In his interview with Andrew Rutherford, Lord Bingham once more repeats his enthusiasm for the end of the mandatory life sentence for murder (see p 725).

It is a call the Government seemingly does not wish to heed.

It has, after all, a Criminal Justice Bill going forward at the moment to which the necessary clauses could be attached.

There are plenty of precedents for major revisions of the criminal law to appear under such titles as The Criminal Law Amendment Act.Just what are the arguments against a more flexible approach to sentencing? The first seems to be the old atavistic belief that th e defendant is "getting away with murder".

There are plenty of examples of this attitude in the comments made by relatives, campaigners and newspapers in respect of death and drink driving sentencing.

Anything less than the maximum brings forward a volley of criticism for the trial judge.

In murder cases, this phenomenon will be all the more in evidence.We recall in the Sutcliffe case when the then Attorney-General for a moment accepted a plea of manslaughter before withering in the face of judicial wrath.

People were saying of the defendant "He's got away with it" even though there was little chance that he would ever be released, whether from prison or a secure mental hospital.

Murder is still a charismatic word in the vocabulary.Only education will change the attitude of the public.

Most murders in this country could be described as cases of grievous bodily harm which have gone wrong.

In reality, of course, life does not generally mean more than around eleven years -- the time a major drug smuggler would actually serve.

Of course a decade or more down the line the public in general will have forgotten about the killing and, of those who remember, only a handful have anything more than a passing interest.

It is the immediacy which counts.Flexibility in sentencing would take something of the Russian Roulette out of the present murder trial.

It might, however, encourage more pleas of not guilty.

Dr Johnson's comment on the concentration of the mind by a hanging still has some relevance to the life sentence.

We recall a Red Judge at the Old Bailey telling a defendant to reconsider his refusal to plead guilty to manslaughter and warning him that if he went down on the murder charge the sentence would have to be life.

In the event, the defendant took his chance and after an acquittal on the major count received four years.

Undoubtedly, without the sanction of the life sentence, more defendants will follow his example.That, of course, is not necessarily a bad thing.

It has not been unknown for the prosecution to put a murder charge on the indictment to ensure a plea to manslaughter.

In the advent of the indefinite sentence that strategy will be eliminated.Will the removal of the life sentence lead to more crime and more deaths? There was never any real evidence that the removal of the death penalty led to a substantial increase in the murder rate.

It is doubtful whether any future change would have an adverse effect.Then there is the argument that the proper (ie, sufficiently harsh) penalty will not be imposed.

On the contrary, given that only experienced judges will try the cases there should, if anything be greater consistency.

It is, of course, difficult to comment on any individual case without knowing the facts but there does seem to be a considerable variation in the sentences received by men and women convicted of killing their violent and overbearing partners.

Murder here is, by and large, a domestic matter.

It is not as if the hitman, the child torturer, the serial killer will not receive life sentences.In any event there will be the Attorney-General's reference available standing in the way of the ridiculously lenient sentence.

The system works well at present and there is no reason to suppose that the Court of Appeal would have such a rush of blood to the head that it would not work just as well in the event of the discretionary sentence.