Jabber Wacky: Mercy Killing Fever

You wait ages for a euthanasia Bill and then three come along at once.

First was the 'Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill'introduced on 27 March 2024 by Liam McArthur MSP (Lib Dem). There is no specific limit to the sufferer's expected remaining life: 'a person is terminally ill if they have an advanced and progressive disease, illness or condition from which they are unable to recover and that can reasonably be expected to cause their premature death.' The Bill does not define the term 'premature' but the World Health Organisation seems to be working with age 70 as a marker, outside Africa.

Next was (Labour) Lord Falconer's 'Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults Bill', drawn second of 25 Private Members' Bills (PMB) in the House of Lords and given its first reading on 26 July. It's not clear how many slips were in the red box though the administrator says typically it might have 'say, 100 or so entries in it.' So, a 1 in 4 chance of being pulled out.

Falconer's Bill is narrowly worded and covers cases where the patient is predicted to die within six months. It was to have received its second reading on 15 November but he withdrew it in favour of (Labour) Kim Leadbeater MP's Bill, introduced 16 October, to 'allow adults who are terminally ill, subject to safeguards and protections, to request and be provided with assistance to end their own life.'

Leadbeater's text hasn't yet been published but will be debated on 29 November. Hers was drawn first of the 20 in the Commons PMB ballot (another lucky shot!) but she has been vague about the death prognosis: '6 months, 12 months.'

All three Bills are only for 'adults', which in England and Wales means 18 years old and over, but in Scotland people have full legal capacity at 16. In Belgium and the Netherlands children have already been mercy-killed but for now at least, the British attitude is, to adapt an old saying, 'euthanasia is wasted on the young.' Doubtless we'll catch up with more progressive nations in due course.

All three are predicated on using medically prescribed lethal drugs. The Scottish Health Secretary has said that McArthur's Bill is 'ultra vires' in this respect for the Scottish Government. On the other hand Holyrood's presiding officer has said that she is confident the Bill is indeed within Scotland's powers; and McArthur is 'very confident' that the UK and Scottish governments would work together to ensure it becomes law if backed by MSPs.' Where there's a will…

Despite Dignity In Death's enthusiasm and Dame Esther Rantzen's celebrity endorsement, euthanasia opens up a can of coffin worms. Jack King's book on the subject shows that the medical procedure is not guaranteed to be either swift or painless. If the only consideration is the patient's experience rather than a potentially misleading show for witnesses, a near-instantaneous and absolutely certain method would be a bolt gun to the head, as used to kill cattle.

Also, there is the question of authorisation. Lord Falconer's Bill (section 3 para 4 subsection c) says the patient must show they have 'a clear and settled intention to end their own life which has been reached voluntarily, on an informed basis and without undue influence.' Set a good brief to work on those adjectives, especially what counts as 'undue' influence. Already the Archbishop of Canterbury has warned that a right to die may easily become, in the patient's mind, a 'duty to die.'

And how well 'informed' will the patient have been on pain management, palliative care, hospices? Is there an undeclared official intention to starve these alternatives of funds and make death by doctor the quick 'n' easy solution, a big money-saver for the NHS and Treasury?

Ironically the Right are accused of loving wealth too much, yet some on the Left - like George Bernard Shaw in this 1931 speech - measure the value of individuals in brutally economic terms and are prepared to cull those who have become a burden. Is their real emphasis less on mercy and more on killing?

Published earlier on the Bruges Group blog

FRIDAY MUSIC: Zoe Conway, by JD

Zoë Conway effortlessly combines a background steeped in Ireland’s rich aural music tradition with a strong founding in classical music. She has toured worldwide and has appeared in many prestigious concert halls including Carnegie Hall, New York, The Kremlin Palace, Moscow and The National Concert Hall, Dublin.

Her versatility as an instrumentalist has allowed her to perform across a broad range of genres, from guest soloist with world renowned orchestras, to touring with Riverdance and working with mainstream international acts such as Rodrigo y Gabriella, Damien Rice, Lisa Hannigan, Nick Cave and Lou Reed among others.

