"if there were frequent referenda; we'd soon have hangings, floggings, rat infested prisons, chain gangs...the lot."
,,,
A bit of an exaggeration I suspect, Doc J; but I take your point. But I think we could benefit from a system whereby issues on which the public has strong views {on receipt of a petition with 10k signatures, say} should obligatorily be put to referendum; and, if carried, would have to be presented to Parliament for decision, with a free vote guaranteed. Something on those lines, anyhow; which would surely not lead to the dire consequences you rubricate above, but would allow those who at present feel entirely disenfranchised because their views on such matters as appropriate penalties for crime are never going to be taken into consideration in any circumstances. They are not necessarily all fools or villains who feel that a society in which multi-murderers are executed and violent criminals flogged is to be preferred to one in which such offenders receive penalties entirely inadequate as expressions of societal revulsion from the gravity of their offences.

~M~