IF, as Chris Wrigley says (Letters, July 27), Jack Straw is pandering to the rabble regarding Myra Hindley's continuing incarceration, then count me as one of the rabble and proud of it.

I agree that Hindley has spent too long in jail, but this is due only to the fact that she should have been executed on day one. Then, the ongoing saga (let alone the cost to the taxpayer of her appeals etc) pertaining to her release would never have occurred.

This country is going downhill rapidly, due in no small part to the continuing refusal by successive governments, comprising namby-pamby politicians, to bring back capital and corporal punishment.

Red herrings about government's authority to do this having been taken away by European treaty are just so much bull. They are too frightened to have a public vote on the matter, as they know full well what the result of that vote would be.

The system currently in place, where murderers are returned to the streets, in most cases having served nowhere near what could be construed as a "life" sentence, is a sham. I can already hear the furiously scribbling pens of those misguided individuals who will no doubt respond with bleating and whingeing about innocent people being executed.

No system will ever be completely foolproof, but the risk of a very small number of innocent people being executed is a price worth paying, if that means that all of those who are guilty get what they deserve.

I would be willing to accept the risk that it could happen to me, and almost without exception, the many people with whom I have discussed this issue have said the same.

We are supposed to be living in a democracy, and my understanding of a democracy is the willingness to accept the wishes of the majority. What then, when the majority of citizens want the reintroduction of capital punishment, is the remit of government, which allows them to refuse that democratic right?

MR M VALENTINE, Accrington Road, Blackburn.