The assisted dying vote was reported at half past two. ‘Unlock!’ said Speaker Hoyle, and his voice went all strangulated. Had someone slipped Mr Speaker a lethal dose?
It was that sort of a day. Jangling. Something ominous in the air.
And possibly soon in your veins.
Four hours’ talk of death made for an incongruous Friday this flaming June. Outside, the blessings of creation twinkled under a blue sky.
Inside the chamber, MPs anguished over death-bed agonies and the prospect, some feared, of disabled or anorexic patients being hastened to their Maker.
The state would now ‘exercise power over life and death’, said Tom Tugendhat (Con, Tonbridge). Supporters of the Bill heckled him. But he was only reflecting the reality if this Bill is passed by the Lords.
The Upper House may disagree. The majority of 23 felt slender. Brexit had a majority of over a million and the Lords did its best to kibosh that.
Chi Onwurah (Lab, Newcastle C) noted that private companies, as well as the state, would now be able ‘to kill citizens’.
My dears, we’re going private for Grandpa. So much quicker, and they’ll play Vivaldi’s Four Seasons to muffle the sound of his death rattle.
People react after Britain’s parliament voted in favour of a bill to legalise assisted dying on June 20
Labour MP Kim Leadbeater makes a statement in the House of Commons, London, on the third reading of the assisted dying Bill
Ms Onwurah’s was one of three or four speeches that appeared to start with one position and concluded with the opposite. The debate drifted like seaweed.
A strong speech for choice from Kit Malthouse (Con, NW Hants) would be balanced by an affecting plea from Jen Craft (Lab, Thurrock) to think of pressure being placed on disabled people. Ms Craft has a daughter with Down’s syndrome.
Kim Leadbeater (Lab, Spen Valley) was her usual chirpy self as she moved her private Bill. She bounced about, grinned exhaustingly and said ‘this is a robust process!’ and ‘take back control of your dying days!’ Death by exclamation mark.
There was a dissonance between her bleak obsession and this Butlin’s redcoat persona. Ken Dodd playing an undertaker.
One eloquent supporter of her Bill was Peter Prinsley (Lab, Bury St Edmunds), a doctor with 45 years’ experience. He and John McDonnell (Ind, Hayes & Harlington) lent welcome age to that side of the argument.
Others throbbed with the certitude of youth and, one fears, the naivety of new MPs yet to learn how officialdom mangles noble legislative intent.
A former NHS manager, Lewis Atkinson (Lab, Sunderland C), insisted hospitals would cope. They always say that. More persuasive support for the Bill came from an intensive-care nurse, Sittingbourne’s Kevin McKenna. He had trust in doctors. Do you? After so many NHS scandals?
‘I wouldn’t put my life, or the life of someone dear to me, in the hands of a panel of officials,’ grunted Diane Abbott (Lab, Hackney N). Three times she spoke of ‘the vulnerable and marginalised’.
Picture shows Esther Rantzen daughter Rebecca Wilcox talks to her mother after the vote
Screen grab of the result of the vote on the bill being read out in parliament
But Hanover-born Wera Hobhouse (Lib Dem, Bath) was indignant that constituents had told her that MPs were too stupid to care for the vulnerable. ‘Ve haf to educate people!’ fulminated Frau Hobhouse.
Sarah Olney (Lib Dem, Richmond Park), shouting like a Sergeant Major, attacked the Bill’s workability. Her colleague Luke
Taylor (Sutton & Cheam), not the nimblest of orators, gripped a text of his speech tightly with his thick fingers and deplored ‘the status crow’. It was a matter of ‘how one might exit this earthly realm’, he averred, more Mr Pooter than John Betjeman.
James Cleverly, in the Man From Del Monte’s suit, kept touching his heart as he feared money would be diverted from elsewhere in the NHS. We kept hearing the term ‘a fundamental change’. When relations were bumped off, would suspicion be seeded? Mark Garnier (Con, Wyre Forest) was pro the Bill but admitted: ‘I’m not the world’s greatest legislator.’ Oh.
The most troubling speech came from a vet, Neil Hudson (Con, Epping Forest).
Having killed many animals, he reported that ‘the final act doesn’t always go smoothly or according to plan’.
He ‘shuddered to think’ what would happen when an assisted death turned messy.
