
Are Rishi and Suella really cynical enough to use the Letby case as reason enough to call for the ultimate sanction? Who wouldn't vote to see Lucy Letby's televised hanging by the neck until dead? I am not sure about Sunak, but I would bet my boots the thought has already entered Suella's head.
The death penalty would be the easy way out. She should spend her life thinking about her actions.
And if God forbid the CPS have got it wrong, they have killed the wrong person.
I would have to consider leaving the UK were the death penalty reinstated. My point was, do you think this awful version of what was once the Conservative Party would consider such a ploy to keep themselves in power? I certainly think some would.
You would run into me at Heathrow in those circumstances. If the Tories go full fruit loop after a 2024/5 defeat I think you could well find them embracing string em up. I don't think they'll go there this election cycle, but who knows, if they get desperate enough they may see it as a last throw of the dice and a chance to hold on in parts of the Red Wall. Power is all that matters.
I am involved in a campaign. Financial so nothing as serious as the death of babies. I don't post about it here as I have no desire to bore the pants off people. @NickPalmer and @Cyclefree are aware of it via off line conversations.
What strikes me is how much effort people in senior positions in the public sector will put into blocking positive action. They do this even when the actions they take to block involves much more work than actually doing the right thing.
These people shouldn't be in these jobs. I wouldn't act like this. Why do so many others do so. I think there should be serious consequences for those who do so, even if years later, if they have been clearly obstructive.. They need to know that blocking actions that might cause embarrassment, for an easy life now, will have serious consequences later in life.
Without going into detail the campaign I support has involved 2 parliamentary debates, 3 blocked private member's bills, a damning NAO and PAC report and 11 years of campaigning and still an investigation is refused to a blatant injustice because it falls through the cracks of what various ombudsman can investigate.
Awful for the families knowing that some of it could have been stopped.
I strangely enough felt some sympathy for Letby. Her own diary showed she hated herself for doing it, but couldn't stop. The Hospital management did no one any favours.
But psychiatry is two centuries behind the rest of medicine. Does it really count as a science?
Yes, I think it does. The problem is that psychiatrists seem to treat their "knowledge" as certanties, instead of probabilities. The same as all the STEM scientists, of course. It's all a matter of probabilities.
Universities need to get away from teaching information as facts, and get back to questioning all the suppositions in each subject area. Why do we believe this? What evidence is there?
And leave technical training to technical colleges.
I don't think Letby tried to plead psychiatric illness, so not sure of the relevance here. She is bad, not mad.
Psychiatry is a distinct part of medicine, but is still evidence based. It concerns both the hardware and the software in our brains, though where one ends and the other begins is more plastic and blurred than in electronics.
My morning after the day before fear is that Lucy Letby becomes the black swan to deliver the Conservatives another landslide.
Are Rishi and Suella really cynical enough to use the Letby case as reason enough to call for the ultimate sanction? Who wouldn't vote to see Lucy Letby's televised hanging by the neck until dead? I am not sure about Sunak, but I would bet my boots the thought has already entered Suella's head.
The death penalty would be the easy way out. She should spend her life thinking about her actions.
And if God forbid the CPS have got it wrong, they have killed the wrong person.
I would have to consider leaving the UK were the death penalty reinstated. My point was, do you think this awful version of what was once the Conservative Party would consider such a ploy to keep themselves in power? I certainly think some would.
I would rip up my Labour membership card right now if they proposed to introduce the death penalty. It is absolutely appalling and I also would emigrate on principle.
I am sure they will do it - and it is absolutely disgraceful.
SKS has personally campaigned internationally against the death penalty. I am certain that he would oppose it 100%, even for cases like this.
Let's hope Sir Keir lives up to that.
I am appalled that anyone here would support the death penalty.
I’m completely opposed to the death penalty on practical grounds. Wrongful convictions etc. Given the low rate of relevant crimes, locking the criminals up for life is a practical solution.
Why is state killing in this form such a terrible shibboleth, though? Genuine question.
The state is not God.
Let's take the US. Should Trump be re-elected, and with scores to settle against people he believes stole a democratic election from him and the American people , his people determine the terms of treason. Having determined those terms it would be quite legal to execute the Clintons, the Obamas and the Bidens as traitors .
My morning after the day before fear is that Lucy Letby becomes the black swan to deliver the Conservatives another landslide.
Are Rishi and Suella really cynical enough to use the Letby case as reason enough to call for the ultimate sanction? Who wouldn't vote to see Lucy Letby's televised hanging by the neck until dead? I am not sure about Sunak, but I would bet my boots the thought has already entered Suella's head.
The death penalty would be the easy way out. She should spend her life thinking about her actions.
And if God forbid the CPS have got it wrong, they have killed the wrong person.
I would have to consider leaving the UK were the death penalty reinstated. My point was, do you think this awful version of what was once the Conservative Party would consider such a ploy to keep themselves in power? I certainly think some would.
I would rip up my Labour membership card right now if they proposed to introduce the death penalty. It is absolutely appalling and I also would emigrate on principle.
I am sure they will do it - and it is absolutely disgraceful.
SKS has personally campaigned internationally against the death penalty. I am certain that he would oppose it 100%, even for cases like this.
Let's hope Sir Keir lives up to that.
I am appalled that anyone here would support the death penalty.
I’m completely opposed to the death penalty on practical grounds. Wrongful convictions etc. Given the low rate of relevant crimes, locking the criminals up for life is a practical solution.
Why is state killing in this form such a terrible shibboleth, though? Genuine question.
"Thou shalt not kill" is written on a stone tablet handed down by God in the Judeo-Christian tradition. It is a fairly well-established moral principle.
My morning after the day before fear is that Lucy Letby becomes the black swan to deliver the Conservatives another landslide.
Are Rishi and Suella really cynical enough to use the Letby case as reason enough to call for the ultimate sanction? Who wouldn't vote to see Lucy Letby's televised hanging by the neck until dead? I am not sure about Sunak, but I would bet my boots the thought has already entered Suella's head.
The death penalty would be the easy way out. She should spend her life thinking about her actions.
And if God forbid the CPS have got it wrong, they have killed the wrong person.
I would have to consider leaving the UK were the death penalty reinstated. My point was, do you think this awful version of what was once the Conservative Party would consider such a ploy to keep themselves in power? I certainly think some would.
I would rip up my Labour membership card right now if they proposed to introduce the death penalty. It is absolutely appalling and I also would emigrate on principle.
I am sure they will do it - and it is absolutely disgraceful.
SKS has personally campaigned internationally against the death penalty. I am certain that he would oppose it 100%, even for cases like this.
Let's hope Sir Keir lives up to that.
I am appalled that anyone here would support the death penalty.
I’m completely opposed to the death penalty on practical grounds. Wrongful convictions etc. Given the low rate of relevant crimes, locking the criminals up for life is a practical solution.
Why is state killing in this form such a terrible shibboleth, though? Genuine question.
Sexual excitement for some, it seems. There was that hanging judge about whom terrible stories are told.
My morning after the day before fear is that Lucy Letby becomes the black swan to deliver the Conservatives another landslide.
Are Rishi and Suella really cynical enough to use the Letby case as reason enough to call for the ultimate sanction? Who wouldn't vote to see Lucy Letby's televised hanging by the neck until dead? I am not sure about Sunak, but I would bet my boots the thought has already entered Suella's head.
The death penalty would be the easy way out. She should spend her life thinking about her actions.
And if God forbid the CPS have got it wrong, they have killed the wrong person.
I would have to consider leaving the UK were the death penalty reinstated. My point was, do you think this awful version of what was once the Conservative Party would consider such a ploy to keep themselves in power? I certainly think some would.
I would rip up my Labour membership card right now if they proposed to introduce the death penalty. It is absolutely appalling and I also would emigrate on principle.
I am sure they will do it - and it is absolutely disgraceful.
SKS has personally campaigned internationally against the death penalty. I am certain that he would oppose it 100%, even for cases like this.
Let's hope Sir Keir lives up to that.
I am appalled that anyone here would support the death penalty.
Is it the possibility of miscarriages of justice that you find most appalling?
In my case the state carefully taking a life in my name is offensive. Even worse if the guilty turn out to be innocent. The police shooting a terrorist mid-crime is different.
My morning after the day before fear is that Lucy Letby becomes the black swan to deliver the Conservatives another landslide.
Are Rishi and Suella really cynical enough to use the Letby case as reason enough to call for the ultimate sanction? Who wouldn't vote to see Lucy Letby's televised hanging by the neck until dead? I am not sure about Sunak, but I would bet my boots the thought has already entered Suella's head.
The death penalty would be the easy way out. She should spend her life thinking about her actions.
And if God forbid the CPS have got it wrong, they have killed the wrong person.
I would have to consider leaving the UK were the death penalty reinstated. My point was, do you think this awful version of what was once the Conservative Party would consider such a ploy to keep themselves in power? I certainly think some would.
You would run into me at Heathrow in those circumstances. If the Tories go full fruit loop after a 2024/5 defeat I think you could well find them embracing string em up. I don't think they'll go there this election cycle, but who knows, if they get desperate enough they may see it as a last throw of the dice and a chance to hold on in parts of the Red Wall. Power is all that matters.
Withdrawal from the ECHR and reintroduction of the death penalty feels more like a stunt they will try in opposition where they don't have to deal with the consequences.
My morning after the day before fear is that Lucy Letby becomes the black swan to deliver the Conservatives another landslide.
Are Rishi and Suella really cynical enough to use the Letby case as reason enough to call for the ultimate sanction? Who wouldn't vote to see Lucy Letby's televised hanging by the neck until dead? I am not sure about Sunak, but I would bet my boots the thought has already entered Suella's head.
The death penalty would be the easy way out. She should spend her life thinking about her actions.
And if God forbid the CPS have got it wrong, they have killed the wrong person.
I would have to consider leaving the UK were the death penalty reinstated. My point was, do you think this awful version of what was once the Conservative Party would consider such a ploy to keep themselves in power? I certainly think some would.
I would rip up my Labour membership card right now if they proposed to introduce the death penalty. It is absolutely appalling and I also would emigrate on principle.
I am sure they will do it - and it is absolutely disgraceful.
SKS has personally campaigned internationally against the death penalty. I am certain that he would oppose it 100%, even for cases like this.
Let's hope Sir Keir lives up to that.
I am appalled that anyone here would support the death penalty.
I’m completely opposed to the death penalty on practical grounds. Wrongful convictions etc. Given the low rate of relevant crimes, locking the criminals up for life is a practical solution.
Why is state killing in this form such a terrible shibboleth, though? Genuine question.
"Thou shalt not kill" is written on a stone tablet handed down by God in the Judeo-Christian tradition. It is a fairly well-established moral principle.
Ironically, perhaps, shibboleth comes from the Old Testament as well, in Judges ...
And the Gileadites took the passages of Jordan before the Ephraimites: and it was so, that when those Ephraimites which were escaped said, Let me go over; that the men of Gilead said unto him, Art thou an Ephraimite? If he said, Nay; Then said they unto him, Say now Shibboleth: and he said Sibboleth: for he could not frame to pronounce it right. Then they took him, and slew him at the passages of Jordan: and there fell at that time of the Ephraimites forty and two thousand.
Three practical thoughts: Over the years, the US has tried, in a number of ways, to mitigate these bureaucratic problems. One way, often used by large police departments, is to establish an internal affairs unit, "a division of a law enforcement agency that investigates incidents and possible suspicions of criminal and professional misconduct attributed to members of the parent force". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_affairs_(law_enforcement) (i believe they have had some success, but don't know of any large-scale study of them in the whole United States.)
Second, there are, in some cases, bounties for whistleblowers. They seem to have had some success in encouraging people to report tax cheats, and in uncovering waste. (The bounties can be quite large, since they are often a percentage of the money involved.)
Third, the federal government has Inspectors General: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inspector_general If that Wikipedia article is roughly right, they are more common in the US than the UK. (By the way, reporters often use their findings as the basis for articles, so their reports aren't always buried, along with all the rest of the paper the federal government puts out.)
(Good to see you back, Cyclefree.)
The track record of corruption and cover up in US police forces does not suggest that they’ve found a solution to the problem.
Nonetheless, it may be that the NHS needs an internal (or external) investigations unit that can sit somewhere between "do nothing" and "call the rozzers" so that investigations can start at an earlier stage when there is smoke but not enough to trigger the fire alarm. There might also be a case for automatically trawling data for anomalies.
One problem in Chester is that the Trust did not report the deaths correctly, so they wouldn't have been picked up in the national figures. We don't know why just yet.
I have participated in and even led a number of investigations both internal and external to my Trust, though nothing close to this in terms of seriousness.
The biggest problem encountered is getting evidence of a level sufficient for action. Almost always along the way someone hadn't followed procedures correctly, meaning that the case would fall apart if it went to the Employment Lawyers.
We often wound up with action short of suspension or sacking. Someone would leave the Trust, but no sanction after that was enforceable, usually to employment elsewhere. Not very satisfactory, and often it would be the wrong person leaving.
Cases of wrongful dismissal are often very expensive, due to loss of earnings awards, sometimes stretching into the millions of pounds, as well as reputational damage. I know of some (external to my Trust) where I was staggered that the person had walked away with millions, rather than being struck off.
