Quite possibly. He could have gone the Coulson/Blair/Murdoch jnr route: I don't recall.

Although not a death-penalty advocater, if I was a parent of one of the many teenage innocents he slaughtered, I'd want my ten minutes locked in a cell with him, to forever wipe out that courtroom smirk he wore this morning!

Yup. I think it's the loony bin for this one judging by what he's having to say in court this morning (Tibet, Tolouse, Enoch Powell, Hitler, Sitting Bull). Interesting that Norway only has a 21 year maximum prison sentencing policy and that only 16% of the Norwegian public would want him to be given the death penalty.

Yeah, right. When Mr Breivik is potted, I wish I could get a bet on that he will never get out of jail. But he won't. (They'll keep adding 5 year stretches on). I accept that [iin theory[/i he could be released, but given his stated views and philosophy, he is never going to be deemed anything but a mortal danger to Norwegian citizens, and so trust me, he'll be in the clink till he shuffles off his mortal coil

Oh, I don't disagree....His mortal coil wouldn't last very long if he ever walked this earth a free man. I would doubt South America to be a safe option nowadays, unlike in the days of his bygone hero's.

And Hussein's as well.

What always strikes me is how stoic and dignified other nations are in the face of true national tragedy. The Japanese after the tsunami that killed thousands. The mass murder of tens of teenagers in a small populated country....I suppose the closest we came was when our 'Princess of Hearts' died in that Parisian underpass.

That was anything other than stoic

Shall I take my tongue out of my cheek?

Always dangerous to write off politically motivated offenders. I mean, Hitler didn't do too bad for himself after being tossed into jail over the Munich Beer Hall Putsch (bear in mind that he was facing a twenty year stretch until the very last minute).



Breivik is an odious individual. But societies and cultures change. Today he's viewed as a murderer. Tomorrow he could be a saint.

He himself says something similar in his manefesto

Given the constant media obsession with creating a self-fulfilling prophecy of ethnic division and the widespread drift to right wing politics we're seeing throughout the West I think there's a distinct possibility that Breivik will increasingly be viewed as some weird kind of heroic cultural conservative who was ahead of the curve.

Swap Breivik's name in that paragraph for Dally and then it all makes sense.....





Hasn't our favourite doom-monger been on a similar wavelength to the nutty Norweigian??.....(Well, obviously Dally was never going to go on a mad killing spree, but apart from that, they seem to share similar views on the future of Europe).....

If he killed the immigrants then he might have been held as some kind of hero to some but I don't think that many of even the most extreme of the extremists could have much sympathy at all with him.

Didn't some neo-Nazi groups distance themselves from him ?

I don't think it's the likely outcome. But I certainly wouldn't rule it out.



People throughout history have always been bedazzled by ideologues who act in service of some political goal without any fear of punishment at the hands of established authority. It conjures up all kinds of parallels with classical heroic myths and taps into qualities of character we like to aspire to but rarely achieve (the ability to act in a purely uncompromising manner - which is the basis for half the output of Hollywood - from "Dirty Harry" to "The Hurt Locker"icon_wink.gif.



I think society is particularly susceptible to the dubious attractions of a character like Breivik because there are seemingly so few people these days willing to stick their necks out and make a stand on, well, anything. Roll the clock back a hundred years and Belief was not in short supply. Belief in religion. Belief in science. Belief in the impending socialist revolution. Belief in a new united Germany etc. etc. Sure, many of these beliefs were unfounded, amounted to little or in some cases were lethally counter-productive. But they were there and people were passionate about them. Since then Belief has seemingly been brought to its knees by a corrosive mixture of moral relativism, cynicism, sophistry etc. leaving not much more than the Cult of Me.



I'm not saying the bulk of society is teetering on the edge of condoning Breivik's actions. But I suspect there will be a portion who admire his risking everything for a cause without admiring the cause or the methods. If that makes sense.

I think you're vastly overestimating the likelihood of Brevik ever being seen as anything other than a murderous psycopath by the vast majority of Norwegians. Once his trial is over the oxygen of publicity will be removed, and he'll start to age and look anything but the gallant defender of the Aryan race. I doubt he'll ever be more than a magnet to anyone other than the already lunatic fringe.



Charlie Manson attracted admirers despite his racism and murderous intent. He had a lot of supporters who mistakenly thought he was some kind of misunderstood hippie. But what people are attracted to is the 1969 version of Manson and his soundbites - not the 74-year old gibbering loon that he is today. Had he been executed (he originally got the death penalty before California repealed it) he'd be far more of a cult icon than he already is. The sort of opposite of Che Guevera - who had he lived would probably be seen as more of a buffoon than pinup boy.



I expect Breivik will fairly soon go down the same route, but much faster than the far more charismatic Manson. After all, if you're attracted by Nazi-style ideology, why follow a guy who killed less than a hundred people when you can follow someone who killed millions?

Which part of "I don't think it's the likely outcome" did you not understand?

What you said was:





BR probably reads that in a similar way to me: you don't think it's likely; but you not only would not rule it out (which would I suppose cover an "it's a remote possibility" scenario); you prefaced it with the word "certainly" - this considerably firms up your "wouldn't".



So on a scale of "how likely", the impression you gave me is you think the chances of that outcome might be around 3/10. Which i would agree is vastly overestimating it. IMHO of course.

I would 'entirely rule out' the chances of him every being glorified by anyone other than already disturbed people and those who are determined to 'shock' everyone else some way or another.

You're entitled to your impressions. Just as you are entitled to inject your definitions into my words and then argue that they are wrong.

I don't think I've much to add to this othe than to say that you couldn't pay me enough to be Breivik's lawyer.

Is that because you'd have to deal with him personally, or because your job would be to defend him? I imagine the role of a criminal defence lawyer could often involve trying to defend people they can't stand, and whose actions are horrible. Someone has to do it though.

Both. On a personal level I find his political views abhorrent, and on a higher level I couldn't defend someone with those views. I know what a defence lawyer is expected to do but Breivik is completely undefendable to me.

The lawyers are defending the process of law, whatever he's done he has to be processed correctly. I suspect that Norwegian prisons are actually relatively plush compared to most and he's expecting to put his feet up and spend the next however long spouting crap and writing important letters etc. and having eager journos fighting over the rights to his exclusive ramblings. Here's an idea - prisoner exchange with North Korea? They can have him and Norway can cough up the 50 Euros needed to keep him for the next 100 years.