MP calls Radio 4 listeners 'bastards' over vigilante vote

[DoNotRefill]

"It was trailed as a "unique chance to rewrite the law of the land". Listeners to BBC Radio 4's Today programme were asked to suggest a piece of legislation to improve life in Britain, with the promise that an MP would then attempt to get it onto the statute books.

But yesterday, 26,000 votes later, the winning proposal was denounced as a "ludicrous, brutal, unworkable blood-stained piece of legislation" - by Stephen Pound, the very MP whose job it is to try to push it through Parliament.

Mr Pound's reaction was provoked by the news that the winner of Today's "Listeners' Law" poll was a plan to allow homeowners "to use any means to defend their home from intruders" - a prospect that could see householders free to kill burglars, without question.

"The people have spoken," the Labour MP replied to the programme, "... the bastards.""

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/media/story.jsp?story=477413

[legin]

1. Snicker...

Stupid fucking Labour and their stupid fucking 'Consultation Exercises'. :grr:

[legin]

2. Or to be more accurate

Consultation Exercise = squalid little PR stunt.

[muriel_volestrangler]

5. This wasn't a Labour PR stunt

it was the BBC. The programme normally has some listeners' vote to end the year, and this was 2003's idea.

[david_vincent]

3. I completely support the "bastards"

This is all a result of cases in which law abiding citizens have been jailed for defending their homes, their property, and their lives. Tony Martin, a farmer who shot a burglar to death, is rotting in a prison because of laws so asinine that not even the British can tolerate them.

[DoNotRefill]

4. He's out now.

and supposedly has a 50,000 pound bounty placed on his head by the family of the dead robber.

[muriel_volestrangler]

6. many of us tolerate the laws quite happily

we think that shooting an unarmed boy in the back is illegal. It is, and ought to remain so. Martin wasn't law abiding - he'd already been banned from owning the gun.

[RUexperienced]

8. Wasn't law abiding?

Good for him. He is a hero. England is becoming a fascist state.

To label him a law-breaker because he owned a gun is like labeling some germans in wwII the same for hiding Jews, reading certain books or failing to salute Hitler.

[muriel_volestrangler]

11. He had his licence revoked because of what he had done

Despite claims by Martin's friends and his mother that he hated shooting, he was involved in a number of incidents with guns. In June 1976, the farmer is alleged to have gone to a friend's house in some distress and brandished a first world war revolver: a shot was fired and a pigeon killed. In December 1987 he had an argument at his brother's house over some property. Martin is said to have got very upset and used a shotgun to smash windows.

In 1994 he had his shotgun certificate revoked after he found a man scrumping for apples in his orchard and shot a hole in the back of his vehicle. After the shooting of Fred Barras and Brendan Fearon, police recovered an old rusty shotgun from Martin's garage: another gun he should not have had without a shotgun certificate. The guns, Martin said, were for shooting pigeons.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,212177,00.html

Normal people are allowed to own shotguns. Martin was not.

[Voltaire99]

7. Bastards will be bastards

But how often do you find a pol courageous enough to say as much?

[RUexperienced]

9. There is still ten months left

for Dean to call somebody a bastard.

[0007]

10. Bastard is a strong word.

I think "bugger" is more appropriate!

[T_i_B]

12. I will agree with Pound on this much

He said it was "the sort of idea somebody comes up with in a bar on a Saturday night between 'string 'em all up' and 'send 'em all all home'".

I remember hearing the Radio 4 poll and that was the idea that stood out. A prime example of right wing lunacy of the sort I hear all the time down in deepest darkest tory Essex.

Radio 4 did a "personality of the year" but had to stop that one due to the constant attempts by political parties to rig it.