There is a need to correctly blame and sanction people where blame is due, but the problem of such a system is that it leads to a culture of omerta and cover up. There is a widespread recognition that safety improvements are more likely in a "no blame" cuculture but "no blame" is not always compatible with justice.
Wrongful dismissal claims are breach of contract claims, as opposed to unfair dismissal which relates to the manner and reason for the dismissal. In most organisations the potential risk of a wrongful dismissal claim is the period of notice i.e. the organisation terminated the contract summarily without notice when not entitled to, usually limited to roughly 3-6 months pay.
I am utterly baffled as to how, in the NHS, contracts are drafted so that a breach can run to damages of "millions of pounds". Normally unfair (as opposed to wrongful) dismissal awards are capped at c.£105k (it goes up with inflation every year) but that cap is removed for whistleblowing and discrimination claims.
I think that is what you are thinking of, Foxy. The highest ever payout at an Employment Tribunal was to doctor Eva Michalak, who was awarded £4.5 million in compensation in 2011 after winning claims for unfair dismissal and sex and race discrimination against the NHS trust she worked for. She was subject to what her counsel described as a ‘get Eva campaign’ after her maternity leave and her subsequent request to receive the same pay as her colleagues. That is an extraordinary amount.
If the NHS is settling for millions in these circumstances it shows a risk averse nature that needs to be challenged
I bow to your greater knowledge of employment law, but my understanding of large awards in these cases is to do with loss of earnings, as per the Michalak case. I have no inside knowledge of that case, and it is not one that I meant to allude to.
My morning after the day before fear is that Lucy Letby becomes the black swan to deliver the Conservatives another landslide.
Are Rishi and Suella really cynical enough to use the Letby case as reason enough to call for the ultimate sanction? Who wouldn't vote to see Lucy Letby's televised hanging by the neck until dead? I am not sure about Sunak, but I would bet my boots the thought has already entered Suella's head.
The death penalty would be the easy way out. She should spend her life thinking about her actions.
And if God forbid the CPS have got it wrong, they have killed the wrong person.
I would have to consider leaving the UK were the death penalty reinstated. My point was, do you think this awful version of what was once the Conservative Party would consider such a ploy to keep themselves in power? I certainly think some would.
I used to say that to my wife. However she's American so I would logically be precluded from moving to New England where she's from - even in non death-penalty states the Federal death penalty can apply, as in the Boston Marathon bomber.
That's the issue post-Brexit. Where to go?
Only the USA, Japan and Singapore of western nations still have the death penalty
Gosh, I didn't know that Japan and Singapore have moved to the West.
My morning after the day before fear is that Lucy Letby becomes the black swan to deliver the Conservatives another landslide.
Are Rishi and Suella really cynical enough to use the Letby case as reason enough to call for the ultimate sanction? Who wouldn't vote to see Lucy Letby's televised hanging by the neck until dead? I am not sure about Sunak, but I would bet my boots the thought has already entered Suella's head.
The death penalty would be the easy way out. She should spend her life thinking about her actions.
And if God forbid the CPS have got it wrong, they have killed the wrong person.
I would have to consider leaving the UK were the death penalty reinstated. My point was, do you think this awful version of what was once the Conservative Party would consider such a ploy to keep themselves in power? I certainly think some would.
I would rip up my Labour membership card right now if they proposed to introduce the death penalty. It is absolutely appalling and I also would emigrate on principle.
I am sure they will do it - and it is absolutely disgraceful.
The Labour Party or the Suella Party?
I am not voting Tory anyway after what they did to the economy and the last thirteen years of incompetence and failure and making people like me pay for it. But there's an absolute possibility I could vote for them in the future. If they introduced the death penalty that would disappear instantly. The thought is an abomination to me.
If Labour were in government and introduced it I would write to Keir Starmer directly, I would rip up my membership card and I would leave the country.
The thought that any party would go there makes me so angry, Pete.
I know Starmer is noted for U turns, but this would be a step too far. Populists might go for it. It's an easy win.
There would certainly be a majority in this country for the death penalty by lethal injection for serial killers, terrorists and child murderers even if not for all murderers. I would expect redwall voters would be even more pro capital punishment than bluewall voters. Perhaps another reason not to have referendums
Agree. A very good reason why we have, or should have, representative government and not referendums.
My morning after the day before fear is that Lucy Letby becomes the black swan to deliver the Conservatives another landslide.
Are Rishi and Suella really cynical enough to use the Letby case as reason enough to call for the ultimate sanction? Who wouldn't vote to see Lucy Letby's televised hanging by the neck until dead? I am not sure about Sunak, but I would bet my boots the thought has already entered Suella's head.
The death penalty would be the easy way out. She should spend her life thinking about her actions.
And if God forbid the CPS have got it wrong, they have killed the wrong person.
I would have to consider leaving the UK were the death penalty reinstated. My point was, do you think this awful version of what was once the Conservative Party would consider such a ploy to keep themselves in power? I certainly think some would.
I would rip up my Labour membership card right now if they proposed to introduce the death penalty. It is absolutely appalling and I also would emigrate on principle.
I am sure they will do it - and it is absolutely disgraceful.
SKS has personally campaigned internationally against the death penalty. I am certain that he would oppose it 100%, even for cases like this.
Let's hope Sir Keir lives up to that.
I am appalled that anyone here would support the death penalty.
I’m completely opposed to the death penalty on practical grounds. Wrongful convictions etc. Given the low rate of relevant crimes, locking the criminals up for life is a practical solution.
Why is state killing in this form such a terrible shibboleth, though? Genuine question.
"Thou shalt not kill" is written on a stone tablet handed down by God in the Judeo-Christian tradition. It is a fairly well-established moral principle.
While I agree with you that the death penalty is wrong, the commandment is better translated “murder” than “kill”, and existed along side the death penalty in ancient Israel.
Three practical thoughts: Over the years, the US has tried, in a number of ways, to mitigate these bureaucratic problems. One way, often used by large police departments, is to establish an internal affairs unit, "a division of a law enforcement agency that investigates incidents and possible suspicions of criminal and professional misconduct attributed to members of the parent force". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_affairs_(law_enforcement) (i believe they have had some success, but don't know of any large-scale study of them in the whole United States.)
Second, there are, in some cases, bounties for whistleblowers. They seem to have had some success in encouraging people to report tax cheats, and in uncovering waste. (The bounties can be quite large, since they are often a percentage of the money involved.)
Third, the federal government has Inspectors General: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inspector_general If that Wikipedia article is roughly right, they are more common in the US than the UK. (By the way, reporters often use their findings as the basis for articles, so their reports aren't always buried, along with all the rest of the paper the federal government puts out.)
(Good to see you back, Cyclefree.)
The track record of corruption and cover up in US police forces does not suggest that they’ve found a solution to the problem.
Nonetheless, it may be that the NHS needs an internal (or external) investigations unit that can sit somewhere between "do nothing" and "call the rozzers" so that investigations can start at an earlier stage when there is smoke but not enough to trigger the fire alarm. There might also be a case for automatically trawling data for anomalies.
One problem in Chester is that the Trust did not report the deaths correctly, so they wouldn't have been picked up in the national figures. We don't know why just yet.
I have participated in and even led a number of investigations both internal and external to my Trust, though nothing close to this in terms of seriousness.
The biggest problem encountered is getting evidence of a level sufficient for action. Almost always along the way someone hadn't followed procedures correctly, meaning that the case would fall apart if it went to the Employment Lawyers.
We often wound up with action short of suspension or sacking. Someone would leave the Trust, but no sanction after that was enforceable, usually to employment elsewhere. Not very satisfactory, and often it would be the wrong person leaving.
Cases of wrongful dismissal are often very expensive, due to loss of earnings awards, sometimes stretching into the millions of pounds, as well as reputational damage. I know of some (external to my Trust) where I was staggered that the person had walked away with millions, rather than being struck off.
There is a need to correctly blame and sanction people where blame is due, but the problem of such a system is that it leads to a culture of omerta and cover up. There is a widespread recognition that safety improvements are more likely in a "no blame" cuculture but "no blame" is not always compatible with justice.
Wrongful dismissal claims are breach of contract claims, as opposed to unfair dismissal which relates to the manner and reason for the dismissal. In most organisations the potential risk of a wrongful dismissal claim is the period of notice i.e. the organisation terminated the contract summarily without notice when not entitled to, usually limited to roughly 3-6 months pay.
I am utterly baffled as to how, in the NHS, contracts are drafted so that a breach can run to damages of "millions of pounds". Normally unfair (as opposed to wrongful) dismissal awards are capped at c.£105k (it goes up with inflation every year) but that cap is removed for whistleblowing and discrimination claims.
I think that is what you are thinking of, Foxy. The highest ever payout at an Employment Tribunal was to doctor Eva Michalak, who was awarded £4.5 million in compensation in 2011 after winning claims for unfair dismissal and sex and race discrimination against the NHS trust she worked for. She was subject to what her counsel described as a ‘get Eva campaign’ after her maternity leave and her subsequent request to receive the same pay as her colleagues. That is an extraordinary amount.
If the NHS is settling for millions in these circumstances it shows a risk averse nature that needs to be challenged
I bow to your greater knowledge of employment law, but my understanding of large awards in these cases is to do with loss of earnings, as per the Michalak case. I have no inside knowledge of that case, and it is not one that I meant to allude to.
Wouldn't that also include a damages component for dioscrimination, too?
Awful for the families knowing that some of it could have been stopped.
I strangely enough felt some sympathy for Letby. Her own diary showed she hated herself for doing it, but couldn't stop. The Hospital management did no one any favours.
But psychiatry is two centuries behind the rest of medicine. Does it really count as a science?
Yes, I think it does. The problem is that psychiatrists seem to treat their "knowledge" as certanties, instead of probabilities. The same as all the STEM scientists, of course. It's all a matter of probabilities.
Universities need to get away from teaching information as facts, and get back to questioning all the suppositions in each subject area. Why do we believe this? What evidence is there?
And leave technical training to technical colleges.
I don't think Letby tried to plead psychiatric illness, so not sure of the relevance here. She is bad, not mad.
Psychiatry is a distinct part of medicine, but is still evidence based. It concerns both the hardware and the software in our brains, though where one ends and the other begins is more plastic and blurred than in electronics.
The distinction between mad and bad is problematic though. In this case she seems to have had a compulsion to do these terrible things that she couldn’t control. I have seen the same thing with child abusers. Part of them hates what they do but they can’t stop. This seems to me an appropriate area for psychiatry whilst not in any way diminishing the need for public protection.
My morning after the day before fear is that Lucy Letby becomes the black swan to deliver the Conservatives another landslide.
Are Rishi and Suella really cynical enough to use the Letby case as reason enough to call for the ultimate sanction? Who wouldn't vote to see Lucy Letby's televised hanging by the neck until dead? I am not sure about Sunak, but I would bet my boots the thought has already entered Suella's head.
The death penalty would be the easy way out. She should spend her life thinking about her actions.
And if God forbid the CPS have got it wrong, they have killed the wrong person.
I would have to consider leaving the UK were the death penalty reinstated. My point was, do you think this awful version of what was once the Conservative Party would consider such a ploy to keep themselves in power? I certainly think some would.
I would rip up my Labour membership card right now if they proposed to introduce the death penalty. It is absolutely appalling and I also would emigrate on principle.
I am sure they will do it - and it is absolutely disgraceful.
SKS has personally campaigned internationally against the death penalty. I am certain that he would oppose it 100%, even for cases like this.
Let's hope Sir Keir lives up to that.
I am appalled that anyone here would support the death penalty.
Is it the possibility of miscarriages of justice that you find most appalling?
In my case the state carefully taking a life in my name is offensive. Even worse if the guilty turn out to be innocent. The police shooting a terrorist mid-crime is different.
What do you think of the Marianne Bachmeier case?
I wasn't familiar with the case, but having looked it up, she was a vigilante, albeit with some justification.
Vigilantism is the law of the wild west. From a libertarian perspective Bachmeier is perfectly entitled to exact her revenge on her child's killer, but she has to accept the consequences.
My morning after the day before fear is that Lucy Letby becomes the black swan to deliver the Conservatives another landslide.
Are Rishi and Suella really cynical enough to use the Letby case as reason enough to call for the ultimate sanction? Who wouldn't vote to see Lucy Letby's televised hanging by the neck until dead? I am not sure about Sunak, but I would bet my boots the thought has already entered Suella's head.
The death penalty would be the easy way out. She should spend her life thinking about her actions.
And if God forbid the CPS have got it wrong, they have killed the wrong person.
I would have to consider leaving the UK were the death penalty reinstated. My point was, do you think this awful version of what was once the Conservative Party would consider such a ploy to keep themselves in power? I certainly think some would.
I would rip up my Labour membership card right now if they proposed to introduce the death penalty. It is absolutely appalling and I also would emigrate on principle.
I am sure they will do it - and it is absolutely disgraceful.
SKS has personally campaigned internationally against the death penalty. I am certain that he would oppose it 100%, even for cases like this.
Let's hope Sir Keir lives up to that.
I am appalled that anyone here would support the death penalty.