She has released two solo albums, Zoë Conway, produced by Bill Whelan, and The Horse’s Tail, both critically acclaimed, and has also released a live DVD, Zoë Conway Live.

https://zoeconway.com/

Zoë Conway and John Mc Intyre - Faoiseamh a Gheobhadsa (I Will Find Solace)

Zoë Conway + John McIntyre - Gillespies Mazurka / The Bakers Reel / The Calgary Polka

Zoe Conway And John Mc Intyre - 'The half moon waltz' suivi de 'The Hangman's reel' - Live

Zoë Conway: Mná na hEireann/Toss the Feathers/The Glen Road to Carrick (Germany, 2016)

Zoë Conway Live (The Drunken Sailor)

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With an exciting blend of eclectic fiddle and guitar music, Zoë Conway and John Mc Intyre bring to the stage sympathetic arrangements of traditional Irish music, compositions and songs, old and new. The husband and wife folk duo possess a rare facility to draw pieces into their repertoire from other genres such as classical, jazz and world music and express this material in way which not only displays the sheer range and knowledge of both instrumentalists but also exhibits the wonderful versatility of their instruments.
http://www.zoeandjohn.com/about.html

Angie rides out – PMQs 23rd October 2024

Angela Rayner fielded the questions today. Facing her for the Opposition was Sir Oliver Dowden, on his last PMQs stint before the new Tory leader takes over. The two gingers were gracious to each other; Rayner said she’d miss him and did the heart sign with her hands.

Although the session was testing as usual, Angie carried her burden lightly, without that sense of embattlement exuded by her boss. It’s a neuro thing: she’s tough, but she’s a normie.

The opening exchanges were on familiar lines, with Labour relying on Starmerite counterattacks, evasions and non-sequiturs. Dowden asked what Labour’s definition of ‘working people’ was; Rayner said it was the people the Tories had failed for fourteen years. Five million small businesses affected? Labour would sort out the mess they had inherited. Wasn’t raising employer NI a job tax and a £5 billion hit to the economy? The new employment bill would raise living standards.

Angie agreed on the value of our relationship with the Commonwealth and the efforts of the King and the late Queen; perhaps there was a deeper significance in the combination of her red hair, white jacket and blue dress? Then she laid into the Conservatives’ past failures and the ‘chaos’ they had left behind. This was old-fashioned Saturday TV wrestling: nothing personal, Oliver. Ding ding!

It was the later rounds that presented more challenges, holds that might be harder to break.

As Kim Leadbeater’s gestating euthanasia Bill slouches towards its November debate, Rachael Maskell raised the issue of palliative care for the terminally ill. Would the deputy PM consider a commission? Rayner praised carers and said discussions had begun – another deflection avoiding expensive commitments. Later, Kim Johnson asked whether hospices should have to rely less on charity; again, this was important, but a matter for further discussion.

Daisy Cooper highlighted the need for more care workers in the coming NHS winter crisis of patients who cannot be discharged without a care plan, and the effect of increased employer NI on the budgets of 18,000 small care providers. As in previous PMQs, the answer combined the aspiration to grow the economy with a reluctance to anticipate the Chancellor’s Budget, due next week.

Monica Harding told us 1,800 Surrey children with special needs (e.g. autism) had no provision; the reply was sympathy and, again, to await the Budget.

As Chancellor, Rachel Reeves has so many circles to square – as does the PM!

Mike Tapp (Labour, Dover) spoke of migrants’ deaths in the Channel; the stock answer was the inherited asylum chaos, the new Border Security Command and the need to target the people smugglers. Unmentioned was the derogation or withdrawal from the ECHR that one of the Tory leadership candidates is touting.

Related, perhaps, was Sir Edward Leigh’s request for an assurance that RAF Scampton could be sold off without being covered with new housing. Odd how a radical government evades certain radical solutions, bearing in mind that our recent population increase is more than entirely due to net immigration, the low wage end of which – as the OBR decided last month – harms our GDP per capita.

Land management also featured in questions from:

• Helen Morgan (inundation of Shropshire farms. Answer: ‘14 years’, etc., plans to improve flood defences);
• Blake Stephenson (risk of building on flood plains. Answer: commitment to build 1.5 million new homes, need for better infrastructure);
• Sir John Hayes (Grade 1 and 2 farmland threatened by giant pylons and solar panels – food and energy production in conflict. Answer: both important and “we will get Britain building again”.)

Rayner remained confident – bullish – but Labour is beginning to look like the proverbial chameleon placed on a tartan cloth.

