In dealing with proposals to abolish or restrict capital punishment, the Labor government has looked like a comedian tangled up in flypaper. The House of Lords and the plain people (69% of them, according to an opinion poll) want hanging kept as the penalty for murder. A majority in the Laborite House of Commons wants it abolished.
The Lords rejected one House of Commons scheme abolishing the noose for five years (TIME, June 14). So, last fortnight, the House of Commons proposed a "compromise" amendment. It divided murder into two categories, the first punishable by hanging, the second by...
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