The BBC will soon air a documentary on assisted death. Hosted by Terry Pratchett, diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s disease in 2008 and now a campaigner for the choice to end one’s life, he will meet people suffering from degenerative conditions, and will be with a man as he carries out an assisted death at the Dignitas clinic in Switzerland.

I’ve never fully understood how people can be against assisted death, when the person who’s dying has made the choice and has been confirmed of sound mind, over an extended period of time. Even religious arguments dumbfound me, going on about the sanctity of life over the quality of life. Sadly, this has been the reaction to the BBC documentary in the press.

Unsurprisingly, the Daily Mail was first out of the gate with Amanda Platell’s Pratchett’s a hero, but on this he’s plain wrong. Platell starts well, but it doesn’t take long for the mask to slip. Initially, she lauds Pratchett as a “compelling champion” for research into the treatment of Alzheimer’s, noting he’s:

raised the profile of the debilitating disease and talked movingly about the horrific way it robs victims of their minds.

She also states:

He has also calmly spelt out his own desire to end his life when he chooses, not when the disease does. He won’t want to be pitied, but it is impossible not to feel deeply for Sir Terry, and one can understand only too easily why he might in time choose to take his life.

But then the article turns, violently. She talks about the aforementioned BBC documentary, using provokative language (my emphasis):

In Terry Pratchett: Choosing To Die, the author sits beside the 71-year-old man known only as Peter, who suffers from motor neurone disease, and watches him die slowly from a lethal cocktail of drugs in a Swiss clinic.

It will be the first time the moment of a suicide victim’s death is screened on television.

It’s accurate that the drugs are ‘lethal’ in that they kill you, but it’s not like Peter will neck a bottle of painkillers and hope they do the job. The drugs Dignitas use are essentially designed to make the person fall asleep. And while Peter is committing suicide, calling him a ‘victim’ seems a bit of a stretch—he’s chosen this end, for his own reasons.

More mask-slippage follows:

Whether or not you agree with assisted death and what goes on at the controversial Dignitas clinic in Switzerland where the suicide takes place is almost beside the point.

To my mind, this is the almost pathologically liberal BBC at its worst, producing a propaganda film for the pro-euthanasia lobby and deliberately offending the significant number of Britons who believe in the sanctity of life.

And there, in a nutshell, is Platell’s objectivity utterly removed. The BBC, by doing something brave and giving us insight into Peter (also doing something brave) and his reasoning, perhaps enlightening viewers and providing understanding, is ‘almost pathologically liberal’. (Is the BBC ‘almost pathologically religious’, too, for screening Songs of Praise, Platell?)

But these are the words that most anger me:

deliberately offending the significant number of Britons who believe in the sanctity of life

You know what? Tough. Too bad. If you’re that ‘offended’, don’t watch the damn show. If you believe in the sanctity of life over the quality of life, bully for you. But other people have other viewpoints, and the BBC’s remit requires that all are catered for. Just because some people are going to be most upset because of their ideals and beliefs (rather than because a man is deciding to die) shouldn’t stop the BBC from running this kind of programme, especially if it does an extremely good job in showing everything that happens during the process (as in, the process from the decision onwards—not the final moments).

Platell doesn’t get this at all:

What makes this all the more insidious is the high moral tone adopted by the corporation. ‘The BBC does not have a stance on assisted suicide, but we do think this is an important matter of debate,’ says a spokesman.

Giving Sir Terry free rein in a documentary on this highly sensitive matter seems like a pretty strong stance to me.

Again, no more a stance than the BBC being overtly religious for screening Songs of Praise. (Note: in case you’re wondering, no I don’t think the BBC is being overtly religious for screening Songs of Praise.)

And the very fact that Sir Terry is the front man is in itself a form of moral blackmail.

Gosh, yes, good point. It makes no sense at all to have the show hosted by someone with a vested interest in the subject. It would have been much better to have you host it, Platell, yelling “WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS? GOD HAS A PLAN!” at Peter, every step of the way.

Still, that’s the Daily Mail, eh? But, sadly, looming into view comes Who is to judge which lives are worth living?, by Barbara Ellen in The Observer.

Ellen’s tone is a little more impartial, but there are a lot of elements of her article that are unhelpful at best.