I’m completely opposed to the death penalty on practical grounds. Wrongful convictions etc. Given the low rate of relevant crimes, locking the criminals up for life is a practical solution.
Why is state killing in this form such a terrible shibboleth, though? Genuine question.
"Thou shalt not kill" is written on a stone tablet handed down by God in the Judeo-Christian tradition. It is a fairly well-established moral principle.
While I agree with you that the death penalty is wrong, the commandment is better translated “murder” than “kill”, and existed along side the death penalty in ancient Israel.
That is a much better translation. The God understood in Exodus seemed quite keen on killing, as opposed to murder.
Three practical thoughts: Over the years, the US has tried, in a number of ways, to mitigate these bureaucratic problems. One way, often used by large police departments, is to establish an internal affairs unit, "a division of a law enforcement agency that investigates incidents and possible suspicions of criminal and professional misconduct attributed to members of the parent force". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_affairs_(law_enforcement) (i believe they have had some success, but don't know of any large-scale study of them in the whole United States.)
Second, there are, in some cases, bounties for whistleblowers. They seem to have had some success in encouraging people to report tax cheats, and in uncovering waste. (The bounties can be quite large, since they are often a percentage of the money involved.)
Third, the federal government has Inspectors General: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inspector_general If that Wikipedia article is roughly right, they are more common in the US than the UK. (By the way, reporters often use their findings as the basis for articles, so their reports aren't always buried, along with all the rest of the paper the federal government puts out.)
(Good to see you back, Cyclefree.)
The track record of corruption and cover up in US police forces does not suggest that they’ve found a solution to the problem.
Nonetheless, it may be that the NHS needs an internal (or external) investigations unit that can sit somewhere between "do nothing" and "call the rozzers" so that investigations can start at an earlier stage when there is smoke but not enough to trigger the fire alarm. There might also be a case for automatically trawling data for anomalies.
One problem in Chester is that the Trust did not report the deaths correctly, so they wouldn't have been picked up in the national figures. We don't know why just yet.
I have participated in and even led a number of investigations both internal and external to my Trust, though nothing close to this in terms of seriousness.
The biggest problem encountered is getting evidence of a level sufficient for action. Almost always along the way someone hadn't followed procedures correctly, meaning that the case would fall apart if it went to the Employment Lawyers.
We often wound up with action short of suspension or sacking. Someone would leave the Trust, but no sanction after that was enforceable, usually to employment elsewhere. Not very satisfactory, and often it would be the wrong person leaving.
Cases of wrongful dismissal are often very expensive, due to loss of earnings awards, sometimes stretching into the millions of pounds, as well as reputational damage. I know of some (external to my Trust) where I was staggered that the person had walked away with millions, rather than being struck off.
There is a need to correctly blame and sanction people where blame is due, but the problem of such a system is that it leads to a culture of omerta and cover up. There is a widespread recognition that safety improvements are more likely in a "no blame" cuculture but "no blame" is not always compatible with justice.
Wrongful dismissal claims are breach of contract claims, as opposed to unfair dismissal which relates to the manner and reason for the dismissal. In most organisations the potential risk of a wrongful dismissal claim is the period of notice i.e. the organisation terminated the contract summarily without notice when not entitled to, usually limited to roughly 3-6 months pay.
I am utterly baffled as to how, in the NHS, contracts are drafted so that a breach can run to damages of "millions of pounds". Normally unfair (as opposed to wrongful) dismissal awards are capped at c.£105k (it goes up with inflation every year) but that cap is removed for whistleblowing and discrimination claims.
I think that is what you are thinking of, Foxy. The highest ever payout at an Employment Tribunal was to doctor Eva Michalak, who was awarded £4.5 million in compensation in 2011 after winning claims for unfair dismissal and sex and race discrimination against the NHS trust she worked for. She was subject to what her counsel described as a ‘get Eva campaign’ after her maternity leave and her subsequent request to receive the same pay as her colleagues. That is an extraordinary amount.
If the NHS is settling for millions in these circumstances it shows a risk averse nature that needs to be challenged
I bow to your greater knowledge of employment law, but my understanding of large awards in these cases is to do with loss of earnings, as per the Michalak case. I have no inside knowledge of that case, and it is not one that I meant to allude to.
Essentially, unless you have very badly drafted contracts, the main way to get lifelong (or significant) loss of earnings awards is in whistleblowing or discrimination cases. The Tribunal doesn't have jurisdiction in other cases to award anything above £105k. In the High Court you'd have to establish a tort claim, some breach of a duty of care, but that is so difficult I just don't understand why the settlements are that high.
I view the death penalty, in peacetime, as more trouble than it is worth. But, I've no ethical objection to the principle of execution for certain crimes, especially in wartime, or the immediate aftermath of war. IMHO, we were entitled not to wish to share the world with people Amon Goth, or Julius Streicher.
As to the principle of the State delivering lethal violence on my behalf, that ship has long sailed.
My morning after the day before fear is that Lucy Letby becomes the black swan to deliver the Conservatives another landslide.
Are Rishi and Suella really cynical enough to use the Letby case as reason enough to call for the ultimate sanction? Who wouldn't vote to see Lucy Letby's televised hanging by the neck until dead? I am not sure about Sunak, but I would bet my boots the thought has already entered Suella's head.
The death penalty would be the easy way out. She should spend her life thinking about her actions.
And if God forbid the CPS have got it wrong, they have killed the wrong person.
I would have to consider leaving the UK were the death penalty reinstated. My point was, do you think this awful version of what was once the Conservative Party would consider such a ploy to keep themselves in power? I certainly think some would.
You would run into me at Heathrow in those circumstances. If the Tories go full fruit loop after a 2024/5 defeat I think you could well find them embracing string em up. I don't think they'll go there this election cycle, but who knows, if they get desperate enough they may see it as a last throw of the dice and a chance to hold on in parts of the Red Wall. Power is all that matters.
Withdrawal from the ECHR and reintroduction of the death penalty feels more like a stunt they will try in opposition where they don't have to deal with the consequences.
Yes. Withdrawal from the ECHR would have a knock on effect, notably on the Good Friday Agreement where it is (unlike EU membership) expressly referenced in the text, but also various extradition treaties etc etc.
My morning after the day before fear is that Lucy Letby becomes the black swan to deliver the Conservatives another landslide.
Are Rishi and Suella really cynical enough to use the Letby case as reason enough to call for the ultimate sanction? Who wouldn't vote to see Lucy Letby's televised hanging by the neck until dead? I am not sure about Sunak, but I would bet my boots the thought has already entered Suella's head.
The death penalty would be the easy way out. She should spend her life thinking about her actions.
And if God forbid the CPS have got it wrong, they have killed the wrong person.
I would have to consider leaving the UK were the death penalty reinstated. My point was, do you think this awful version of what was once the Conservative Party would consider such a ploy to keep themselves in power? I certainly think some would.
I would rip up my Labour membership card right now if they proposed to introduce the death penalty. It is absolutely appalling and I also would emigrate on principle.
I am sure they will do it - and it is absolutely disgraceful.
SKS has personally campaigned internationally against the death penalty. I am certain that he would oppose it 100%, even for cases like this.
Let's hope Sir Keir lives up to that.
I am appalled that anyone here would support the death penalty.
I’m completely opposed to the death penalty on practical grounds. Wrongful convictions etc. Given the low rate of relevant crimes, locking the criminals up for life is a practical solution.
Why is state killing in this form such a terrible shibboleth, though? Genuine question.
"Thou shalt not kill" is written on a stone tablet handed down by God in the Judeo-Christian tradition. It is a fairly well-established moral principle.
While I agree with you that the death penalty is wrong, the commandment is better translated “murder” than “kill”, and existed along side the death penalty in ancient Israel.
That is a much better translation. The God understood in Exodus seemed quite keen on killing, as opposed to murder.
Especially towards boys who mock His prophets for being bald.
My morning after the day before fear is that Lucy Letby becomes the black swan to deliver the Conservatives another landslide.
Are Rishi and Suella really cynical enough to use the Letby case as reason enough to call for the ultimate sanction? Who wouldn't vote to see Lucy Letby's televised hanging by the neck until dead? I am not sure about Sunak, but I would bet my boots the thought has already entered Suella's head.
The death penalty would be the easy way out. She should spend her life thinking about her actions.
And if God forbid the CPS have got it wrong, they have killed the wrong person.
I would have to consider leaving the UK were the death penalty reinstated. My point was, do you think this awful version of what was once the Conservative Party would consider such a ploy to keep themselves in power? I certainly think some would.
I would rip up my Labour membership card right now if they proposed to introduce the death penalty. It is absolutely appalling and I also would emigrate on principle.
I am sure they will do it - and it is absolutely disgraceful.
SKS has personally campaigned internationally against the death penalty. I am certain that he would oppose it 100%, even for cases like this.
Let's hope Sir Keir lives up to that.
I am appalled that anyone here would support the death penalty.
I’m completely opposed to the death penalty on practical grounds. Wrongful convictions etc. Given the low rate of relevant crimes, locking the criminals up for life is a practical solution.
Why is state killing in this form such a terrible shibboleth, though? Genuine question.
"Thou shalt not kill" is written on a stone tablet handed down by God in the Judeo-Christian tradition. It is a fairly well-established moral principle.
While I agree with you that the death penalty is wrong, the commandment is better translated “murder” than “kill”, and existed along side the death penalty in ancient Israel.
That is a much better translation. The God of Exodus seemed quite keen on killing, as opposed to murder.
I was watching an interesting YouTube video on the development of early Israelite religion that was saying that Yahweh was a warrior god, who’s the one keen on killing, who then got merged with El, who is this peaceful, forgiving type, which is what produces some of the tensions in the Torah’s depiction of God.
Absolutely right. I assume you would thus be appalled should Suella float the idea to a receptive public. And what of Rishi? A win's a win.
I would like to think HYUFD would oppose it but let's see what he has to say.
He has already suggested referenda on such issues are unwise a few posts ago. But were LOTO Suella to go for it and plant it in the manifesto, might there be another Starmeresque U turn?
My morning after the day before fear is that Lucy Letby becomes the black swan to deliver the Conservatives another landslide.
Are Rishi and Suella really cynical enough to use the Letby case as reason enough to call for the ultimate sanction? Who wouldn't vote to see Lucy Letby's televised hanging by the neck until dead? I am not sure about Sunak, but I would bet my boots the thought has already entered Suella's head.
The death penalty would be the easy way out. She should spend her life thinking about her actions.
And if God forbid the CPS have got it wrong, they have killed the wrong person.
There's been a trial. She's not been found guilty merely on the say-so of the CPS.
And fair enough - but the principle is correct, i.e. they will end up killing the wrong person which has happened before.
The death penalty is absolutely barbaric, if the Tories propose to re-introduce it I will never vote for them in my life. Same for Labour.
While I agree on the point of the death penalty being barbaric, there is another feature of our justice system that is, in some ways, worse. If you are wrongly convicted you cannot get parole without confessing to the crime that you have been wrongfully convicted of. Imagine that. The only way out is to lie and say, yes, I did rape that woman. If there was never a wrongful conviction then I could accept this, but as recent events have shown yet again, innocent people do get convicted.
Three practical thoughts: Over the years, the US has tried, in a number of ways, to mitigate these bureaucratic problems. One way, often used by large police departments, is to establish an internal affairs unit, "a division of a law enforcement agency that investigates incidents and possible suspicions of criminal and professional misconduct attributed to members of the parent force". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_affairs_(law_enforcement) (i believe they have had some success, but don't know of any large-scale study of them in the whole United States.)
Second, there are, in some cases, bounties for whistleblowers. They seem to have had some success in encouraging people to report tax cheats, and in uncovering waste. (The bounties can be quite large, since they are often a percentage of the money involved.)
Third, the federal government has Inspectors General: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inspector_general If that Wikipedia article is roughly right, they are more common in the US than the UK. (By the way, reporters often use their findings as the basis for articles, so their reports aren't always buried, along with all the rest of the paper the federal government puts out.)
(Good to see you back, Cyclefree.)
The track record of corruption and cover up in US police forces does not suggest that they’ve found a solution to the problem.
Nonetheless, it may be that the NHS needs an internal (or external) investigations unit that can sit somewhere between "do nothing" and "call the rozzers" so that investigations can start at an earlier stage when there is smoke but not enough to trigger the fire alarm. There might also be a case for automatically trawling data for anomalies.
One problem in Chester is that the Trust did not report the deaths correctly, so they wouldn't have been picked up in the national figures. We don't know why just yet.
I have participated in and even led a number of investigations both internal and external to my Trust, though nothing close to this in terms of seriousness.
The biggest problem encountered is getting evidence of a level sufficient for action. Almost always along the way someone hadn't followed procedures correctly, meaning that the case would fall apart if it went to the Employment Lawyers.
We often wound up with action short of suspension or sacking. Someone would leave the Trust, but no sanction after that was enforceable, usually to employment elsewhere. Not very satisfactory, and often it would be the wrong person leaving.
Cases of wrongful dismissal are often very expensive, due to loss of earnings awards, sometimes stretching into the millions of pounds, as well as reputational damage. I know of some (external to my Trust) where I was staggered that the person had walked away with millions, rather than being struck off.
