Michael Portillo: How to kill a human being.

Former British MP Michael Portillo has talked to Outlook about a programme he has made for BBC television on the death penalty.

Portillo agreed to undertake 'near-death' experiments in order to ascertain which is the most humane form of execution.

Programme producers first of all simulated a gas chamber in a tent - using the riot control CS gas as a replacement for anything deadly.

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Horizon homepage - Portillo's programme is on January 15

"I was told to breathe deeply," said Portillo, "Which of course is impossible because the body repels noxious gas.

"It is a very very unpleasant sensation to be gassed. Your eyes close over immediately. Your nose fills with mucus. You become pretty disoriented. You find it impossible to speak."

Portillo went on from this experiment to experience hypoxia - where the brain is deprived of oxygen.

This is a condition frequently experienced by fighter pilots: g-forces result in their bodies and blood becoming heavy and blood rushes away from their brains.

"I went into a human centrifuge in the Netherlands and I was spun round very fast as though I was in a spin-drier."

Portillo experienced 9-g which means that his bodyweight increased by 9 times and he experienced the first stages of hypoxia.

Not content with this, he then went on to try out another form of hypoxia - extreme altitude sickness - whereby his blood was deprived of oxygen.

"In this case over about six minutes I became hypoxic. I became increasingly stupid, unable to obey simple instructions - including the instruction to put an oxygen mask on and save my life."

Portillo said that this last experiment was surprisingly pleasurable.

"It's like getting drunk really," he said, "You experience pleasure, lightheadedness and an extraordinary amount of self-confidence."

Portillo was given various simple tests while he was in this hypoxic state.

"I was failing miserably at these tests - getting the questions wrong - but when I came out the other side, I believed that I'd done everything brilliantly. I was euphoric.

"It's pretty clear that by this route people's lives could be ended without them feeling any of the stress that is associated with every other form of capital punishment."

Portillo said that he partly got involved in the programme because he thinks it likely that the lethal injection will soon be declared unconstitutional in the United States and he was amazed that no-one had done much research into the different forms of capital punishment.

In his career as a British MP he voted both for and against the death penalty.

He voted for it in the 1980s before changing his mind in the 1990s - as a result of several miscarriages of justice that were revealed during that decade.

He said that he thought he would probably vote against it now in Britain but respected the United States' decision to continue with it.

"I hoped that there might be common ground in looking for a humane, painless way to do it," he said.

"In fact I satisfied nobody because those who are against the death penalty don't want its image to be cleaned up because they think that this will reduce opposition to the death penalty.

"And some people who are in favour of the death penalty think that it is peverse to look for a euphoric release for people who may have committed very very hideous crimes."

The programme Portillo took part in is called How to Kill a Human Being and is to be shown on BBC2 in the UK on January 15.

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