I remember that particularly, because Bernard Hollowood was a convinced socialist and was cockahoop that at last a left-wing government was coming in. It seems hard to imagine now, but Harold Wilson was seen then as bringing the same kind of fresh air into Downing Street as Tony Blair is now. I am not sure if he was seen as young and fresh-faced – after all, he had been kicking around Westminster since the 1940s – but he was certainly seen as a new broom and all that kind of thing. This was somewhere about the time that Alec Douglas-Home was leaving office and Harold Wilson was entering No 10. Well, I don’t suppose many people were aware of him then, and I wouldn’t have been aware of him either if he had not been editor of Punch at the time I joined the staff, and as he was my boss, it seemed only tactful to be aware of him. But the fact that opinion polls in Texas are evenly divided over Karla Tucker’s fate could be the start of something.

Let us hope that more and more Americans will come to realise that, if it is wrong to execute her because she is a God-fearing woman, then it is wrong to execute anybody.. I don’t suppose many now people remember the name of Bernard Hollowood, who was editor of Punch after Malcolm Muggeridge. If religious right-wingers in America can see the argument for mercy in the case of what seems like genuine remorse and rehabilitation, then perhaps there is hope. Tucker has been a model prisoner, helping fellow inmates with drugs problems, and Mr Robertson says that because she has been born again, God must have forgiven her.It is too optimistic to hope that this principle might soon be applied more widely.

In the days of “old” feminism, this might have been condemned as part of the ideology of patriarchy: today the point has been made. Being polite to women is one thing; treating them differently has to be justified in each case.And there is no reason for treating Tucker differently from male murderers, many of whom have suffered worse discrimination on grounds of the colour of their skin than she may have done on grounds of her sex.But the other reason why conservatives have taken up Karla Tucker’s case is because she has converted to fundamentalist Christianity. Although there would be a respectable argument for that, and the symbolic masculinity of that Harley Davidson in her sitting room almost invites academic feminist commentary.The conservative support for Tucker is not just because she is a woman, although that is a large part of it. The religious right’s one-time presidential hopeful, Pat Robertson, pleaded with Governor Bush on 60 Minutes, saying that if he “lets this sweet woman of God die, he’s a man who shows no mercy”.To which all opponents of the death penalty should respond “Amen”- if not “Hallelujah”.