The readers have spoken as to whether Kieren McCarthy should spend an afternoon in the stocks as punishment for alleged rigging of his Gharlane of Eddore poll and subsequent result.

The results of our own online poll have been collated and the Reg readers have come out unanimously in favour of peine forte et dure:

Indifferent: 565
No: 159
Yes: 18,422

True, 16,839 of the votes consigning Kieren to the stocks were from a single IP address, but we're not going to quibble over minor details. Accordingly, the young ne'erdowell will spend the rest of the afternoon in the Maddox Street stocks. Suffice it to say, the prospect of being pelted with rotten fruit by baying French tourists and drunken suits will doubtless put him in a suitably repentant frame of mind.