Peter Rhodes on black-tie reporting, Nato's cyber armoury and the doomed campaign to bring back hanging
Britain avoiding a recession is surely good news. So why was it delivered in such funereal tones by our state broadcaster? To listen to Today (Radio 4) you'd think they were all wearing black ties.
Bring back hanging? Forget it. The debate over capital punishment triggered by Lee Anderson, the new deputy chairman of the Conservative Party, is a non-starter even if, as the MP points out with dazzling simplicity: “Nobody has ever committed a crime after being executed.”
For what it's worth I have no moral problems with the state taking a life for a life. Some of the scumbags jailed for the torture and sadistic murder of babies, toddlers and children would be greatly improved by a length of rope. But first you have to convict them.
In the 1950s, one of the chief factors driving the anti- hanging movement was the growing reluctance of English juries to convict, if it meant sending someone to the gallows. Today, what are the odds of recruiting a jury of 12 men and women which would unanimously, or even by a 10-2 majority, steel itself to sentence anyone to death? Judicial execution is no longer in our national DNA and we must live with the consequences. Having scrapped capital punishment, we can at least slap ourselves on the back for being “a civilised nation” - while the torture and killing of the innocents goes on.
Britain and Europe may not be able to supply the right sort of warplanes to Ukraine in a hurry but surely we can do something just as effective to help?
We have some of the world's greatest computer brains in this country. On the day that Russia begins its long-forecast spring offensive, Nato countries should launch a massive, synchronised and multi-headed cyber attack on every aspect of Russian military and civilian life. It would wreck Putin's communication network, paralyse his road and rail systems and immobilise his tank brigades.
If we have the ability to launch such a multi-national cyber attack, now is surely the time to unleash it. And if we don't have the ability, for pity's sake let's get it before this bloody war spreads any further.
