The Guardian spoke to more than a dozen contemporaries of Farage at Dulwich college, a public school in south London
Healey is now taking questions.
Q: How close are are we to war?
It is Labour that is the party of defence.
Continue reading...Category Archives: Assisted dying
The Kessler Twins sisters Alice and Ellen die together aged 89
German pop duo who last year said their wish was ‘to leave together’ had joint assisted death at their home in Grünwald
Alice and Ellen Kessler, the pop singing sisters who were famous in Europe in the 1960s, especially in Italy where they were credited for bringing glamour to the country’s TV network, have died aged 89.
The identical twins had chosen to have a joint assisted death at their home in Grünwald, close to Munich, on Monday, said Wega Wetzel, a spokesperson for Deutsche Gesellschaft für Humanes Sterben (DGHS), a Berlin-based assisted dying association.
Continue reading...Assisted dying bill gets second reading in Lords, but with peers also setting up select committee to review it – as it happened
Committee to conclude review of bill by 7 November. This live blog is closed
The UK is preparing to recognise the state of Palestine imminently, after Israel failed to meet conditions that would have postponed the historic step, including a ceasefire in Gaza, Patrick Wintour reports.
YouGov has relased polling today suggesting that Britons are in favour of this by more than two to one, although a large minority of people do not have a view.
Continue reading...Hospices ‘on the brink’ financially if assisted dying is legalised
As House of Lords prepares to debate bill, Hospice UK says sector needs adequate funding for end-of-life care
Hospices are “on the brink” and two in five are making cuts this year despite the importance of end-of-life care if assisted dying becomes legal, the sector has warned before the first House of Lords debate on the legislation.
Hospice UK, which represents the sector, said many were financially struggling and still “in the dark” about how funding for end-of-life care will be improved when assisted dying legislation is passed.
Continue reading...Church must ‘turn back’ public opinion on assisted dying, says archbishop
Stephen Cottrell tells General Synod assisted dying means assuming ‘authority over death that belongs to God alone’
Members of the Church of England should work to “withstand and even turn back” the forces of public opinion “that risk making … assisted dying a reality in our national life”, the archbishop of York has said.
Speaking to the church’s General Synod on Friday, Stephen Cottrell said permitting assisted dying would change “forever the contract between doctor and patient, pressurising the vulnerable and assuming an authority over death that belongs to God alone”.
Continue reading...Wes Streeting questions affordability of setting up NHS assisted dying service
‘There isn’t a budget for this,’ health secretary says after MPs vote to legalise procedure in England and Wales
Wes Streeting has voiced doubts over whether the NHS can afford to establish an assisted dying service, after MPs passed a bill to legalise the procedure last week.
The health secretary was previously a supporter of assisted dying but switched sides last year, expressing concerns about the ethics of offering such a service before significant improvements could be made to the NHS.
Continue reading...Esther Rantzen hails Commons passage of ‘rigorous and safe’ assisted dying bill
Campaigner, who has terminal cancer, hopes bill will make it past any potential obstacles in the Lords
The assisted dying bill, if it becomes law, will remove the burden of seeing a loved one die in pain, the campaigner Esther Rantzen has said, insisting its backers have got right the balance between helping those who ask for it and protecting vulnerable people.
The terminally ill adults (end of life) bill cleared the Commons with a majority of 23 votes on Friday, but must yet be debated by the Lords before returning to the Commons for consideration of any amendments they may make.
Continue reading...Assisted dying set to become law in England and Wales after MPs pass bill
Terminally ill people with less than six months to live will have right to choose procedure after approval from doctors and panel
Terminally ill people in England and Wales are to be given the right to an assisted death in a historic societal shift that will transform end-of-life care.
After months of argument, MPs narrowly voted in favour of a private member’s bill introduced by Labour’s Kim Leadbeater, which could become law within four years.
Continue reading...Grooming gang survivors tell MPs to stop ‘tug-of-war with vulnerable women’ – UK politics live
Two survivors urged politicians and those without experience of abuse to allow women to shape the investigation
Campaigners from trade unions, voluntary organisations and the Church of Scotland have announced plans for an anti-poverty march to “demand better” from politicians in Scotland, reports the PA news agency.
The campaign, Scotland Demands Better, will culminate in a march in Edinburgh on 25 October, walking from the Scottish parliament, up the Royal Mile and along George IV Bridge to The Meadows.
Change for the better happens when people stand together and demand it. Scotland desperately needs that change.
Too many of us are being cut off from life’s essentials. Too many are frightened of what the future will bring. Too many of us are feeling tired, angry, isolated, and disillusioned.
Air pollution remains the most important environmental threat to health, with impacts throughout the life course.
It is an area of health where the UK has made substantial progress in the last three decades, with concentrations of many of the main pollutants falling rapidly, but it remains a major cause of chronic ill health as well as premature mortality.
Continue reading...Two more Labour MPs suggest they could vote against assisted dying bill
Andrew Gwynne and Paul Foster express concerns about safeguards as growing number of MPs change stance on bill
Two more Labour MPs have expressed significant doubts about the assisted dying bill, suggesting they would now oppose the legislation.
The former health minister Andrew Gwynne, who previously abstained, wrote to his constituents in Gorton and Denton to say: “To date I don’t think that the bill has been strengthened enough and that safeguards should go much further.”
Continue reading...France’s National Assembly votes in favour of legalising assisted dying
Bill passed by lower house 305-199, backed by centrist MPs and leftwing parties while most on right opposed it
France’s parliament has voted in favour of a bill to legalise assisted dying, paving the way for caregivers to help patients end their lives under what campaigners say would still be some of the strictest conditions in Europe.
