Canada’s assisted suicide laws are out of control
The country has sleepwalked into a moral maze with no exit
Dan Hitchens
Dan Hitchens is a senior editor at First Things. He is currently co-writing a book about Dr Johnson, and writes The Pineapple Substack.
Tuesday
Thursday
Will assisted dying become a cover for abuse?
From our UK edition
Every year, thousands of stories of abuse pour into Compassion in Care, a charity that supports whistleblowers in the care sector. Volunteers manning the charity’s helpline hear of old people dismissed as ‘end of life’, deprived of food and water, abandoned in corners with neglected bedsores, needlessly sedated to make them less time-consuming. And now,
Saturday
Could the House of Lords block the assisted suicide bill?
From our UK edition
Could the House of Lords block the assisted suicide bill, which was approved by the Commons yesterday? It would be pretty unusual for the Lords to do so. But then nothing about the bill has been usual. Proponents like to compare Kim Leadbeater’s bill to the big private member’s bills of the 60s on abortion,
Thursday
Assisted suicide could destroy the hospice movement
From our UK edition
The hospice movement is one of the great achievements of post-war Britain. Inspired by the doctor Cicely Saunders, who in effect founded the field of palliative care, it has united cutting-edge research with a profound understanding of suffering and how to relieve it. Britain’s hundreds of hospices are Saunders’s legacy. But can that legacy survive
Wednesday
Has the Royal College of Psychiatrists killed the assisted suicide bill?
From our UK edition
How do you make assisted suicide safe? In recent months, a large part of Kim Leadbeater’s answer has been to point to the involvement of psychiatrists. Having a psychiatrist sign off each death, Leadbeater said, would ‘add expertise’. They would be part of a much-touted ‘multidisciplinary’ approach. In particular, they would be able to check
Thursday
Easter special: assisted dying, ‘bunny ebola’ & how do you eat your creme egg?
From our UK edition
34 min listen
This week: should the assisted dying bill be killed off? Six months after Kim Leadbeater MP launched the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, a group of Labour MPs have pronounced it ‘irredeemably flawed and not fit to become law’. They say the most basic aspects of the bill – having gone through its
The assisted suicide bill should not survive
From our UK edition
Until about six months ago, it would have been hard to find a more inoffensive politician than the Labour backbencher Kim Leadbeater. A well-liked, upbeat, down-to-earth Yorkshirewoman, she entered politics because of a personal tragedy, the murder of her sister, the MP Jo Cox, in 2016. When asked on a Spectator podcast what was the
Thursday
The assisted dying bill is becoming a car crash
From our UK edition
Kim Leadbeater has described her assisted suicide bill as ‘potentially one of the most important changes in legislation that we will ever see’. For Leadbeater and her allies, it is an attempt to make the law merciful: to give relief to those who want to control the manner of their death. But there is another,
Friday
Losing faith: will Labour’s VAT policy hit religious schools hardest?
From our UK edition
25 min listen
In this week’s copy of The Spectator, Dan Hitchens argues that a lesser reported aspect of Labour’s decision to impose VAT on private schools is who it could hit hardest: faith schools. Hundreds of independent religious schools charge modest, means-tested fees. Could a hike in costs make these schools unviable? And, with uncertainty about how ideological
Thursday
Religious schools will be hit hardest by Labour’s VAT tax raid
From our UK edition
Imagine the government pledged to introduce a 20 per cent tax rise on ‘bankers’. Then imagine that, when the details were announced, the new tax made no distinction between HSBC executives and lowly bank tellers on £19,000 a year. Furthermore, imagine that the public debate failed to mention the people who were going to suffer
Thursday
The reckoning: it’s payback time for voters
From our UK edition
39 min listen
This week: the reckoning. Our cover piece brings together the political turmoil facing the West this week: Rishi Sunak, Emmanuel Macron, and Joe Biden all face tough tests with their voters. But what’s driving this instability? The Spectator’s economics editor Kate Andrews argues it is less to do with left and right, and more a problem
Does Keir Starmer’s atheism matter?
From our UK edition
Good Friday, 2021, at Jesus House For All Nations church in Brent, north-west London. Face masked, head bowed, hands clasped, Sir Keir Starmer stands alongside Pastor Agu Irukwu. The pastor opens his arms to invoke Almighty God. We hear Starmer in voiceover: ‘From rolling out the vaccine to running the local food bank, Jesus House,
Thursday
Tennis romance that doesn’t contain much tennis: Challengers reviewed
From our UK edition
It sounds straightforward enough: a tennis romance starring Zendaya, idol of the mid-teen demographic and last seen riding a sandworm in Dune: Part Two. She plays Tashi Duncan, a junior player tipped for greatness, who finds herself in a love triangle with two other juniors: spoilt-but-roguish Patrick (Josh O’Connor) and nice-but-needy Art (Mike Faist). You
Thursday
A short history of stained glass
From our UK edition
On 13 December 1643, a Puritan minister called Richard Culmer borrowed the Canterbury town ladder and carefully leaned it against the Cathedral’s Royal Window. He then ascended the ladder’s 60-odd rungs, holding a pike; according to his account, modestly written in the third person, ‘Some people wished he might break his neck.’ Culmer had in
Sunday
Remembrance Day protests through the ages
From our UK edition
It’s not the first time that protesters have intruded on Remembrance Day. But this time feels different. In the 20s, the protests were against the poverty and inequality of the era. On Armistice Day in 1922, 25,000 unemployed ex-servicemen marched past the Cenotaph, wearing their medals next to tickets from pawn shops to indicate their
Thursday
New world disorder
From our UK edition
38 min listen
On the podcast: In The Spectator’s cover piece Jonathan Spyer writes that as America’s role in international security diminishes history is moving Iran’s way, with political Islam now commanding much of the Middle East. He is joined by Ravi Agrawal, editor in chief of Foreign Policy and host of the FP Live podcast, to discuss whether America is still the world’s
Wednesday
How the Georgians invented nightlife
From our UK edition
Modern nightlife was invented in London around 1700. So argued the historian Wolfgang Schivelbusch, who traced this revolution in city life to its origins in court culture. Medieval and Renaissance courts held their festivities while it was still light outside, but by the late 17th century, aristocrats preferred to party after dark. The trend was
Wednesday
A great subject squandered: Golda reviewed
From our UK edition
Born in Tsarist Kyiv in 1898, Golda Meir grew up with what she called a ‘pogrom complex’. That perhaps explained why later, as Israeli prime minister, she had such harsh words for Palestinians and Arabs. But then she had harsh words for a lot of people. Moses, she complained, ‘took us 40 years through the
Saturday
Matthew Parris, Dan Hitchens and Leah McLaren
From our UK edition
23 min listen
Matthew Parris, just back from Australia, shares his thoughts on the upcoming referendum on the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice (01:08). Dan Hitchens looks at church congregations and wonders why some are on the up, while others are in a spiral of decline (08:32), and Leah McLaren describes the delights of audio and tells
Thursday
Italy’s new wave: Europe’s escalating migrant crisis
From our UK edition
45 min listen
This week: Christopher Caldwell writes The Spectator’s cover piece on Italy’s new wave of migrants. This is in light of the situation in Lampedusa which he argues could upend European politics. Chris joins the podcast alongside Amy Kazmin, Rome correspondent at the Financial Times, to debate Europe’s escalating migrant crisis. (01:23) Also this week: In his column, Matthew Parris