Reposted from Wolves of Westminster

WEEKENDER: Energy, by Wiggia

Why is it that so many of the promoters of green policies and in particular purveyors of climate change are so stereotypical in the way they speak and promote their ideology? The examples below are typical and now we have the Edstone in charge of the nation’s energy supply and our net zero ‘obligations.’ None of it bodes well for the future of this country.

Ed Miliband is one of the eco loons who frequent the TV screens and spread the ‘save the planet’ gospel on a regular basis. Needless to say like all of them they have skin in the game, running an eco audit firm. He also tells porkies as well as spouting nonsense such as this:

https://www.independent.co.uk/tv/news/environmental-activist-says-we-should-give-up-pets-to-save-planet-b2183768.html

He is also of the ‘give up meat for the same reasons’ brigade as well as the usual ‘cycle everywhere and don’t drive a car.’

Not quite sure how they will get anyone else to give up cattle. Somehow I think Argentina and India for different reasons will say no - and as we speak an offshoot of the green movement has introduced bison into wildest Kent, and they are thriving; a clash of ideologies is imminent, and I put money on the bison.

The ‘don’t drive’ comment is interesting. Only a few weeks ago in one of his interviews he stated he had never owned a car, yet only two weeks previously on the same program he proudly stated he had managed to go a whole year without driving his car? The car he had never owned? Or like so much else he made it up.

Meanwhile whilst talking about cars he stated a few days ago that EV sales were up something like 26%. The truth is somewhat different. Overall the market relies on subsidies for sales, but it is not just the inflated price of these vehicles but the lack of infrastructure, as with everything else, and the belief, rightly that any price advantages of today will disappear when EVs become the majority vehicle of choice as our green governments hope they will: the lost fuel tax that EVs represent can not be sustained ‘as any fule kno.’

https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/electriccars/article-13390757/UK-car-sector-downgrades-EV-sales-expectations-2024-public-demand-plummets-EVs.html

Other facts come to light as the number of these EVs gains a foot in the market place: their propensity to simply carry on burning should they catch fire, and the fact that should an accident damage the battery, meaning a total write off, means insurance quotes have ballooned out of all recognition in the last couple of years to cover the costs; this of course affects all types of vehicles. Not only should Milliband not be allowed anywhere near the control of the UK’s energy but he is also a danger to the food industry. In fairness to him he could have been distracted when spellbound by Greta Thunberg along with others of equal persuasion:

 



It’s good to know that our energy policies are in such good hands. He has indeed returned, putting out the most condescending video, treating all as five-year-olds:

https://x.com/i/status/1837781253992419453

There seems to be no end to these loons. Jim ‘jail the deniers’ Dale, a comedy turn who when challenged as to what his qualifications were by someone who had them in spades, mumbled eventually that he had several years as a meteorologist. It seems that in a later interview he mysteriously claimed to have obtained qualifications. Yet these people want climate change to be accepted on their terms; any other opinion even when backed by the ‘same’ science is immediately slammed as a form of heretic nonsense.

Below is a good example:

dailysceptic.org/2024/10/18/scientists-find-no-change-in-global-warming-rate-since-1970-despite-hottest-year-ever-in-2023/

Had he been arpound at the same time Jim Dale could also have been a stand-in for Jimmy Durante…

And finally there is Dale Vince who has made millions out of government subsidies and as is typical with all these zealots talks rubbish. His claim that wind now accounts for 46% of the load base is reliant on the wind actually blowing. Again when confronted with the fact that the wind is not reliable he said we can overcome the odd day the wind does not blow…

The odd day…

As can be seen from a typical graph of the wind blowing over a calender year there are more days when the wind hardly blows at all than any over 40% peaks. Still he has done very nicely out of it.

It is easy, very easy to be cynical with such people promoting all that needs to be done in order to meet the targets for the mythical net zero, but when we are lied to by these cultists, for that is what they have become it is difficult (beyond the desire to clean the planet up e.g. cleaning rivers) to see most of it as anything other than a giant scam. As with Covid any dissent is rubbished, and look how many so-called conspiracy theories are coming true in that area. The presumption that so many factors are indicating the end of the world is simply not true, the list of predictions that never happened lengthens by the year. It’s time to get real on all this.

For if climate change is happening as it has over the millennia then nature will win. Sitting on the beach at Brighton like Canute saying ‘go away’, or shutting down power stations or throwing paint over Van Gogh's paintings will not make a jot of difference.

