Perhaps I'm getting old. I never thought I'd write this... but I may be in favour of capital punishment.
I think it was Viv Stanshall's Sir Henry Rawlinson who, when asked what he thought of capital punishment, said: "Capital!"
The "Sir Henrys" of the world have always been in favour of stringing them up. But I never have. In any circumstances.
Not until now. The Delhi gang-rape case changed things.
It wasn't a conscious change of mind. I just found myself feeling that the men who committed this unbelievably awful assault on a woman had forfeited their right to live. They deserved to die.
And it isn't even a "rational" change of heart or mind. I'm still against capital punishment — for all the well-rehearsed reasons that any sensible person would be.
But for these men, if it were down to me, I would make an exception.