After a sometimes emotional session, deputies passed the first reading of the bill by a vote of 305 to 199. They also unanimously backed a less contentious law establishing a right to palliative care in specialist end-of-life institutions.
Continue reading...Doctor criticises ‘lightweight’ assessment of impact of assisted dying
Palliative care consultant says insufficient consideration given to how disadvantaged communities may be affected
Ministers have not adequately considered how assisted dying would affect disadvantaged communities, a palliative care doctor and clinical academic has said.
Bradford-based Jamilla Hussain said the equality impact assessment for the assisted dying bill was “lightweight”, and her own research had highlighted concerns that had not been reflected in the document.
Continue reading...MPs opposed to assisted dying criticise ‘distasteful’ Esther Rantzen claims
Objections raised to Rantzen’s accusation of ‘undeclared religious beliefs’ in five-hour Commons debate
MPs opposed to assisted dying have criticised “distasteful” claims from the prominent campaigner Esther Rantzen, who argued many are fighting against the changes to the law because of secret religious views.
Rantzen made the remarks in a letter urging MPs to back the “strong, safe, carefully considered bill” to legalise assisted dying in England and Wales.
Continue reading...Rantzen accused of being ‘disrespectful’ as MPs debate assisted dying bill – UK politics live
About 150 changes have been made to the bill since MPs voted on it last year
One of the amendments to the bill being debated today has been tabled by the Labour MP Naz Shah, who voted against the bill at second reading. Her amendment 14 would tighten the bill so that anyone not terminally ill cannot qualify as terminally ill (meaning they can use assisted dying) “by voluntarily stopping eating or drinking or both”.
In her speech Leadbeater said that she could understand the concerns behind Shah’s amendment, but that she thought the risk of anyone being able to qualify for assisted dying as a result of anorexia was “negligible”. She said:
Not only would someone with severe anorexia be highly unlikely to be assessed to have capacity to make a decision about assisted dying, the other tragic reality is that if a patient was so ill as a result of not eating and drinking for whatever reason, they would die before the process of assisted dying would be able to take place.
I know that some people have expressed concerns that the severe physical consequences of a decision to stop eating or drinking could still enable someone to claim eligibility for assisted dying when otherwise they would not be able to do so, and I believe that is the motivation behind this amendment … As I’ve set out, I think that risk is negligible.
The Royal College of Psychiatrists have stated that they do not feel at the moment in time there are sufficient psychiatrists who would be able to deliver that position on such a panel. What response does the member have to that?
Continue reading...More protections have been added to assisted dying bill, says Kim Leadbeater
MP behind bill for England and Wales says changes being debated in parliament on Friday will make it stronger
The bill to legalise assisted dying for terminally ill people in England and Wales will be strengthened and made more workable by proposed changes, Kim Leadbeater, the MP behind the legislation, has said.
As the House of Commons prepared to debate amendments, Leadbeater said fresh protections had been introduced to allow a further check on applications for assisted dying, and ensure doctors and others were able to opt out of involvement in the process.
Continue reading...Give terminally ill people choice in how they die, MSP urges Scottish parliament
Liam McArthur opens debate on assisted dying, saying too many face ‘horrendous choices and bad deaths’
Scottish politicians have been urged to show terminally ill people compassion and choice in how they die as they began to debate a new law to permit assisted dying.
Liam McArthur, a Scottish Liberal Democrat MP, said too many dying people faced “horrendous choices and bad deaths”, including unregulated suicides or prolonged trauma because they were denied the right to an assisted death.
Continue reading...Assisted dying vote delayed by three weeks to give MPs time to consider changes
Kim Leadbeater says she is ‘absolutely confident’ postponement will not delay legislation reaching royal assent
The next vote on legislation to introduce assisted dying in England and Wales has been delayed by three weeks to give MPs on all sides more time to consider its changes, the MP leading the issue has said.
The bill, which has undergone a significant number of changes since the initial vote in November, will now return to the Commons on 16 May, instead of 25 April, for its report stage and votes if time allows.
Continue reading...Starmer ‘not telling truth’ over Gaza family asylum decision, claims Badenoch, after PMQs clash – as it happened
Opposition leader says PM was wrong when he said that the decision was taken under the last government
After PMQs there will be an urgent question in the Commons, tabled by the Lib Dem MP Christine Jardine, on “the potential security implications of the involvement of Chinese companies including Mingyang in energy infrastructure projects”. After that Dan Jarvis, the security minister, will make a statement to mark the publication of the report into Prevent’s dealings with Ali Harbi Ali, the man who killed the Conservative MP David Amess.
Sir Mark Rowley, the Metropolitan police commissioner, has blamed Home Office foot-dragging for a failure to change the rules to allow forces to sack officers who fail vetting procedures, Matthew Weaver reports.
Continue reading...Assisted dying bill has lost Commons majority now high court signoff abandoned, says MP – UK politics live
Danny Kruger says those who backed the bill did so under false premise after change to safeguards announced
There will be two urgent questions after 12.30pm: on the Clonoe inquest, which found that the SAS acted unlawfully when they killed four IRA terrorists in an ambush in 1992; and then another on the US steel tariffs.
A Northern Ireland Office minister will respond to the first, and a business minister will respond to the second.
Continue reading...Rachel Reeves says cabinet ‘united’ in backing Heathrow third runway plan – UK politics live
Chancellor says she has support of cabinet as climate minister Ed Miliband reported to be sceptical over Heathrow plans
Richard Madeley goes next.
Q: The Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary says you are wrong, and the third runway won’t be built until you are 70. You are 45 now. Why is he wrong?
We’re signing off decisions on wind farms, on solar farms, a commitment to a new stadium at Old Trafford. We are upgrading the Transpennine route to make journey times easier between York and Manchester via Leeds and Huddersfield. Those things are happening right now.
Continue reading...