hanger and flogger

plural hangers and floggers · alternative a hanger and a flogger

1. UKderogatorygovernmentA person who is in favor of severe criminal penalties, especially capital punishment or corporal punishment.

   I am certainly not a hanger and flogger and I hate the occasions when we have to deprive someone of their liberty, but sometimes that has to be done.

   1994 April 25, Joan Seccombe, Baroness Seccombe, “Criminal Justice And Public Order Bill”, in parliamentary debates (House of Lords), column 487

   2 more examples

   Kenneth Clarke yesterday intensified his assault on Iain Duncan Smith when he dismissed his rival for the Tory leadership as a rightwing "hanger and flogger".

   2001 August 30, Nicholas Watt, “Clarke dismisses Tory rival as a 'hanger and flogger'”, in The Guardian

   Later, as shadow home secretary, with her devout Catholicism informing her political positions, she [Ann Widdecombe] had opposed gay marriage, opposed the equalization of the age of consent for men, opposed abortion, but hadn't opposed the death penalty – a hanger and a flogger, she wanted that brought back.

   2019, Louis Theroux, Gotta Get Theroux This: My Life and Strange Times in Television, Pan Macmillan