There is a need to correctly blame and sanction people where blame is due, but the problem of such a system is that it leads to a culture of omerta and cover up. There is a widespread recognition that safety improvements are more likely in a "no blame" cuculture but "no blame" is not always compatible with justice.
Wrongful dismissal claims are breach of contract claims, as opposed to unfair dismissal which relates to the manner and reason for the dismissal. In most organisations the potential risk of a wrongful dismissal claim is the period of notice i.e. the organisation terminated the contract summarily without notice when not entitled to, usually limited to roughly 3-6 months pay.
I am utterly baffled as to how, in the NHS, contracts are drafted so that a breach can run to damages of "millions of pounds". Normally unfair (as opposed to wrongful) dismissal awards are capped at c.£105k (it goes up with inflation every year) but that cap is removed for whistleblowing and discrimination claims.
I think that is what you are thinking of, Foxy. The highest ever payout at an Employment Tribunal was to doctor Eva Michalak, who was awarded £4.5 million in compensation in 2011 after winning claims for unfair dismissal and sex and race discrimination against the NHS trust she worked for. She was subject to what her counsel described as a ‘get Eva campaign’ after her maternity leave and her subsequent request to receive the same pay as her colleagues. That is an extraordinary amount.
If the NHS is settling for millions in these circumstances it shows a risk averse nature that needs to be challenged
I bow to your greater knowledge of employment law, but my understanding of large awards in these cases is to do with loss of earnings, as per the Michalak case. I have no inside knowledge of that case, and it is not one that I meant to allude to.
Essentially, unless you have very badly drafted contracts, the main way to get lifelong (or significant) loss of earnings awards is in whistleblowing or discrimination cases. The Tribunal doesn't have jurisdiction in other cases to award anything above £105k. In the High Court you'd have to establish a tort claim, some breach of a duty of care, but that is so difficult I just don't understand why the settlements are that high.
Looking at this report I presume the Michalak case included damages for psychiatric injury of permanent or substantial nature am,ounting to full disability. The dmages were also spread over four defendants, too. So it was not a simple case of 1 employer and 1 employee who was otherwise OK apart from being dismissed. But IANAL.
What do we think, fellow Pb-ers, of Letby refusing to attend her sentencing? For my part, I think she should be either taken there or should have to listen to a broadcast.
Awful for the families knowing that some of it could have been stopped.
I strangely enough felt some sympathy for Letby. Her own diary showed she hated herself for doing it, but couldn't stop. The Hospital management did no one any favours.
But psychiatry is two centuries behind the rest of medicine. Does it really count as a science?
Yes, I think it does. The problem is that psychiatrists seem to treat their "knowledge" as certanties, instead of probabilities. The same as all the STEM scientists, of course. It's all a matter of probabilities.
Universities need to get away from teaching information as facts, and get back to questioning all the suppositions in each subject area. Why do we believe this? What evidence is there?
And leave technical training to technical colleges.
I don't think Letby tried to plead psychiatric illness, so not sure of the relevance here. She is bad, not mad.
Psychiatry is a distinct part of medicine, but is still evidence based. It concerns both the hardware and the software in our brains, though where one ends and the other begins is more plastic and blurred than in electronics.
The distinction between mad and bad is problematic though. In this case she seems to have had a compulsion to do these terrible things that she couldn’t control. I have seen the same thing with child abusers. Part of them hates what they do but they can’t stop. This seems to me an appropriate area for psychiatry whilst not in any way diminishing the need for public protection.
It is a tough line to draw, but I don't think that Letby claimed to be acting under diminished responsibility. Indeed she denied everything.
The way that a woman from an apparently completely unremarkable background came to do such evil is well worthy of psychological study.
The case at my Trust that I mentioned at the beginning of the thread with the sabotage of anaesthetic machines seemed to be motivated by a desire to be the hero, who arrives at a crisis and saves the day. I don't think anyone was harmed, but clearly there was a very high risk of that.
My morning after the day before fear is that Lucy Letby becomes the black swan to deliver the Conservatives another landslide.
Are Rishi and Suella really cynical enough to use the Letby case as reason enough to call for the ultimate sanction? Who wouldn't vote to see Lucy Letby's televised hanging by the neck until dead? I am not sure about Sunak, but I would bet my boots the thought has already entered Suella's head.
The death penalty would be the easy way out. She should spend her life thinking about her actions.
And if God forbid the CPS have got it wrong, they have killed the wrong person.
I would have to consider leaving the UK were the death penalty reinstated. My point was, do you think this awful version of what was once the Conservative Party would consider such a ploy to keep themselves in power? I certainly think some would.
I would rip up my Labour membership card right now if they proposed to introduce the death penalty. It is absolutely appalling and I also would emigrate on principle.
I am sure they will do it - and it is absolutely disgraceful.
SKS has personally campaigned internationally against the death penalty. I am certain that he would oppose it 100%, even for cases like this.
Let's hope Sir Keir lives up to that.
I am appalled that anyone here would support the death penalty.
I’m completely opposed to the death penalty on practical grounds. Wrongful convictions etc. Given the low rate of relevant crimes, locking the criminals up for life is a practical solution.
Why is state killing in this form such a terrible shibboleth, though? Genuine question.
"Thou shalt not kill" is written on a stone tablet handed down by God in the Judeo-Christian tradition. It is a fairly well-established moral principle.
While I agree with you that the death penalty is wrong, the commandment is better translated “murder” than “kill”, and existed along side the death penalty in ancient Israel.
That is a much better translation. The God understood in Exodus seemed quite keen on killing, as opposed to murder.
Especially towards boys who mock His prophets for being bald.
What do we think, fellow Pb-ers, of Letby refusing to attend her sentencing? For my part, I think she should be either taken there or should have to listen to a broadcast.
The Letby case is an horrific example of a general tendency in UK business and institutions - managers ignoring inconvenient, difficult issues identified by people doing the actual work. It's short-termism for an easy life and it does immense harm. Far too much of our management class is just not fit for purpose.
What do we think, fellow Pb-ers, of Letby refusing to attend her sentencing? For my part, I think she should be either taken there or should have to listen to a broadcast.
Her punishment is going to prison not being made to listen to the sentence so, no, she should not have to do anything more than the judge's sentence.
My morning after the day before fear is that Lucy Letby becomes the black swan to deliver the Conservatives another landslide.
Are Rishi and Suella really cynical enough to use the Letby case as reason enough to call for the ultimate sanction? Who wouldn't vote to see Lucy Letby's televised hanging by the neck until dead? I am not sure about Sunak, but I would bet my boots the thought has already entered Suella's head.
The death penalty would be the easy way out. She should spend her life thinking about her actions.
And if God forbid the CPS have got it wrong, they have killed the wrong person.
I would have to consider leaving the UK were the death penalty reinstated. My point was, do you think this awful version of what was once the Conservative Party would consider such a ploy to keep themselves in power? I certainly think some would.
You would run into me at Heathrow in those circumstances. If the Tories go full fruit loop after a 2024/5 defeat I think you could well find them embracing string em up. I don't think they'll go there this election cycle, but who knows, if they get desperate enough they may see it as a last throw of the dice and a chance to hold on in parts of the Red Wall. Power is all that matters.
Withdrawal from the ECHR and reintroduction of the death penalty feels more like a stunt they will try in opposition where they don't have to deal with the consequences.
One of the things that Johnson managed to do, and which the Tories have continued since, is to pose as the Opposition while in government. So we get all this rhetoric complaining about Starmer opposing policing reform, or immigration reform, while the government avoids implementing the laws it has passed, because it knows they are unworkable.
So I'm sure that, if they wanted to, the Tories could talk about the absolute necessity of withdrawing from the ECHR and reinstating the death penalty, while in government, without actually doing so, all the while claiming that they were being prevented from doing so by the Liberal Remoaner Elite.
In the current age, where the public are dissatisfied with the status quo, and no government has proved capable of improving the status quo, posing as a permanent opposition while in government is the only way to stay in office. To be fair to the Tories, providing five different Prime Ministers in 13 years of government is a higher rate of change than the electorate can themselves deliver by voting for the opposition at every election. How many people will convince themselves that the Tories are still the change that Britain needs at the next election? More than you might hope I imagine.
My morning after the day before fear is that Lucy Letby becomes the black swan to deliver the Conservatives another landslide.
Are Rishi and Suella really cynical enough to use the Letby case as reason enough to call for the ultimate sanction? Who wouldn't vote to see Lucy Letby's televised hanging by the neck until dead? I am not sure about Sunak, but I would bet my boots the thought has already entered Suella's head.
The death penalty would be the easy way out. She should spend her life thinking about her actions.
And if God forbid the CPS have got it wrong, they have killed the wrong person.
I would have to consider leaving the UK were the death penalty reinstated. My point was, do you think this awful version of what was once the Conservative Party would consider such a ploy to keep themselves in power? I certainly think some would.
I used to say that to my wife. However she's American so I would logically be precluded from moving to New England where she's from - even in non death-penalty states the Federal death penalty can apply, as in the Boston Marathon bomber.
That's the issue post-Brexit. Where to go?
Only the USA, Japan and Singapore of western nations still have the death penalty
Gosh, I didn't know that Japan and Singapore have moved to the West.
Both countries have always been in the West Pacific.
What do we think, fellow Pb-ers, of Letby refusing to attend her sentencing? For my part, I think she should be either taken there or should have to listen to a broadcast.
Yes, she should have been brought in front of the judge to hear their remarks.
Absolutely right. I assume you would thus be appalled should Suella float the idea to a receptive public. And what of Rishi? A win's a win.
I would like to think HYUFD would oppose it but let's see what he has to say.
He has already suggested referenda on such issues are unwise a few posts ago. But were LOTO Suella to go for it and plant it in the manifesto, might there be another Starmeresque U turn?
Is it actyually wise (from a party advantage point of view) for the Tories to do so, now you mention it? HYUFD did say yesterday that he thought the Tories ought definitely to be blamed for the Letby deaths. I *think* he was being ironic, but may be doing him some disrespect there.
And let's nto forget the issue of sanity.
But, still, the party likes to take credit for the successes of the NHS. So in a sense it can't easily deny responsibility for the wider NHS management situation - which is part of the issue at Chester- when it has been in sole charge of the NHS in England since May 2005 (and in coalition with the LDs since 2000). Any more than Labour could for the North Staffs scandal, which you yourself reminded us of lately.
And of course any attempt to blame the managers, officially or unofficially via a media witchhunt by the party's allies, will highlight that issue of ultimate management responsibility.
Crichel Down overthrew a cabinet minister, who was in no way personally responsible except in that he took responsibility for his department, over a much smaller matter (though, of course, hjaving your farm maladministered by HMG can wreck a life).
My morning after the day before fear is that Lucy Letby becomes the black swan to deliver the Conservatives another landslide.
Are Rishi and Suella really cynical enough to use the Letby case as reason enough to call for the ultimate sanction? Who wouldn't vote to see Lucy Letby's televised hanging by the neck until dead? I am not sure about Sunak, but I would bet my boots the thought has already entered Suella's head.
The death penalty would be the easy way out. She should spend her life thinking about her actions.
And if God forbid the CPS have got it wrong, they have killed the wrong person.
I would have to consider leaving the UK were the death penalty reinstated. My point was, do you think this awful version of what was once the Conservative Party would consider such a ploy to keep themselves in power? I certainly think some would.
I would rip up my Labour membership card right now if they proposed to introduce the death penalty. It is absolutely appalling and I also would emigrate on principle.
I am sure they will do it - and it is absolutely disgraceful.
SKS has personally campaigned internationally against the death penalty. I am certain that he would oppose it 100%, even for cases like this.
Let's hope Sir Keir lives up to that.
I am appalled that anyone here would support the death penalty.
I’m completely opposed to the death penalty on practical grounds. Wrongful convictions etc. Given the low rate of relevant crimes, locking the criminals up for life is a practical solution.
Why is state killing in this form such a terrible shibboleth, though? Genuine question.
"Thou shalt not kill" is written on a stone tablet handed down by God in the Judeo-Christian tradition. It is a fairly well-established moral principle.
While I agree with you that the death penalty is wrong, the commandment is better translated “murder” than “kill”, and existed along side the death penalty in ancient Israel.
That is a much better translation. The God of Exodus seemed quite keen on killing, as opposed to murder.
I was watching an interesting YouTube video on the development of early Israelite religion that was saying that Yahweh was a warrior god, who’s the one keen on killing, who then got merged with El, who is this peaceful, forgiving type, which is what produces some of the tensions in the Torah’s depiction of God.
Karen Armstrong discusses this in depth in her "A History of God" but her shorter work "In the Beginning" on Genesis covers this well.
I think she is no longer a believer, but still the greatest of living theologians, and a big influence on my own spiritual development, though I travelled the other way, from Atheism to Christianity.
My morning after the day before fear is that Lucy Letby becomes the black swan to deliver the Conservatives another landslide.
Are Rishi and Suella really cynical enough to use the Letby case as reason enough to call for the ultimate sanction? Who wouldn't vote to see Lucy Letby's televised hanging by the neck until dead? I am not sure about Sunak, but I would bet my boots the thought has already entered Suella's head.
