Today, with Parliament’s third decisive Commons vote on the Leadbeater assisted-dying scheme, MPs finally killed its reincarnated successor by 286 votes to 270.
With that vote, I fear that the language of safeguards, panels and medical procedure will now forever obscure the human being in the bed. Nor will I accept any negative medical voice or mention of the Hippocratic oath from a system that allows doctors to strike to earn £100k+ per annum. Nor the Trust supremos, for whom a terminal “consumer” masks a hundred internal billing opportunities, whilst they scuttle around their maternity units telling us that lessons have been learned.
The supporters of assisted dying simply ask this. If a sane adult is already dying, has perhaps endured the operations, the morphine, the personal indignities and the well-meant assurances of people who will go home afterwards, whose life—and whose death—is it?
The Bill never suggested dispatching the unloved, the elderly or dear Auntie Maud because her nephew wanted her bungalow. The Bill’s aim was that a terminally ill person, expected to live for fewer than six months, should be permitted to choose a peaceful death after examination by two doctors and an independent panel.
Mention was often made of the available palliative care system, but availability isn’t guaranteed, and, however supportive the individual unit, not every pain can be conquered and not every final degradation made tolerable. At present, the very rich have an option to travel to Switzerland; but everyone else must take what fate and the NHS send their way.
I was raised a Catholic; but however lapsed I am, I simply cannot believe that it is morally wrong to be compassionate in the eyes of any God. Compassion is not measured by how long we can compel somebody to endure the inevitable. Sometimes mercy means staying beside a dying person; of allowing them to say "enough."
Parliament today has shown no compassion but has instead been merciless, unkind, and uncaring.
The final day of the St Leger meeting as well as qualifying for the Madrid Grand Prix on Sunday and the Last Night of the Proms tonight. Two of those events tell me that the Flat season is now on its last furlong of the year, with Cheltenham in October just a few weeks away. About Arc time, I shall probably have had enough and be going Huzzah for the Jumps.
Once a fickle tart… as my Nanny used to say as she brought back an old sailor, who needed her restorative attentions.
As regards the Spanish Grand Prix in Madrid, at the new Madring, I simply have this to say. At the moment you can get 4/6 from Betfred that there will be a Red Flag. Sell your children, mortgage the house, trade your Granny on OnlyFans and lump on the easiest 65% ROI for 2½ hours of work you will ever see. If there is a market for how long the race runs from start to finish (including stoppages), buy at 180 minutes. Buy Red Flags at 3. One touch of the wall and it is quite likely that the Safety Car won’t be able to get to the front. Alternatively, take the 1/4 on offer for a Safety Car - that is even more certain. You think me harsh?
George Russell: Described the track as “mental”, adding, “There is less margin here than Monaco”, and later stated, “Without doubt, it is a circuit of very high risk and probably all the drivers were giving that bit of margin today.”
Max Verstappen: Conceded that the new venue is "probably a car killer",
Lewis Hamilton: "It was dusty, super, super dusty. There was zero grip."
Pierre Gasly: “I’ll put my money on a red flag, that’s for sure.”
Talking of the end of days and the proms and of good law, here are the ITV and Donny selections
