Dan Hitchens

Death, somehow, seems like the wrong word. So Canada’s euthanasia doctors have adopted other terms for what they offer: each lethal injection is called a “provision.” Stefanie Green, a Vancouver Island doctor who used to work in maternity services, prefers “delivery.” Canada has sleepwalked into a moral maze with no exit, where euthanasia becomes a solution for social problems Since Canada’s parliament introduced euthanasia in 2016, a new vocabulary has arisen. Those with a terminal illness, whose death is “reasonably foreseeable” are “Track 1”; those who have no such diagnosis but qualify through “grievous and irremediable” conditions are “Track 2.

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, homosexuality and the death penalty. One difference is that those bills cleared the Commons with huge, commanding majorities. This bill was dragged over the finish line by a very small margin – just 23 votes – and amid a stream of defections from yes to no. In the seven months since the Commons first debated it, the bill's margin of support has more than halved, to the point where it has now lost its absolute Commons majority.

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 that applicants met the threshold of the Mental Capacity Act. There’s just one problem. The psychiatrists themselves appear to think Leadbeater’s bill is a dangerous mess.I’m paraphrasing, of course. But last night’s statement from the Royal College of Psychiatrists, in which they identified nine major problems with the legislation and said they ‘cannot support’ it, is a major blow to the bill’s credibility.

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 plight. The year before, in Liverpool, 200 men interrupted the two minutes’ silence with shouts of ‘Anybody want to buy a medal?’ and ‘What we want is food, not prayers!’ In the 70s and 80s, more disturbingly, it was the far right who occupied the headlines. The National Front made its Remembrance Sunday march into its big national event.