The death penalty would be the easy way out. She should spend her life thinking about her actions.
And if God forbid the CPS have got it wrong, they have killed the wrong person.
I would have to consider leaving the UK were the death penalty reinstated. My point was, do you think this awful version of what was once the Conservative Party would consider such a ploy to keep themselves in power? I certainly think some would.
You would run into me at Heathrow in those circumstances. If the Tories go full fruit loop after a 2024/5 defeat I think you could well find them embracing string em up. I don't think they'll go there this election cycle, but who knows, if they get desperate enough they may see it as a last throw of the dice and a chance to hold on in parts of the Red Wall. Power is all that matters.
Withdrawal from the ECHR and reintroduction of the death penalty feels more like a stunt they will try in opposition where they don't have to deal with the consequences.
In the light of the Letby case being so topical, going for broke sooner rather than later gives them a win over ECHR membership as well as a probable electoral victory. My question remains, are they cynical enough?
The Letby case is an horrific example of a general tendency in UK business and institutions - managers ignoring inconvenient, difficult issues identified by people doing the actual work. It's short-termism for an easy life and it does immense harm. Far too much of our management class is just not fit for purpose.
I'm intrigued. Which bits of it are fit for purpose?
Karen Rees will probably say she's the real victim, here.
LOL
or Brexit made her do it.
Well done. Among a huge amount of competition (largely from yourself) you have made the most pointlessly, facile, inappropriate, unbecoming and mendacious shoehorning of a sectarian issue into a deeply human tragedy in the history of this site. You need to take a long hard look at yourself away from a keyboard and in a mirror.
As Ena Sharples would have said. 'Get over yourself'
My morning after the day before fear is that Lucy Letby becomes the black swan to deliver the Conservatives another landslide.
Are Rishi and Suella really cynical enough to use the Letby case as reason enough to call for the ultimate sanction? Who wouldn't vote to see Lucy Letby's televised hanging by the neck until dead? I am not sure about Sunak, but I would bet my boots the thought has already entered Suella's head.
The death penalty would be the easy way out. She should spend her life thinking about her actions.
And if God forbid the CPS have got it wrong, they have killed the wrong person.
I would have to consider leaving the UK were the death penalty reinstated. My point was, do you think this awful version of what was once the Conservative Party would consider such a ploy to keep themselves in power? I certainly think some would.
I would rip up my Labour membership card right now if they proposed to introduce the death penalty. It is absolutely appalling and I also would emigrate on principle.
I am sure they will do it - and it is absolutely disgraceful.
SKS has personally campaigned internationally against the death penalty. I am certain that he would oppose it 100%, even for cases like this.
Let's hope Sir Keir lives up to that.
I am appalled that anyone here would support the death penalty.
I’m completely opposed to the death penalty on practical grounds. Wrongful convictions etc. Given the low rate of relevant crimes, locking the criminals up for life is a practical solution.
Why is state killing in this form such a terrible shibboleth, though? Genuine question.
The state is not God.
Let's take the US. Should Trump be re-elected, and with scores to settle against people he believes stole a democratic election from him and the American people , his people determine the terms of treason. Having determined those terms it would be quite legal to execute the Clintons, the Obamas and the Bidens as traitors .
And the Bushes and Romney but yet another reason why it is in the interests of the Republican as well as Democrat establishment to ensure if he is convicted and jailed next year he stays there and cannot go to the White House again
I am involved in a campaign. Financial so nothing as serious as the death of babies. I don't post about it here as I have no desire to bore the pants off people. @NickPalmer and @Cyclefree are aware of it via off line conversations.
What strikes me is how much effort people in senior positions in the public sector will put into blocking positive action. They do this even when the actions they take to block involves much more work than actually doing the right thing.
These people shouldn't be in these jobs. I wouldn't act like this. Why do so many others do so. I think there should be serious consequences for those who do so, even if years later, if they have been clearly obstructive.. They need to know that blocking actions that might cause embarrassment, for an easy life now, will have serious consequences later in life.
Without going into detail the campaign I support has involved 2 parliamentary debates, 3 blocked private member's bills, a damning NAO and PAC report and 11 years of campaigning and still an investigation is refused to a blatant injustice because it falls through the cracks of what various ombudsman can investigate.
Oh and what I should have said at the start of that rant - Bloody good article @Cyclefree. I agree with every word of it, sadly from bitter experience.
What do we think, fellow Pb-ers, of Letby refusing to attend her sentencing? For my part, I think she should be either taken there or should have to listen to a broadcast.
My morning after the day before fear is that Lucy Letby becomes the black swan to deliver the Conservatives another landslide.
Are Rishi and Suella really cynical enough to use the Letby case as reason enough to call for the ultimate sanction? Who wouldn't vote to see Lucy Letby's televised hanging by the neck until dead? I am not sure about Sunak, but I would bet my boots the thought has already entered Suella's head.
The death penalty would be the easy way out. She should spend her life thinking about her actions.
And if God forbid the CPS have got it wrong, they have killed the wrong person.
I would have to consider leaving the UK were the death penalty reinstated. My point was, do you think this awful version of what was once the Conservative Party would consider such a ploy to keep themselves in power? I certainly think some would.
I would rip up my Labour membership card right now if they proposed to introduce the death penalty. It is absolutely appalling and I also would emigrate on principle.
I am sure they will do it - and it is absolutely disgraceful.
SKS has personally campaigned internationally against the death penalty. I am certain that he would oppose it 100%, even for cases like this.
Let's hope Sir Keir lives up to that.
I am appalled that anyone here would support the death penalty.
I’m completely opposed to the death penalty on practical grounds. Wrongful convictions etc. Given the low rate of relevant crimes, locking the criminals up for life is a practical solution.
Why is state killing in this form such a terrible shibboleth, though? Genuine question.
"Thou shalt not kill" is written on a stone tablet handed down by God in the Judeo-Christian tradition. It is a fairly well-established moral principle.
While I agree with you that the death penalty is wrong, the commandment is better translated “murder” than “kill”, and existed along side the death penalty in ancient Israel.
That is a much better translation. The God understood in Exodus seemed quite keen on killing, as opposed to murder.
Especially towards boys who mock His prophets for being bald.
God didn’t do that killing; it was bears.
God sent the bears.
I think they were reincarnated as Innocentia and Mica Aurea, to whom Valentinian liked to feed traitors and old women suspected of magic.
What do we think, fellow Pb-ers, of Letby refusing to attend her sentencing? For my part, I think she should be either taken there or should have to listen to a broadcast.
She is not the first, and aiui the Justice Secretary intends to do something about it. That said, I am not that bothered. It is the least important part of the process. In straightforward cases like most criminal trials, it has never been clear to me why sentencing has to wait for another day anyway rather than take place immediately after the verdict. It is not as if the judge has not known what the charges, and therefore the possible verdicts, are from the beginning of the case.
Absolutely right. I assume you would thus be appalled should Suella float the idea to a receptive public. And what of Rishi? A win's a win.
I would like to think HYUFD would oppose it but let's see what he has to say.
He has already suggested referenda on such issues are unwise a few posts ago. But were LOTO Suella to go for it and plant it in the manifesto, might there be another Starmeresque U turn?
Is it actyually wise (from a party advantage point of view) for the Tories to do so, now you mention it? HYUFD did say yesterday that he thought the Tories ought definitely to be blamed for the Letby deaths. I *think* he was being ironic, but may be doing him some disrespect there.
And let's nto forget the issue of sanity.
But, still, the party likes to take credit for the successes of the NHS. So in a sense it can't easily deny responsibility for the wider NHS management situation - which is part of the issue at Chester- when it has been in sole charge of the NHS in England since May 2005 (and in coalition with the LDs since 2000). Any more than Labour could for the North Staffs scandal, which you yourself reminded us of lately.
And of course any attempt to blame the managers, officially or unofficially via a media witchhunt by the party's allies, will highlight that issue of ultimate management responsibility.
Crichel Down overthrew a cabinet minister, who was in no way personally responsible except in that he took responsibility for his department, over a much smaller matter (though, of course, hjaving your farm maladministered by HMG can wreck a life).
Capital punishment for Lucy Letby is one hell of a smokescreen to cover up a maladministration of the NHS by Government.
My morning after the day before fear is that Lucy Letby becomes the black swan to deliver the Conservatives another landslide.
Are Rishi and Suella really cynical enough to use the Letby case as reason enough to call for the ultimate sanction? Who wouldn't vote to see Lucy Letby's televised hanging by the neck until dead? I am not sure about Sunak, but I would bet my boots the thought has already entered Suella's head.
The death penalty would be the easy way out. She should spend her life thinking about her actions.
And if God forbid the CPS have got it wrong, they have killed the wrong person.
I would have to consider leaving the UK were the death penalty reinstated. My point was, do you think this awful version of what was once the Conservative Party would consider such a ploy to keep themselves in power? I certainly think some would.
I would rip up my Labour membership card right now if they proposed to introduce the death penalty. It is absolutely appalling and I also would emigrate on principle.
I am sure they will do it - and it is absolutely disgraceful.
SKS has personally campaigned internationally against the death penalty. I am certain that he would oppose it 100%, even for cases like this.
Let's hope Sir Keir lives up to that.
I am appalled that anyone here would support the death penalty.
I’m completely opposed to the death penalty on practical grounds. Wrongful convictions etc. Given the low rate of relevant crimes, locking the criminals up for life is a practical solution.
Why is state killing in this form such a terrible shibboleth, though? Genuine question.
The Letby case is an horrific example of a general tendency in UK business and institutions - managers ignoring inconvenient, difficult issues identified by people doing the actual work. It's short-termism for an easy life and it does immense harm. Far too much of our management class is just not fit for purpose.
I'm intrigued. Which bits of it are fit for purpose?
It is only news when it fails. Most public sector, and private sector management is quietly and competently getting on with the job.
Certainly in my own Trust I have complete faith in the Senior Management Team to act correctly on concerns raised, by direct experience of having raised concerns in the past.
What do we think, fellow Pb-ers, of Letby refusing to attend her sentencing? For my part, I think she should be either taken there or should have to listen to a broadcast.
My morning after the day before fear is that Lucy Letby becomes the black swan to deliver the Conservatives another landslide.
Are Rishi and Suella really cynical enough to use the Letby case as reason enough to call for the ultimate sanction? Who wouldn't vote to see Lucy Letby's televised hanging by the neck until dead? I am not sure about Sunak, but I would bet my boots the thought has already entered Suella's head.
The death penalty would be the easy way out. She should spend her life thinking about her actions.
And if God forbid the CPS have got it wrong, they have killed the wrong person.
I would have to consider leaving the UK were the death penalty reinstated. My point was, do you think this awful version of what was once the Conservative Party would consider such a ploy to keep themselves in power? I certainly think some would.
I would rip up my Labour membership card right now if they proposed to introduce the death penalty. It is absolutely appalling and I also would emigrate on principle.
I am sure they will do it - and it is absolutely disgraceful.
SKS has personally campaigned internationally against the death penalty. I am certain that he would oppose it 100%, even for cases like this.
Let's hope Sir Keir lives up to that.
I am appalled that anyone here would support the death penalty.
I’m completely opposed to the death penalty on practical grounds. Wrongful convictions etc. Given the low rate of relevant crimes, locking the criminals up for life is a practical solution.
Why is state killing in this form such a terrible shibboleth, though? Genuine question.
My morning after the day before fear is that Lucy Letby becomes the black swan to deliver the Conservatives another landslide.
Are Rishi and Suella really cynical enough to use the Letby case as reason enough to call for the ultimate sanction? Who wouldn't vote to see Lucy Letby's televised hanging by the neck until dead? I am not sure about Sunak, but I would bet my boots the thought has already entered Suella's head.
The death penalty would be the easy way out. She should spend her life thinking about her actions.
And if God forbid the CPS have got it wrong, they have killed the wrong person.
I would have to consider leaving the UK were the death penalty reinstated. My point was, do you think this awful version of what was once the Conservative Party would consider such a ploy to keep themselves in power? I certainly think some would.
You would run into me at Heathrow in those circumstances. If the Tories go full fruit loop after a 2024/5 defeat I think you could well find them embracing string em up. I don't think they'll go there this election cycle, but who knows, if they get desperate enough they may see it as a last throw of the dice and a chance to hold on in parts of the Red Wall. Power is all that matters.
Withdrawal from the ECHR and reintroduction of the death penalty feels more like a stunt they will try in opposition where they don't have to deal with the consequences.
In the light of the Letby case being so topical, going for broke sooner rather than later gives them a win over ECHR membership as well as a probable electoral victory. My question remains, are they cynical enough?
You really should relax. Your imagination is getting the better of you. Nobody will try to reintroduce the death penalty, and even if they did it wouldn't get through Parliament. And no, there wouldn't be a referendum.
Also, whatever the polling on the subject says, I don't actually think that a reintroduction would go down very well with the GBP in 2023, once the pros and cons were debated properly.
Absolutely right. I assume you would thus be appalled should Suella float the idea to a receptive public. And what of Rishi? A win's a win.
I would like to think HYUFD would oppose it but let's see what he has to say.
