Lee Anderson – 2023 Comments on Capital Punishment

The comments made by Lee Anderson, the Conservative MP for Ashfield, in the Spectator on 9 February 2023.

Another topic of concern is crime: would Anderson support the return of the death penalty? ‘Yes. Nobody has ever committed a crime after being executed. You know that, don’t you? 100 per cent success rate.’ He pauses. ‘Now I’d be very careful on that one because you’ll get the certain groups saying: “You can never prove it.” Well, you can prove it if they have videoed it and are on camera – like the Lee Rigby killers. I mean: they should have gone, same week. I don’t want to pay for these people.’ He has his own experiences with crime to share, having received ‘a couple of death threats’ which are being investigated by the police, and an attempt at blackmail, too. ‘I don’t know what they’re blackmailing me over, I just passed it straight to the police.’