MarkW

A few years ago my wife and I were having a clear out and came across our old bank statements from when we first started work. We sat there flicking through them thinking 'How the hell did we survive?' Neither of us had good salaries then, and with student loans to repay on top of renting in a pretty expensive part of the country we were both overdrawn all the time. We got a joint account at first just to halve the bank charges! We've had it ever since, and it works brilliantly for us.

My eldest got a bollocking from his RE teacher just before Christmas. She caught him rolling his eyes when she said they would be continuing with the nativity story, and when she asked what the problem was he said "Oh God - not this load of Tom tit again... I mean seriously: 'A child, a child, shivers in the cold, let us bring him silver and gold.' That's useful, isn't it? I'd have taken him a blanket..."

Perhaps you could combine both and kill two birds with one stone, so to speak. The test could be to release a condemned man in a wide open space, like an old airfield, and the OAP has to mow him down as he's legging it. If the crim gets to the end safely his sentence is commuted to life imprisonment and the OAP loses his licence; if he doesn't, the OAP keeps his licence and gets a free voucher for the car wash.

I live well over 100 miles away from my mother, and yet I cut the grass for her far more often than my brother does, and he's only 15 minutes down the road from her. Lazy bugger. Mind you, he has had one or two bad experiences there: he electrocuted himself on the mower a few years ago because she'd left it out in the rain, and another time he ran over a dead cat that was hidden by the long grass, already partially decomposed and heaving with maggots. Imagine hitting that lot with a Flymo!

Well, that's progress of a sort, I suppose...

I could never understand why people thought that Jesus rising from the dead in any way proved his divinity given how commonplace an occurrence it seems to have been at the time. It must actually have been something of a banality.

Yes, but then everyone was doing it back then: Lazarus was raised from the dead, so too was the daughter of Jairus, and when Jesus was crucified the tombs of the saints broke open and their occupants wandered the streets of Jerusalem. Apparently...

He was half human, which qualifies him at least as much as some of the people on here.

I didn’t think Brexit was a good idea at the time and I still don’t think it’s a good idea now. But that said, I recognised the fact that it was what people voted for, that democracy is – to paraphrase Churchill – the ‘least worst’ system of government, and that part of the price you pay for living in one is that dragging the thicker part of the Bell Curve behind us means we sometimes slide backwards rather than crawl forwards. At the same time, despite not supporting Brexit I was quite excited by what it might bring when the result was announced. I like disruptions and always have - the occasional reckless act of rolling a couple of hand grenades into a quietly dozing sector of industry just to see what happens and what new opportunities the resulting chaos provides has pretty much been my approach to business my whole life. Here’s a little story: Several years ago a new piece of legislation came into force in Europe that affected just about every industry that uses chemicals. For the two or three years running up to its implementation there was a flurry of international conferences, mostly populated by doom-mongering leaders of industry bodies and trade associations who would stand on the podium and grimly foretell how the new legislation was the death-knell for their businesses. It all got a bit tedious. Only one of these conferences sticks in my mind, and only for one reason - the very last speaker to take the stage after two straight days of relentless doom and gloom. He ran a highly specialised engineering firm that used a unique cutting fluid developed specifically for his purpose that was going to be among the first casualties of the new chemicals legislation. On the face of it, his business was over. So, rather than sitting around crying about it he initiated a two-year R&D project with the chemistry and engineering departments of several universities to try to come up with an alternative fluid, giving the engineering students paid work experience placements in which they field tested the results of the chemistry student’s researches. The original cutting fluid was the only on the market that would do the job, but it had its problems: it was very expensive, was highly susceptible to degradation during use, couldn’t be re-used, and required costly specialist disposal. By the end of their two year R&D project they had a new fluid that was cheaper, more efficient, and could not only be disposed of as easily as cooking oil but could be re-cycled and re-used. In addition, they had also built up an excellent relationship with several universities, providing them with a steady supply of the brightest students and the opportunity to collaborate on some big EU-funded projects. It was a win on every level, but would never have happened had it not been for the owner being spurred into action by a monumental and apparently catastrophic disruption to the status quo. But as much as I love the opportunities disruptions can bring, in all honesty I don’t see much upside from Brexit – at least not yet. Boris tends to operate on a sort of proto-Orwellian principle of ‘Truth by Decree’ – that given enough of his brand of brainlessly up-beat Brexit bollocks the perception will eventually become the reality, and certainly for many Brexit supporters it seems to be enough merely to have won. Exactly what they have won they are rather less clear on, and in many cases seems to be something of a triviality by comparison. Speaking specifically about the industry I work in, Brexit has been a wanton act of self-castration. Our regulatory authority was one of the most highly respected in the world, not only for its scientific expertise but also for its ability to use its considerable influence to steer approvals through the EU regulatory process. Now we have no influence – we’re not even in the room, let alone at the table. We still have to follow the same rules as the rest of the EU if we want to register and sell products there, but we no longer have any say in the process – in short, we used to be one of the key decision makers, and now we just have to do as we are told. Global businesses see no benefit in using a regulatory authority that has no influence, and so for the last four years every product authorisation I have worked on from anywhere in the world has been sent to another EU Member State for evaluation. We’ve even had clients pull submissions from the UK part-way through the process and re-submit them in Europe because the UK simply serves no useful purpose anymore. It’s not immediately obvious to me how that constitutes taking back control, but what is obvious given the homogeneity of EU regulatory frameworks is that if it is this way in my industry, it will be the same in others. But let’s wait and see – it’s not as though there’s much else we can do, after all. I have insulated my business from the worst of it by opening offices in three EU countries, and whatever comes next I sincerely hope it all works out well for all of us – however we voted.