He has already suggested referenda on such issues are unwise a few posts ago. But were LOTO Suella to go for it and plant it in the manifesto, might there be another Starmeresque U turn?
Is it actyually wise (from a party advantage point of view) for the Tories to do so, now you mention it? HYUFD did say yesterday that he thought the Tories ought definitely to be blamed for the Letby deaths. I *think* he was being ironic, but may be doing him some disrespect there.
And let's nto forget the issue of sanity.
But, still, the party likes to take credit for the successes of the NHS. So in a sense it can't easily deny responsibility for the wider NHS management situation - which is part of the issue at Chester- when it has been in sole charge of the NHS in England since May 2005 (and in coalition with the LDs since 2000). Any more than Labour could for the North Staffs scandal, which you yourself reminded us of lately.
And of course any attempt to blame the managers, officially or unofficially via a media witchhunt by the party's allies, will highlight that issue of ultimate management responsibility.
Crichel Down overthrew a cabinet minister, who was in no way personally responsible except in that he took responsibility for his department, over a much smaller matter (though, of course, hjaving your farm maladministered by HMG can wreck a life).
Capital punishment for Lucy Letby is one hell of a smokescreen to cover up a maladministration of the NHS by Government.
Sure. Though in a sense it's the other way round - would the two noticeably clash?
What do we think, fellow Pb-ers, of Letby refusing to attend her sentencing? For my part, I think she should be either taken there or should have to listen to a broadcast.
I have to say, given she knows what sentence she will get I'm not seeing the value in that.
And most judges seem to take an almost sadistic pleasure in detailing at inordinate length how much they hate the people they're sentencing. It would be simpler and rather more dignified to say, 'The jury have convicted you of this. This is the sentence.'
If she doesn't want to listen to a judge trying to get publicity in the Daily Mail, however heinous her crimes (and these were right up there) I can't see what benefit there is in trying to force her to.
My morning after the day before fear is that Lucy Letby becomes the black swan to deliver the Conservatives another landslide.
Are Rishi and Suella really cynical enough to use the Letby case as reason enough to call for the ultimate sanction? Who wouldn't vote to see Lucy Letby's televised hanging by the neck until dead? I am not sure about Sunak, but I would bet my boots the thought has already entered Suella's head.
The death penalty would be the easy way out. She should spend her life thinking about her actions.
And if God forbid the CPS have got it wrong, they have killed the wrong person.
I would have to consider leaving the UK were the death penalty reinstated. My point was, do you think this awful version of what was once the Conservative Party would consider such a ploy to keep themselves in power? I certainly think some would.
I would rip up my Labour membership card right now if they proposed to introduce the death penalty. It is absolutely appalling and I also would emigrate on principle.
I am sure they will do it - and it is absolutely disgraceful.
SKS has personally campaigned internationally against the death penalty. I am certain that he would oppose it 100%, even for cases like this.
Let's hope Sir Keir lives up to that.
I am appalled that anyone here would support the death penalty.
I’m completely opposed to the death penalty on practical grounds. Wrongful convictions etc. Given the low rate of relevant crimes, locking the criminals up for life is a practical solution.
Why is state killing in this form such a terrible shibboleth, though? Genuine question.
The state is not God.
Let's take the US. Should Trump be re-elected, and with scores to settle against people he believes stole a democratic election from him and the American people , his people determine the terms of treason. Having determined those terms it would be quite legal to execute the Clintons, the Obamas and the Bidens as traitors .
And the Bushes and Romney but yet another reason why it is in the interests of the Republican as well as Democrat establishment to ensure if he is convicted and jailed next year he stays there and cannot go to the White House again
Hallelujah! You have seen the light.
Just because Trump is a right wing populist, it doesn't make him a good man. Likewise any other right wing Dictator you care to think of
My morning after the day before fear is that Lucy Letby becomes the black swan to deliver the Conservatives another landslide.
Are Rishi and Suella really cynical enough to use the Letby case as reason enough to call for the ultimate sanction? Who wouldn't vote to see Lucy Letby's televised hanging by the neck until dead? I am not sure about Sunak, but I would bet my boots the thought has already entered Suella's head.
The death penalty would be the easy way out. She should spend her life thinking about her actions.
And if God forbid the CPS have got it wrong, they have killed the wrong person.
There's been a trial. She's not been found guilty merely on the say-so of the CPS.
And fair enough - but the principle is correct, i.e. they will end up killing the wrong person which has happened before.
The death penalty is absolutely barbaric, if the Tories propose to re-introduce it I will never vote for them in my life. Same for Labour.
While I agree on the point of the death penalty being barbaric, there is another feature of our justice system that is, in some ways, worse. If you are wrongly convicted you cannot get parole without confessing to the crime that you have been wrongfully convicted of. Imagine that. The only way out is to lie and say, yes, I did rape that woman. If there was never a wrongful conviction then I could accept this, but as recent events have shown yet again, innocent people do get convicted.
This is a difficult one for me, because I don't like to view prison as a form of fine for committing a crime. Commit this crime, pay a fine of x years in prison, then the slate is wiped clean. I prefer to see prison as a necessary form of protection for the public from the criminal. Commit a crime, demonstrate that you are not safe to be allowed out and about in society, keep society safe from you until you are safe to be released again.
It follows from this latter view that a person should not be released from prison unless there is some confidence that they have changed and will not reoffend. And how can someone change if they have not, as a first step, admitted that they did wrong and need to change?
As you say this is extremely problematic for cases where a person has been wrongfully convicted, but it has not been shown that they were wrongfully convicted. It also proved to be problematic for many other cases to, as the New Labour era sentences called something like "indeterminate detention for public protection" have shown.
But I really don't like the implication that crimes are essentially valued in terms of a payment in loss of liberty, as opposed to imprisonment being a safety assurance measure. There's something about it that rubs me the wrong way, that is too close to the earliest medieval legal codes, that literally had a price, in gold, or retribution, for various crimes.
Karen Rees will probably say she's the real victim, here.
LOL
or Brexit made her do it.
Well done. Among a huge amount of competition (largely from yourself) you have made the most pointlessly, facile, inappropriate, unbecoming and mendacious shoehorning of a sectarian issue into a deeply human tragedy in the history of this site. You need to take a long hard look at yourself away from a keyboard and in a mirror.
Talking of inappropriate a tweet from someone called Janey Godley, a Scottish comic, takes some beating.
Taz calling her a comic is really really stretching reality. Her claim to fame is doing Imelda in a jimmy Krankie voice. Surprise surprise she is a friend of Imelda
The Letby case is an horrific example of a general tendency in UK business and institutions - managers ignoring inconvenient, difficult issues identified by people doing the actual work. It's short-termism for an easy life and it does immense harm. Far too much of our management class is just not fit for purpose.
I'm intrigued. Which bits of it are fit for purpose?
It is only news when it fails. Most public sector, and private sector management is quietly and competently getting on with the job.
Certainly in my own Trust I have complete faith in the Senior Management Team to act correctly on concerns raised, by direct experience of having raised concerns in the past.
Well, that's nice to hear.
There is absolutely no part of the administrative structure of education I would trust to distinguish arse from elbow.
There is OFSTED, which doesn't train its inspectors in safeguarding or indeed routinely carry out simple safeguarding checks on them.
There is OFQUAL, staffed exclusively by people who have never had anything to do with the setting of assessments.
And there is the DfE, whose reaction to any issue is not merely to reflexively deny everything but threaten those who blow the whistle.
What do we think, fellow Pb-ers, of Letby refusing to attend her sentencing? For my part, I think she should be either taken there or should have to listen to a broadcast.
I have to say, given she knows what sentence she will get I'm not seeing the value in that.
And most judges seem to take an almost sadistic pleasure in detailing at inordinate length how much they hate the people they're sentencing. It would be simpler and rather more dignified to say, 'The jury have convicted you of this. This is the sentence.'
If she doesn't want to listen to a judge trying to get publicity in the Daily Mail, however heinous her crimes (and these were right up there) I can't see what benefit there is in trying to force her to.
I think it’s part of the human need for revenge. Someone wrongs you, gets found out, you want them to be made to face up to what they did.
You can argue that little is gained by having her present for the sentencing, but actually, I think if I was a parent of one of her victims, I would be outraged that she can choose not to be present, judge’s grandstanding or not.
My morning after the day before fear is that Lucy Letby becomes the black swan to deliver the Conservatives another landslide.
Are Rishi and Suella really cynical enough to use the Letby case as reason enough to call for the ultimate sanction? Who wouldn't vote to see Lucy Letby's televised hanging by the neck until dead? I am not sure about Sunak, but I would bet my boots the thought has already entered Suella's head.
The death penalty would be the easy way out. She should spend her life thinking about her actions.
And if God forbid the CPS have got it wrong, they have killed the wrong person.
I would have to consider leaving the UK were the death penalty reinstated. My point was, do you think this awful version of what was once the Conservative Party would consider such a ploy to keep themselves in power? I certainly think some would.
I used to say that to my wife. However she's American so I would logically be precluded from moving to New England where she's from - even in non death-penalty states the Federal death penalty can apply, as in the Boston Marathon bomber.
That's the issue post-Brexit. Where to go?
I’m assuming with Scottish law always being separate from that of the rUK, a devolved Scotland would be a relatively short hop.
Karen Rees will probably say she's the real victim, here.
LOL
or Brexit made her do it.
Well done. Among a huge amount of competition (largely from yourself) you have made the most pointlessly, facile, inappropriate, unbecoming and mendacious shoehorning of a sectarian issue into a deeply human tragedy in the history of this site. You need to take a long hard look at yourself away from a keyboard and in a mirror.
Talking of inappropriate a tweet from someone called Janey Godley, a Scottish comic, takes some beating.
Taz calling her a comic is really really stretching reality. Her claim to fame is doing Imelda in a jimmy Krankie voice. Surprise surprise she is a friend of Imelda
Is “friend of Imelda” a bit like “friend of Dorothy”?
My morning after the day before fear is that Lucy Letby becomes the black swan to deliver the Conservatives another landslide.
Are Rishi and Suella really cynical enough to use the Letby case as reason enough to call for the ultimate sanction? Who wouldn't vote to see Lucy Letby's televised hanging by the neck until dead? I am not sure about Sunak, but I would bet my boots the thought has already entered Suella's head.
The death penalty would be the easy way out. She should spend her life thinking about her actions.
And if God forbid the CPS have got it wrong, they have killed the wrong person.
I would have to consider leaving the UK were the death penalty reinstated. My point was, do you think this awful version of what was once the Conservative Party would consider such a ploy to keep themselves in power? I certainly think some would.
You would run into me at Heathrow in those circumstances. If the Tories go full fruit loop after a 2024/5 defeat I think you could well find them embracing string em up. I don't think they'll go there this election cycle, but who knows, if they get desperate enough they may see it as a last throw of the dice and a chance to hold on in parts of the Red Wall. Power is all that matters.
Withdrawal from the ECHR and reintroduction of the death penalty feels more like a stunt they will try in opposition where they don't have to deal with the consequences.
In the light of the Letby case being so topical, going for broke sooner rather than later gives them a win over ECHR membership as well as a probable electoral victory. My question remains, are they cynical enough?
You really should relax. Your imagination is getting the better of you. Nobody will try to reintroduce the death penalty, and even if they did it wouldn't get through Parliament. And no, there wouldn't be a referendum.
Also, whatever the polling on the subject says, I don't actually think that a reintroduction would go down very well with the GBP in 2023, once the pros and cons were debated properly.
"Suella DeVil, Suella DeVil if she doesn't scare you, no evil thing will".
I expect you to eat humble pie when a referendum makes the next Conservative Party manifesto.
The Letby case is an horrific example of a general tendency in UK business and institutions - managers ignoring inconvenient, difficult issues identified by people doing the actual work. It's short-termism for an easy life and it does immense harm. Far too much of our management class is just not fit for purpose.
It involves a lot of extra work, on top of the day job, difficult conversations, appeals and due process, and might embarass the Trust /institution publicly for which they'd be blamed not rewarded.
Basically we don't incentivise the right behaviours so it's only people with exceptional integrity and courage who do it.
The problem is as much institutional as individual, I'm afraid.
What do we think, fellow Pb-ers, of Letby refusing to attend her sentencing? For my part, I think she should be either taken there or should have to listen to a broadcast.
I have to say, given she knows what sentence she will get I'm not seeing the value in that.
And most judges seem to take an almost sadistic pleasure in detailing at inordinate length how much they hate the people they're sentencing. It would be simpler and rather more dignified to say, 'The jury have convicted you of this. This is the sentence.'
If she doesn't want to listen to a judge trying to get publicity in the Daily Mail, however heinous her crimes (and these were right up there) I can't see what benefit there is in trying to force her to.
I think it’s part of the human need for revenge. Someone wrongs you, gets found out, you want them to be made to face up to what they did.
You can argue that little is gained by having her present for the sentencing, but actually, I think if I was a parent of one of her victims, I would be outraged that she can choose not to be present, judge’s grandstanding or not.
And I quite possibly would be, too, on an emotional level. But I'm not.