FRIDAY MUSIC: Philip Glass, by JD

Philip Glass was born in 1937 and grew up in Baltimore. He studied at the University of Chicago, the Juilliard School and in Aspen with Darius Milhaud. Finding himself dissatisfied with much of what then passed for modern music, he moved to Europe, where he studied with Nadia Boulanger (who also taught Aaron Copland , Virgil Thomson and Quincy Jones) and worked closely with the sitar virtuoso and composer Ravi Shankar. He returned to New York in 1967 and formed the Philip Glass Ensemble – seven musicians playing keyboards and a variety of woodwinds, amplified and fed through a mixer.

The new musical style that Glass was evolving was eventually dubbed “minimalism.” Glass himself never liked the term and preferred to speak of himself as a composer of “music with repetitive structures.” Much of his early work was based on the extended reiteration of brief, elegant melodic fragments that wove in and out of an aural tapestry. Or, to put it another way, it immersed a listener in a sort of sonic weather that twists, turns, surrounds, develops.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Glass
https://philipglass.com/

Philip Glass joue Mad Rush

NTR Podium: Lavinia Meijer speelt Philip Glass

Symphony for eight - Philip Glass - Cello Octet Amsterdam

Philip Glass "Closing" PCF 2017

The Hours - Philip Glass

Warning bells – PMQs 16th October 2024

The Starmernaut continues to roll over the Opposition. Sir Keir is hardly trying: he repeated his “14 years” reference to the Tories’ failures at least three times in this session, though when he wheeled out the old ‘22 billion black hole’ shtick, there was a general groan from the benches opposite.

Parliament may soon tire of his arrogance and habit of resorting to counter-attack, instead of reasoning. When Rishi Sunak spoke of China’s influence at British universities and deplored the Education Secretary’s block on last year’s Freedom of Speech Act, Starmer simply swatted it away as “political point-scoring”; even the BBC roused itself to highlight that one on X.

This came after Sunak’s remarks on China’s “intimidatory” military exercises in the Taiwan Strait, which Starmer agreed were “not conducive to peace and stability”. Neither speaker mentioned Britain’s surrender of the strategically-positioned Chagos Islands to China-matey Mauritius, a decision reportedly taken in response to pressure (why?) from the Biden administration. The United Nations maritime court in Hamburg had ruled in favour of Mauritius’ claim in 2021, but as we know, a sovereign British Parliament, unlike most governments around the world, has the power to override international law. The PM seems to think this a good moment to cede such a significant asset, just when China is flexing its muscles.

Sunak turned to another area of conflict, asking the PM to sanction Chinese businesses and individuals supplying Russia with resources in the latter’s battle with Ukraine. Readers will recall that, last month, Starmer consulted Washington (again) for permission to help Ukraine fire rockets into the Russian motherland. The answer was no; at least, not until after the Presidential election. What might Kamala say?

In this context, it is interesting to note how Russia has also become a serviceable bogeyman for the Director-General of MI5, according to whom the Russians have been planning mayhem on Britain’s streets, though he then admitted that most of the agency’s work is still occupied with “Islamist extremism, followed by extreme right-wing terrorism”. Coincidentally or not, the ‘Novichok poisoning’ enquiry into the death of Salisbury resident Dawn Sturgess has just opened; former diplomat Craig Murray has scornfully reviewed the official claims made around that affair. Perhaps all this connects with the impending governmental Spending Review.

Lancastrian MP Cat Smith (Labour) opened her question with a reference to the new Bill to abolish hereditary members of the House of Lords. Sir Keir seized upon this triumphantly (perhaps when Giggle is Prez, one may have to say ‘joyously’), but of all the calamities he seems intent on provoking, the destruction of our tripartite self-government may be the worst.

Law is downstream from power, and at the moment the British people – as a whole – have the power, however imperfectly the commoners are represented. Some have suggested that the republican noises made in Australia are merely an overture to the planned abolition of our monarchy. There will still be a national leader, and ACL Blair wanted to be it; the Royal Yacht was scrapped, but at least Gordon Brown was able to cancel the plans for ‘Blair Force One’.

In 1980, the otherwise great parliamentarian Tony Benn proposed the outright abolition of the House of Lords, which would tear away the second leg of the three-legged stool; is this not where Starmer’s 400-strong MP contingent are heading, cutting away at the Upper House like Lear’s elder daughters stripping his entourage?