You'll need to send it to Carrie Symonds if you want anything to happen.

What we're dealing with here is straightforward deductive reasoning and informal logic, which have nothing to do with emotion. My position is that bringing back capital punishment inevitably raises the prospect of occasionally executing the innocent, and that this is in itself sufficient justification never to reinstate it; Bender's position is either that this is an acceptable trade-off, or that such atrocities can be avoided by the application of 'special tests' that must be met to qualify for the death penalty. His major error of reasoning is what's called the 'Anecdotal Evidence Fallacy'. His position is based almost entirely on his personal experience of a horrendous case in which the accused admitted their guilt, and could thus be considered a safe candidate for the gallows. This isolated case is being extrapolated to the universal, with the admission of guilt seemingly at the core of his 'special test'. It overlooks the fact that in countries such as England that don't have the death penalty, people only admit their guilt in the hope of receiving a more lenient sentence; if capital punishment were to be reinstated and an admission of guilt was the fast-track to the gallows that Bender's position posits, there would no longer be any incentive for the guilty to admit their guilt, and the central column of his 'special test' collapses. His position also ignores the fact that whether he thinks he can spot the genuinely guilty or not, the jury only return a verdict - the sentencing is down to the judge. With no 'special test' judges will have to rely on sentencing guidelines when deciding who gets the death penalty, thereby landing you right back at square one: the fact that the judicial process isn't, never was and never will be infallible, and that reinstating capital punishment inevitably means that sooner or later the innocent will be killed by the State.

Indeed. Trying to get people who are not used to it to think logically is like toilet-training a toddler: You set everything out very carefully, line the important bits up for them so you don't think they can possibly miss, then stand back expectantly, thinking that they're bound to get it this time. And after they've sprayed the place with piss yet again they stand there proudly because they think they've done well. But you take a deep breath and try again next time with no less enthusiasm, because you recognise that being able to use the toilet is a basic life skill. And just like logical thinking, some people get it and some people never do - something to ponder next time you have to paddle through piss in a public lavatory.

I cleave to the belief that if you explain something clearly enough and in simple enough terms, even the dullest intellect is capable of understanding it. But I'm big enough to admit that I was wrong. Mind you, it hasn't been a completely wasted exercise: if I ever decide to build an idiot I'll know where to find a plentiful supply of brains... Happy New Year, you hopeless bunch of retarded Gammons!

OK, so if she admitted it she should automatically be considered for the death penalty. I can see how that might result in slightly fewer people owning up in the dock, but glossing over that for a moment how do we deal with the ones who claim they didn't do it? You appear to be reserving your harshest penalty for the ones who are honest, and either trusting to some infallible (or at least 'within an acceptable margin of error') ability to divine truth with the others, or just hedging your bets and presumably giving them life imprisonment. Is that a fair summation?

I really wouldn't be too sure about that. If the last five years have taught the Tories anything it's that pandering to the basest instincts of the most impenetrably stupid members of society pays off rather well.

Jesus Christ - this is like pulling teeth... Nobody has asked you - even if it were possible - to take responsibility for previous miscarriages of justice. How have you managed to arrive at that conclusion? What I am trying to get you to understand is that there is no way you can have your cake and eat it - in other words, that there is no way you can provide for the execution of the 'genuinely deserving' without simultaneously running the risk of eventually punishing the innocent. You seem to think that this is possible, based on some ability to discern those rare, special cases where the death penalty should be applied. What I am saying is that there are also cases that look exactly like rare, special cases where the death penalty should be applied, but which are nothing of the sort, and sooner or later an innocent person will be executed. Now, unless you believe that you have hit upon some infallible new method of divining truth, as yet unknown to the entire legal profession, then you mustaccept that the same injustices that have gone before will follow. From there you only have two logical positions: either that their wrongful deaths at the hands of the State are acceptable collateral damage, or that you haven't thought your position through very well.

So are you saying there are different levels of 'guilty'? That a guilty verdict from two courts for killing two babies doesn't warrant the death penalty, but a previous conviction for killing another one would? And someone who admitted their guilt would automatically be executed and someone who didn't wouldn't? I'm struggling to detect anything that even vaguely resembles logic in your argument.

Like Sally Clark? You still haven't told us if you would have pulled the lever on her after the Crown Court and the Appeals Court found her guilty...

I hope I haven't done anything to give you the impression that I'm not equal to the challenge.

The point is not that capital punishment fails to punish the guilty, it is that from time to time it also punishes the innocent. Nobody is claiming that DNA evidence would have saved the guy in your trial from the gallows, but you cannot have provision in law for his execution without simultaneously leaving open the possibility of an innocent person being executed as a result of one of those pesky miscarriages of justice you find so irksome. The difference between us is that you think that's a fair price to pay. I do not.

Folks, if that doesn't strike icy cold terror into your hearts, nothing will.

Logic like this coming soon to a jury near you. Be afraid... Apologies @S-Westerly - I'm deliberately being a twat - but phrases like "Incontrovertible DNA evidence" are enough to send a shudder down the spine of any microbiologist.