Similarly, if there was any doubt about the sentence, I would be, on the grounds otherwise somebody else will have to tell her. But there isn't. This is going to be a life sentence and the only question is when or even whether parole can be considered (my guess is, probably not a la Myra Hindley if only because the instant she's let out somebody would probably lynch her).
My morning after the day before fear is that Lucy Letby becomes the black swan to deliver the Conservatives another landslide.
Are Rishi and Suella really cynical enough to use the Letby case as reason enough to call for the ultimate sanction? Who wouldn't vote to see Lucy Letby's televised hanging by the neck until dead? I am not sure about Sunak, but I would bet my boots the thought has already entered Suella's head.
The death penalty would be the easy way out. She should spend her life thinking about her actions.
And if God forbid the CPS have got it wrong, they have killed the wrong person.
I would have to consider leaving the UK were the death penalty reinstated. My point was, do you think this awful version of what was once the Conservative Party would consider such a ploy to keep themselves in power? I certainly think some would.
You would run into me at Heathrow in those circumstances. If the Tories go full fruit loop after a 2024/5 defeat I think you could well find them embracing string em up. I don't think they'll go there this election cycle, but who knows, if they get desperate enough they may see it as a last throw of the dice and a chance to hold on in parts of the Red Wall. Power is all that matters.
Withdrawal from the ECHR and reintroduction of the death penalty feels more like a stunt they will try in opposition where they don't have to deal with the consequences.
In the light of the Letby case being so topical, going for broke sooner rather than later gives them a win over ECHR membership as well as a probable electoral victory. My question remains, are they cynical enough?
"Probable"? I know you push this line a lot but you have to admit it is deeply against the grain of betting markets' estimations of probability, not to mention the commentary of those on both sides of the divide, opinion polling and recent elections - even the Uxbridge swing replicated across the country would not win the election for the Tories.
Really? It takes a 5000 word header to understand what can be said in 50, with room over for a really good recipe for ceviche?
Less is more.
Bravo! Ishmael is back.
You’ve only just realised? His tell of going on about Bayes and statistics manifested early…
I've not been following PB too much lately. Political argument has been replaced by an unseemly dash for 'likes'. Like this thread it makes for very ugly reading.
My morning after the day before fear is that Lucy Letby becomes the black swan to deliver the Conservatives another landslide.
Are Rishi and Suella really cynical enough to use the Letby case as reason enough to call for the ultimate sanction? Who wouldn't vote to see Lucy Letby's televised hanging by the neck until dead? I am not sure about Sunak, but I would bet my boots the thought has already entered Suella's head.
The death penalty would be the easy way out. She should spend her life thinking about her actions.
And if God forbid the CPS have got it wrong, they have killed the wrong person.
I would have to consider leaving the UK were the death penalty reinstated. My point was, do you think this awful version of what was once the Conservative Party would consider such a ploy to keep themselves in power? I certainly think some would.
You would run into me at Heathrow in those circumstances. If the Tories go full fruit loop after a 2024/5 defeat I think you could well find them embracing string em up. I don't think they'll go there this election cycle, but who knows, if they get desperate enough they may see it as a last throw of the dice and a chance to hold on in parts of the Red Wall. Power is all that matters.
Withdrawal from the ECHR and reintroduction of the death penalty feels more like a stunt they will try in opposition where they don't have to deal with the consequences.
In the light of the Letby case being so topical, going for broke sooner rather than later gives them a win over ECHR membership as well as a probable electoral victory. My question remains, are they cynical enough?
You really should relax. Your imagination is getting the better of you. Nobody will try to reintroduce the death penalty, and even if they did it wouldn't get through Parliament. And no, there wouldn't be a referendum.
Also, whatever the polling on the subject says, I don't actually think that a reintroduction would go down very well with the GBP in 2023, once the pros and cons were debated properly.
"Suella DeVil, Suella DeVil if she doesn't scare you, no evil thing will".
I expect you to eat humble pie when a referendum makes the next Conservative Party manifesto.
+1 I can easily see the Tory party thinking there are some votes in it so suggesting it..
I am furious about some of the nasty and sexist comments on Cyclefree's post. Quite a few of the culprits will be banned
With your permission OGH can I also add:
Anybody who complains about the length of a Cyclefree header is an idiot. They're not long except compared to the average Tweet, and if they were shorter they would be much less informative.
Cyclefree is an expert in these areas, far more so than any journalist. PB is damn lucky to have her insight and we're all much the poorer for her being constantly bullied off below the line comments.
My morning after the day before fear is that Lucy Letby becomes the black swan to deliver the Conservatives another landslide.
Are Rishi and Suella really cynical enough to use the Letby case as reason enough to call for the ultimate sanction? Who wouldn't vote to see Lucy Letby's televised hanging by the neck until dead? I am not sure about Sunak, but I would bet my boots the thought has already entered Suella's head.
The death penalty would be the easy way out. She should spend her life thinking about her actions.
And if God forbid the CPS have got it wrong, they have killed the wrong person.
I would have to consider leaving the UK were the death penalty reinstated. My point was, do you think this awful version of what was once the Conservative Party would consider such a ploy to keep themselves in power? I certainly think some would.
You would run into me at Heathrow in those circumstances. If the Tories go full fruit loop after a 2024/5 defeat I think you could well find them embracing string em up. I don't think they'll go there this election cycle, but who knows, if they get desperate enough they may see it as a last throw of the dice and a chance to hold on in parts of the Red Wall. Power is all that matters.
Withdrawal from the ECHR and reintroduction of the death penalty feels more like a stunt they will try in opposition where they don't have to deal with the consequences.
In the light of the Letby case being so topical, going for broke sooner rather than later gives them a win over ECHR membership as well as a probable electoral victory. My question remains, are they cynical enough?
You really should relax. Your imagination is getting the better of you. Nobody will try to reintroduce the death penalty, and even if they did it wouldn't get through Parliament. And no, there wouldn't be a referendum.
Also, whatever the polling on the subject says, I don't actually think that a reintroduction would go down very well with the GBP in 2023, once the pros and cons were debated properly.
"Suella DeVil, Suella DeVil if she doesn't scare you, no evil thing will".
I expect you to eat humble pie when a referendum makes the next Conservative Party manifesto.
The Letby case is an horrific example of a general tendency in UK business and institutions - managers ignoring inconvenient, difficult issues identified by people doing the actual work. It's short-termism for an easy life and it does immense harm. Far too much of our management class is just not fit for purpose.
I'm intrigued. Which bits of it are fit for purpose?
It is only news when it fails. Most public sector, and private sector management is quietly and competently getting on with the job.
Certainly in my own Trust I have complete faith in the Senior Management Team to act correctly on concerns raised, by direct experience of having raised concerns in the past.
Well, that's nice to hear.
There is absolutely no part of the administrative structure of education I would trust to distinguish arse from elbow.
There is OFSTED, which doesn't train its inspectors in safeguarding or indeed routinely carry out simple safeguarding checks on them.
There is OFQUAL, staffed exclusively by people who have never had anything to do with the setting of assessments.
And there is the DfE, whose reaction to any issue is not merely to reflexively deny everything but threaten those who blow the whistle.
I have mentioned before my experience of the CQC. I have little faith in that, and think over reliance on this, OFSTED etc is fundamentally misconceived.
The CQC inspected the Countess of Chester Trust in 2016 at the height of this issue. This is what the report summary says:
"Overall, we rated the trust as good.
We have rated the Countess of Chester Hospital as ‘good’ for effective, caring and well led. However, improvements were needed to ensure that services were safe and responsive to people’s needs.
We rated Ellesmere Port Hospital as good for all key questions safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led.
Our key findings were as follows:
Leadership
The Trust was led and managed by an accessible and visible executive team. The team were well known to staff and were regular visitors to wards and departments through the monthly executive walkabouts. Staff were also invited to attend a monthly open forum where they were able to meet with the Executive Team to ask questions, raise issues and discuss the trusts plans for the future."
"Governance and risk management
The trust had a well-developed approach to governance and risk management.
Governance was well managed and board assurance sought through a divisional governance structure that was well embedded and understood.
There was a robust committee structure in place that supported challenge and review of performance, risk and quality."
I am furious about some of the nasty and sexist comments on Cyclefree's post. Quite a few of the culprits will be banned
With your permission OGH can I also add:
Anybody who complains about the length of a Cyclefree header is an idiot. They're not long except compared to the average Tweet, and if they were shorter they would be much less informative.
Cyclefree is an expert in these areas, far more so than any journalist. PB is damn lucky to have her insight and we're all much the poorer for her being constantly bullied off below the line comments.
Karen Rees will probably say she's the real victim, here.
LOL
or Brexit made her do it.
Well done. Among a huge amount of competition (largely from yourself) you have made the most pointlessly, facile, inappropriate, unbecoming and mendacious shoehorning of a sectarian issue into a deeply human tragedy in the history of this site. You need to take a long hard look at yourself away from a keyboard and in a mirror.
Talking of inappropriate a tweet from someone called Janey Godley, a Scottish comic, takes some beating.
Taz calling her a comic is really really stretching reality. Her claim to fame is doing Imelda in a jimmy Krankie voice. Surprise surprise she is a friend of Imelda
Morning Malc, hope you are well.
I don’t really know a great deal about her aside from a HIGNFY appearance, as resident comic. I guess having the right friends helps people ascend the greasy pole.
My morning after the day before fear is that Lucy Letby becomes the black swan to deliver the Conservatives another landslide.
Are Rishi and Suella really cynical enough to use the Letby case as reason enough to call for the ultimate sanction? Who wouldn't vote to see Lucy Letby's televised hanging by the neck until dead? I am not sure about Sunak, but I would bet my boots the thought has already entered Suella's head.
The death penalty would be the easy way out. She should spend her life thinking about her actions.
And if God forbid the CPS have got it wrong, they have killed the wrong person.
I would have to consider leaving the UK were the death penalty reinstated. My point was, do you think this awful version of what was once the Conservative Party would consider such a ploy to keep themselves in power? I certainly think some would.
You would run into me at Heathrow in those circumstances. If the Tories go full fruit loop after a 2024/5 defeat I think you could well find them embracing string em up. I don't think they'll go there this election cycle, but who knows, if they get desperate enough they may see it as a last throw of the dice and a chance to hold on in parts of the Red Wall. Power is all that matters.
Withdrawal from the ECHR and reintroduction of the death penalty feels more like a stunt they will try in opposition where they don't have to deal with the consequences.
In the light of the Letby case being so topical, going for broke sooner rather than later gives them a win over ECHR membership as well as a probable electoral victory. My question remains, are they cynical enough?
You really should relax. Your imagination is getting the better of you. Nobody will try to reintroduce the death penalty, and even if they did it wouldn't get through Parliament. And no, there wouldn't be a referendum.
Also, whatever the polling on the subject says, I don't actually think that a reintroduction would go down very well with the GBP in 2023, once the pros and cons were debated properly.
"Suella DeVil, Suella DeVil if she doesn't scare you, no evil thing will".
I expect you to eat humble pie when a referendum makes the next Conservative Party manifesto.
If you mean the 2024 Tory manifesto, I'll happily eat a plateful of ungarnished broccoli (much worse than humble pie) if a death penalty referendum features.
I am furious about some of the nasty and sexist comments on Cyclefree's post. Quite a few of the culprits will be banned
With your permission OGH can I also add:
Anybody who complains about the length of a Cyclefree header is an idiot. They're not long except compared to the average Tweet, and if they were shorter they would be much less informative.
Cyclefree is an expert in these areas, far more so than any journalist. PB is damn lucky to have her insight and we're all much the poorer for her being constantly bullied off below the line comments.
It's not even a long header
If people want a long header I can do a review of the cricket season in a few weeks.
Karen Rees will probably say she's the real victim, here.
LOL
or Brexit made her do it.
Well done. Among a huge amount of competition (largely from yourself) you have made the most pointlessly, facile, inappropriate, unbecoming and mendacious shoehorning of a sectarian issue into a deeply human tragedy in the history of this site. You need to take a long hard look at yourself away from a keyboard and in a mirror.
Talking of inappropriate a tweet from someone called Janey Godley, a Scottish comic, takes some beating.
Taz calling her a comic is really really stretching reality. Her claim to fame is doing Imelda in a jimmy Krankie voice. Surprise surprise she is a friend of Imelda
Is “friend of Imelda” a bit like “friend of Dorothy”?
The NHS – like the police – is one of those sacred cows that confuses the importance of its function with the importance of the institution and the egos of those running it, focused on their Key Performance Indicators (none of which would have included “murders solved“)
This is so true and so infuriating. As the header notes these types of issues do occur in a great many other areas and institutions, but the NHS and Police use their purpose as a shield against learning lessons, or just state they have and then outight ignore criticisms (see the Henriques report) because the words coming from the corporate culture are completely hollow, and politicians lack the will or confidence to do anything about it which is not trivial or immediate.
The Letby case is an horrific example of a general tendency in UK business and institutions - managers ignoring inconvenient, difficult issues identified by people doing the actual work. It's short-termism for an easy life and it does immense harm. Far too much of our management class is just not fit for purpose.
It involves a lot of extra work, on top of the day job, difficult conversations, appeals and due process, and might embarass the Trust /institution publicly for which they'd be blamed not rewarded.
