Rant: If in doubt, revert to capital punishment
10 Aug 2005 by Paul Davies
For a brief moment last week, the Law looked to be getting uncharacteristically exciting.There was talk of treason, which conjures up fantastic images of Guy Fawkes and some of the wittiest methods of execution this side of an American internment camp. Which is all rather fun.
Plans were afoot, we were told, to charge lunatic hate-spouting Imams and the like with the most unpatriotic of crimes, which led to one nutter fleeing the country, although that was apparently to visit his sick mother in Lebanon. Lucky timing, I guess.
Sadly, the enthusiasm was short-lived; it seems England's cricketers had used up all the sustainable excitement just days earlier.
Trouble is, we have too many other laws already: treason just doesn't get a look in these days. Crazy clerics are far more likely to be banged up over some wishy-washy incitement law than strung up from the gallows or burnt at the stake. And technically, capital punishment disappeared for good in 1998, taking yet more pizzazz out of the party.
It all used to be so much more fun.
Under the Treason Act of 1351, anyone who "do violate the king's companion, or the king's eldest daughter unmarried, or the wife of the king's eldest son" was liable to be fried like a pasty English holidaymaker asleep on a beach in Majorca.
Until 1998, it was also still treason to kill a swan, which technically all belong to the Crown. And lest we forget that "severest Penaltys will be suffered by any commoner who doth permit his animal to have carnal knowledge of a pet of the Royal House." So no getting randy with the Corgis, unless, presumably you're not a 'commoner'. Yet another perk of being a bit Upper Class.
This is all a bit of a shame: this country was built on cool laws like the above, and it's somewhat tragic to see them fall so far out of fashion. Treason needs a makeover. It needs reinvigorating and updating for the 21st century.
Thus, capital punishment should be re-introduced for the most serious crimes against Britishness, such as the incorrect use of basic apostrophes, disrespect towards Brian Blessed and being a chav. This should at a sweep relaunch Portsmouth as a nice historic sea-side town, rather than the sweaty armpit of Satan it currently is.
The punishments should get a revamp too. Aside from one or two people being hung, drawn and quartered for old time's sake, and of course the public hanging of John Prescott to get the ball, or rather the head, rolling, executions should be rethought to herald a new era of 'Cool Britannia'.
The extreme Croydon facelift, for example, whereby an offender's hair is pulled back by an industrial vice, until head is severed from tracksuit-clad body. Or boiling people alive who blast Nelly's 'Hot in here' at full volume out of their pimp-mobiles. There's almost unlimited potential.
And what's more, we'd make those unsavoury al-Qaeda types look like bigger and more highly unimaginative pussies than they already are, thus lessening the appeal of martyrdom. All this and entertaining to boot: what more could you want?
