Front row seats for the Dally's. A picnic hamper on a sunny day. 'Let 'em dangle'.

Can someone tell me why murdering a police officer is a worse crime than murdering anyone else?

And to the original question, no. It's the 21st Century ffs.

Unfortunately, the scum that did this don't care what century it is.

Because the parents of police officers love their children a little bit more? I see the Chingford Skinhead was quick to muster the rallying call! W@nker. He needs to jump on his bike and ride it sharpish to his nearest crematorium.

There's that. Similarly when people say it should be the death penalty for the murderers of children. Why is a child's life 'worth' more than anyone else's? What age would be the cut off, so to speak, for a murderer to be executed? And so on.

But more widely, if the taking of life is morally and ethically wrong, then why does it become right if the state does it?

A good comment made on TV this morning was to compare the UK to the USA, even taking into account the huge population numerical difference you still can't get around the fact that in a country where the police are armed as a matter of course, and several states have the death penalty, you still see on average 160 police murders each year.

So of course, it fixes everything.

From your wording and avatar can we assume your not a fan of Norm

Apparently a recent survey of 50,000 police officers revealed that over 80% did NOT want to be routinely armed on duty, I think we should leave it to those that have to do the job to have a final say on it.

If a said the only people worthy of the death penalty were them useless fookers who missed at Brighton, would that answer your question?

If it needed answering

No. Nothing I have ever seen, heard or read about will convince me that state-sponsored murder is justified in any way.

Nor does this case support the routine arming of police officers, just to head that one off before we get there.

I agree. It doesn't mean the state should kill people when it has another option. If this guy was killed by police during a shootout believe me I wouldn't shed a tear and would probably feel a little better that scum like him is out of this world. But when someone is in the custody of the state and we have another option, then the state shouldn't kill people.

For morale reasons and also in case the state gets the wrong person.