Then we shall be left with a single-party machine, its whims unrestrained; a tyranny of the majority, with a great Chairman directing the nation.

Hear those warning bells.

Reposted from Wolves of Westminster

Assisted Dying: Kill Bill

Lord Falconer’s Assisted Dying Bill was submitted for its first reading within a few days (26 July) of the General Election. The Bill says it is to

‘Allow adults who are terminally ill, subject to safeguards, to be assisted to end their own life; and for connected purposes.’

If passed it will for the first time here legalise the deliberate killing of innocent adults. The ‘safeguards’ are vital.

Yet as a Private Member’s Bill this complex issue would conventionally receive only five hours’ debate on its second reading. Asking for more time Sir David Davis said at PMQs on 9 October:

‘If we get this wrong first time, the consequences are too terrible to contemplate. In 1967, the Government of the day gave time to allow David Steel’s Abortion Bill to go through.

But did the Abortion Bill ‘get it right’? At the time it was anticipated that the number of permitted abortions would be in the region of 10,000 - 12,000 per year. Yet in 2022 the actual figure for England and Wales was 20 times the upper prediction, even though the population had increased by less than one-third over that time. Over 10 million unborn children have been killed in Great Britain since 1967. In effect, and with few exceptions, we have abortion on demand, so easy is it to satisfy the vaguely-worded legal stipulations.

Let’s see the safeguards built into Lord Falconer’s Bill (linked above, first line):

• The patient must be over 18, sane, expected to die within six months from a terminal and irreversible illness. Mental illness and disability are excluded as reasons to terminate.
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• They must clearly understand what they are doing and their decision must be ‘settled’ and have been reached ‘without undue influence, coercion or duress.’
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• They must sign a declaration to that effect, witnessed by someone who is not a relation, has not been involved in their care, and has nothing to gain from the subject’s death; and countersigned by two doctors, the medical attendant plus another, who not connected to each other and neither of whom stands to gain from the procedure. The doctors must be able to communicate with the patient, if necessary via an interpreter.
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• The patient’s Declaration must affirm that ‘the Attending Doctor and Independent Doctor… have each fully informed [them] about [the patient’s] diagnosis and prognosis and the treatments available to [them], including pain control and palliative care.’ The countersigners must also affirm that they have discussed hospice care with the patient.
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• The patient must have the right to change their mind at any stage up to the last moment, not necessarily in writing.

Put like that, who could possibly object?

And surely that is the point. If you wish to break a taboo, bore a very small and well-defined hole in it. The bigger augers and crowbars can come later. Then, as with abortion, the trickle of assisted-suicide cases may become a flood, as has been happening in other countries.

Look again at the stipulations and see how one or more might be modified or abandoned in time and in practice, perhaps in the light of legal precedent. For example, the High Court recently allowed a husband to inherit his late wife’s estate after he had helped his wife to die.

As to method, the Bill assumes that the patient will end their life using one or more drugs but past experience shows that a medicated death is not always swift and painless.

We can easily sympathise with the desire of some people to shorten their suffering. As we have seen, precautions are included in the Bill that protect the patient from pressure by people with ulterior motives, so it would seem that it is solely a matter of individual free choice.

But society in general may also have an interest. Caring for a terminally ill person may cost the NHS tens of thousands of pounds one way and another. Also, many pensioners are living, often alone, in dwellings that are bigger than they need, objectively speaking. So it must be tempting to suggest that not only the sick but the old and poor are simply a burden to the rest of us. As Ebenezer Scrooge says, ‘If they would rather die, they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.’

But it is not only the miserly rich that adopt that attitude. Here is George Bernard Shaw, famous writer and socialist, speaking in 1931:

‘I think it would be a good thing to make everybody come before a properly appointed board just as he might come before the income tax commissioners and say every 5 years or every 7 years, just put them there, and say, sir or madam, now will you be kind enough to justify your existence? If you can’t justify your existence; if you’re not pulling your weight in the social boat; if you are not producing as much as you consume or perhaps a little more, then clearly we cannot use the big organization of our society for the purpose of keeping you alive, because your life does not benefit us, and it can’t be of very much use to yourself.’

How rational; as was the Eugenics Society’s plan to sterilise those unfit for parenthood. That would quickly rebalance the national finances, would it not?

Once you believe that life is not sacred, we are off down that path. It is only a matter of time.

Reposted from the Bruges Group Blog