BBC Radio 4 listeners back illiberal proposal
Listeners to the BBC Radio Four’s Today programme back the right to defend homes by “any means” necessary.
A total of 26,000 people voted in the “Listeners’ Law” poll, choosing among five shortlisted proposals.
A total of 37 per cent of voters backed plans to allow homeowners “to use any means to defend their home from intruders.”
Labour MP for Ealing North Stephen Pound had pledged to push the winning proposal through Parliament in a Private Members Bill but was taken aback by the result.
He denounced the consensus among voters as “ludicrous, brutal, unworkable blood-stained piece of legislation.
“The people have spoken, the bastards!” Mr Pound said, who was billed as the People’s Champion by the radio show.
Mr Pound told The Independent newspaper: “We are going to have to re-evaluate the listenership of Radio 4. I would have expected this result if there had been a poll in The Sun. Do we really want a law that says you can slaughter anyone who climbs in your window?”
Critics say supporters of Tony Martin, the farmer who was imprisoned for wounding a burglar and killing his 16 year old accomplice at his Norfolk home in 1999, were behind the late surge in voting for the controversial measure.
Other ideas mooted included a mandatory obligation to allow organs to be used for transplant after death, unless specified otherwise.
Other shortlisted ideas included a law banning all Christmas advertising and the erection of municipal street decorations before Dec 1, which won five per cent of the vote.
Listeners also wanted to limit a Prime Minister’s stay in office to two terms and make it compulsory to vote in general elections.
A law banning smoking in all work places claimed a fifth of the vote.
Mr Martin told the Today programme yesterday: “It is heinously wrong that you should actually live in fear in your home that if somebody breaks in you are going to have the law jump down on you, it’s just not right.”
He was released from jail last summer after serving two thirds of a five-year sentence.