Basically we don't incentivise the right behaviours so it's only people with exceptional integrity and courage who do it.
The problem is as much institutional as individual, I'm afraid.
I've been listening to history podcasts, and one of the things that keeps on getting repeated is how one of the major differences between modern society and medieval, is in the importance and strength of institutions in modern society over individuals in medieval. And this is a strength! Institutions are greater than any individual, they enforce better standards on individuals and individuals are willing to subordinate their own interests to those of the institution for collective benefit. It makes it easier to enforce consequences on individuals for bad behaviour because, while the individual is gone, the institution survives. Having institutions that are stronger than individuals is a key feature that makes a modern society function better than a medieval one, and a democratic society function better than an authoritarian one.
And yet in so many discussions of contemporary society we come back round, again and again, to major systemic problems with our institutions. Institutions being used as a shield to hide wrongdoing and to deflect responsibility.
NHS management seems utterly oblivious to The Public Interest Disclosure Act 2010
They are far from alone. Whistleblowing rules are a complete joke most of the time for the rather obvious reason that you need them because organisations will want to punish people for doing it, and a piece of paper saying they won't does not eliminate the desire to punish, so a way will be found.
I am furious about some of the nasty and sexist comments on Cyclefree's post. Quite a few of the culprits will be banned
Eh? A quick scan of the thread finds only one critic and that was a hackneyed and inaccurate rant about length. The rest have been grateful and/or supportive of Cyclefree.
I am furious about some of the nasty and sexist comments on Cyclefree's post. Quite a few of the culprits will be banned
With your permission OGH can I also add:
Anybody who complains about the length of a Cyclefree header is an idiot. They're not long except compared to the average Tweet, and if they were shorter they would be much less informative.
Cyclefree is an expert in these areas, far more so than any journalist. PB is damn lucky to have her insight and we're all much the poorer for her being constantly bullied off below the line comments.
May I also add that if one doesn't like the length, substance or style of any particular header, it's really not difficult to keep one's thoughts to oneself rather than sharing them with other posters? Courtesy is no bad thing.
Really? It takes a 5000 word header to understand what can be said in 50, with room over for a really good recipe for ceviche?
Less is more.
Bravo! Ishmael is back.
You’ve only just realised? His tell of going on about Bayes and statistics manifested early…
I've not been following PB too much lately. Political argument has been replaced by an unseemly dash for 'likes'. Like this thread it makes for very ugly reading.
The problem is that any dissenting opinions are now quickly hidden as you say by people chasing likes. I think @MrEd, @StuartDickson had some interesting stuff to say and yet we have to go through Leon's latest rant about aliens day after day. I know he's "left" but we all know he will be back.
I thought we were having an interesting discussion last night on Ukraine and I valued some of the more "dissenting" contributions but as usual they were accused of being stooges.
Comments
Really?
In the case of a Scottish helicopter crash, IIRC, the police tried to take the confidential interviews. The whole thing ended up in court.
Why is state killing in this form such a terrible shibboleth, though? Genuine question.
I am utterly baffled as to how, in the NHS, contracts are drafted so that a breach can run to damages of "millions of pounds". Normally unfair (as opposed to wrongful) dismissal awards are capped at c.£105k (it goes up with inflation every year) but that cap is removed for whistleblowing and discrimination claims.
I think that is what you are thinking of, Foxy. The highest ever payout at an Employment Tribunal was to doctor Eva Michalak, who was awarded £4.5 million in compensation in 2011 after winning claims for unfair dismissal and sex and race discrimination against the NHS trust she worked for. She was subject to what her counsel described as a ‘get Eva campaign’ after her maternity leave and her subsequent request to receive the same pay as her colleagues. That is an extraordinary amount.
If the NHS is settling for millions in these circumstances it shows a risk averse nature that needs to be challenged
What absolutely works, and the NHS - hell, not just the NHS, everyone - should learn from, is the no-blame culture, where everyone discusses and in some cases reports, their own mistakes and those of others, outside of any disciplinary process, the intention being that everyone learns from small mistakes, before big ones happen.
What strikes me is how much effort people in senior positions in the public sector will put into blocking positive action. They do this even when the actions they take to block involves much more work than actually doing the right thing.
These people shouldn't be in these jobs. I wouldn't act like this. Why do so many others do so. I think there should be serious consequences for those who do so, even if years later, if they have been clearly obstructive.. They need to know that blocking actions that might cause embarrassment, for an easy life now, will have serious consequences later in life.
Without going into detail the campaign I support has involved 2 parliamentary debates, 3 blocked private member's bills, a damning NAO and PAC report and 11 years of campaigning and still an investigation is refused to a blatant injustice because it falls through the cracks of what various ombudsman can investigate.
Psychiatry is a distinct part of medicine, but is still evidence based. It concerns both the hardware and the software in our brains, though where one ends and the other begins is more plastic and blurred than in electronics.
Let's take the US. Should Trump be re-elected, and with scores to settle against people he believes stole a democratic election from him and the American people , his people determine the terms of treason. Having determined those terms it would be quite legal to execute the Clintons, the Obamas and the Bidens as traitors .
And the Gileadites took the passages of Jordan before the Ephraimites: and it was so, that when those Ephraimites which were escaped said, Let me go over; that the men of Gilead said unto him, Art thou an Ephraimite? If he said, Nay; Then said they unto him, Say now Shibboleth: and he said Sibboleth: for he could not frame to pronounce it right. Then they took him, and slew him at the passages of Jordan: and there fell at that time of the Ephraimites forty and two thousand.
@Cyclefree again demonstrates her importance to this forum and I hope she continues to contribute as her opinions are very useful
I do not subscribe to the reintroduction of the death penalty nor have I heard it suggested
Letby will spend the rest of her life behind bars and that is entirely justified
Vigilantism is the law of the wild west. From a libertarian perspective Bachmeier is perfectly entitled to exact her revenge on her child's killer, but she has to accept the consequences.
As to the principle of the State delivering lethal violence on my behalf, that ship has long sailed.
If there was never a wrongful conviction then I could accept this, but as recent events have shown yet again, innocent people do get convicted.
https://www.judge-priestley.co.uk/site/news/articles/employment-articles/woman-doctor-awarded-45m-in-discrimination-case
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2011/dec/16/doctor-awarded-compensation-trauma-workplace
The way that a woman from an apparently completely unremarkable background came to do such evil is well worthy of psychological study.
The case at my Trust that I mentioned at the beginning of the thread with the sabotage of anaesthetic machines seemed to be motivated by a desire to be the hero, who arrives at a crisis and saves the day. I don't think anyone was harmed, but clearly there was a very high risk of that.
So I'm sure that, if they wanted to, the Tories could talk about the absolute necessity of withdrawing from the ECHR and reinstating the death penalty, while in government, without actually doing so, all the while claiming that they were being prevented from doing so by the Liberal Remoaner Elite.
In the current age, where the public are dissatisfied with the status quo, and no government has proved capable of improving the status quo, posing as a permanent opposition while in government is the only way to stay in office. To be fair to the Tories, providing five different Prime Ministers in 13 years of government is a higher rate of change than the electorate can themselves deliver by voting for the opposition at every election. How many people will convince themselves that the Tories are still the change that Britain needs at the next election? More than you might hope I imagine.
And let's nto forget the issue of sanity.
But, still, the party likes to take credit for the successes of the NHS. So in a sense it can't easily deny responsibility for the wider NHS management situation - which is part of the issue at Chester- when it has been in sole charge of the NHS in England since May 2005 (and in coalition with the LDs since 2000). Any more than Labour could for the North Staffs scandal, which you yourself reminded us of lately.
And of course any attempt to blame the managers, officially or unofficially via a media witchhunt by the party's allies, will highlight that issue of ultimate management responsibility.
Crichel Down overthrew a cabinet minister, who was in no way personally responsible except in that he took responsibility for his department, over a much smaller matter (though, of course, hjaving your farm maladministered by HMG can wreck a life).
I think she is no longer a believer, but still the greatest of living theologians, and a big influence on my own spiritual development, though I travelled the other way, from Atheism to Christianity.
I think they were reincarnated as Innocentia and Mica Aurea, to whom Valentinian liked to feed traitors and old women suspected of magic.
Certainly in my own Trust I have complete faith in the Senior Management Team to act correctly on concerns raised, by direct experience of having raised concerns in the past.
Also, whatever the polling on the subject says, I don't actually think that a reintroduction would go down very well with the GBP in 2023, once the pros and cons were debated properly.
And most judges seem to take an almost sadistic pleasure in detailing at inordinate length how much they hate the people they're sentencing. It would be simpler and rather more dignified to say, 'The jury have convicted you of this. This is the sentence.'
If she doesn't want to listen to a judge trying to get publicity in the Daily Mail, however heinous her crimes (and these were right up there) I can't see what benefit there is in trying to force her to.
Just because Trump is a right wing populist, it doesn't make him a good man. Likewise any other right wing Dictator you care to think of
It follows from this latter view that a person should not be released from prison unless there is some confidence that they have changed and will not reoffend. And how can someone change if they have not, as a first step, admitted that they did wrong and need to change?
As you say this is extremely problematic for cases where a person has been wrongfully convicted, but it has not been shown that they were wrongfully convicted. It also proved to be problematic for many other cases to, as the New Labour era sentences called something like "indeterminate detention for public protection" have shown.
But I really don't like the implication that crimes are essentially valued in terms of a payment in loss of liberty, as opposed to imprisonment being a safety assurance measure. There's something about it that rubs me the wrong way, that is too close to the earliest medieval legal codes, that literally had a price, in gold, or retribution, for various crimes.
There is absolutely no part of the administrative structure of education I would trust to distinguish arse from elbow.
There is OFSTED, which doesn't train its inspectors in safeguarding or indeed routinely carry out simple safeguarding checks on them.
There is OFQUAL, staffed exclusively by people who have never had anything to do with the setting of assessments.
And there is the DfE, whose reaction to any issue is not merely to reflexively deny everything but threaten those who blow the whistle.
You can argue that little is gained by having her present for the sentencing, but actually, I think if I was a parent of one of her victims, I would be outraged that she can choose not to be present, judge’s grandstanding or not.
I expect you to eat humble pie when a referendum makes the next Conservative Party manifesto.
Basically we don't incentivise the right behaviours so it's only people with exceptional integrity and courage who do it.
The problem is as much institutional as individual, I'm afraid.
Similarly, if there was any doubt about the sentence, I would be, on the grounds otherwise somebody else will have to tell her. But there isn't. This is going to be a life sentence and the only question is when or even whether parole can be considered (my guess is, probably not a la Myra Hindley if only because the instant she's let out somebody would probably lynch her).
Anybody who complains about the length of a Cyclefree header is an idiot. They're not long except compared to the average Tweet, and if they were shorter they would be much less informative.
Cyclefree is an expert in these areas, far more so than any journalist. PB is damn lucky to have her insight and we're all much the poorer for her being constantly bullied off below the line comments.
The CQC inspected the Countess of Chester Trust in 2016 at the height of this issue. This is what the report summary says:
"Overall, we rated the trust as good.
We have rated the Countess of Chester Hospital as ‘good’ for effective, caring and well led. However, improvements were needed to ensure that services were safe and responsive to people’s needs.
We rated Ellesmere Port Hospital as good for all key questions safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led.
Our key findings were as follows:
Leadership
The Trust was led and managed by an accessible and visible executive team. The team were well known to staff and were regular visitors to wards and departments through the monthly executive walkabouts. Staff were also invited to attend a monthly open forum where they were able to meet with the Executive Team to ask questions, raise issues and discuss the trusts plans for the future."
"Governance and risk management
The trust had a well-developed approach to governance and risk management.
Governance was well managed and board assurance sought through a divisional governance structure that was well embedded and understood.
There was a robust committee structure in place that supported challenge and review of performance, risk and quality."
https://www.cqc.org.uk/provider/RJR/reports
https://www.ft.com/content/a14ef388-5fea-4696-9791-0379b37e68bf
I don’t really know a great deal about her aside from a HIGNFY appearance, as resident comic. I guess having the right friends helps people ascend the greasy pole.
This is so true and so infuriating. As the header notes these types of issues do occur in a great many other areas and institutions, but the NHS and Police use their purpose as a shield against learning lessons, or just state they have and then outight ignore criticisms (see the Henriques report) because the words coming from the corporate culture are completely hollow, and politicians lack the will or confidence to do anything about it which is not trivial or immediate.
And yet in so many discussions of contemporary society we come back round, again and again, to major systemic problems with our institutions. Institutions being used as a shield to hide wrongdoing and to deflect responsibility.
What's changed? What's gone wrong?
Sexist? Struggling to see this.
Great to see Cyclefree back - one of the key contributors to the site for me.
Just like you implied yesterday that I supported Letby, I think you will stop at nothing to see the Tories win.
They are far from alone. Whistleblowing rules are a complete joke most of the time for the rather obvious reason that you need them because organisations will want to punish people for doing it, and a piece of paper saying they won't does not eliminate the desire to punish, so a way will be found.
I thought we were having an interesting discussion last night on Ukraine and I valued some of the more "dissenting" contributions but as usual they were accused of being stooges.