Pratchett says: “Everybody possessed of a debilitating and incurable illness should be allowed to pick the hour of their death.” Clearly, with him, the dignity of choice is paramount. However, while one has enormous sympathy for Pratchett suffering such a vile disease, the fact remains that he is a rich, powerful man and it is highly unlikely that his wishes would be ignored. With respect, euthanasia laws are not in place to protect people such as him. What of those who may have their “choice” taken away, even if they don’t want to die?

That is quite a leap, on a number of levels. Choice doesn’t always fully exist under the current system. Doctors make decisions every day on people’s conditions that lead to ‘care’ being withdrawn, regardless of the wishes of the patients (since said wishes often don’t exist, or aren’t available or accessible, for various reasons). But, more to the point, Ellen seems to assume that Dignitas has no safeguards, or that if the UK adopted some kind of more liberal euthanasia laws, there’d be shady characters with black bags, roaming the streets and knocking off pensioners.

What people like Pratchett are campaigning for is the right to die. He’s not campaigning for the equivalent of a drive-through death centre—it’s clear that any changes in law would make a British approach to assisted death lengthy, with many levels of protection, not only to ensure coercion isn’t happening, but also to guarantee that this is what the person who wants to die really wants (as opposed to a relatively fleeting decision).

The filming of the death seems secondary – for me, it has the opportunistic whiff of a medicalised snuff movie, but that’s just my opinion. No one is forced to watch, just as no one is forced to watch all the births on television these days.

Will people watch for ghoulish reasons? Perhaps. But that doesn’t make this a snuff movie. The documentary isn’t about the death—it’s about the reasons behind it and the fact someone in the UK cannot die in this manner in their own country, despite us—last time I looked—no longer living in the Middle Ages.

There are bigger issues at stake, not least the arrogance of the pro-euthanasia able bodied towards the profoundly ill – the unseemly rush to pronounce the lives of others “not worth living”.

I don’t know any ‘pro-euthanasia able bodied’ rushing to pronounce the lives of others “not worth living”. I would never seek to suggest to someone whether their life is worth continuing with or not, for the very obvious reason that I simply do not—and cannot—know. All I know is my own life; and should I ever be in the situation where I either cannot take any more pain or am literally slipping away (the thing Pratchett is scared of—and something I watched happen with my grandmother, who recognised no-one and remembered almost nothing of herself during her last year alive), I would hope the law is such that I at least have the right to die. I’m not saying I’d make that choice—but it should be my right.

A recent study discovered that some sufferers of locked-in syndrome – as many as three out of four of the main sample – were happy and did not want to die. Such studies are flawed (some sufferers are unable to articulate either way), but it should still give us pause for thought before blasting off about “lives not worth living”.

Again, this is misdirection. No-one’s talking about doctors visiting people with a checklist. It’s not like you get a score and—whoops!—if you’re under 3/10, out comes the needle! Any decision must come from the sufferer—and that’s what people are campaigning for.

Likewise the knee-jerk: “They wouldn’t have wanted to end up like this.” Of course not – who would? – but that might not be the end of the story. How individuals feel when they are fit may change considerably when their health fails. Like those with locked-in syndrome, they may adjust to a life that is very different, often difficult, but just as precious. Who are we to judge?

Who are we to deny someone the right to end their life if they haven’t adjusted after a long period of time with whatever condition they have? It’s their life, not yours.

Personally, if I ever get something nasty, I’d rather be with a God-botherer than somebody who decides I’m looking peaky, books a Swiss flight and whisks me off to the ghouls at Dignitas. Or maybe I wouldn’t – maybe I’d be begging for death. The hope is that I’ll choose.

And the point is, in the UK right now, you do not have that choice.

Wow, the Tories really are scared of AV, aren’t they? In BBC article Ashdown attacks Osborne over AV (whose content sadly wasn’t entirely literal—I’m sure many of us would pay good money to see Ashdown give Osborne a kicking), the former Lib-Dem leader called out Osborne for trying to dig up dirt on the ‘yes to AV’ campaign.

What Osborne had discovered was, I’m sure you’ll agree, shocking in the extreme. The pro-AV camp, in favour of electoral reform, is being partly funded by the Electoral Reform Society, in favour of electoral reform. It’s clearly broken Osborne’s little mind that a society in favour of electoral reform and called the Electoral Reform Society would use some of its money to fund a movement campaigning for electoral reform.

But wait! Osborne said it stinks for another reason: the commercial arm of the Electoral Reform Society, Electoral Reform Services Ltd (ERSL), runs election services. The BBC says:

[Osborne] claimed that ERSL stood to benefit financially from a switch. The firm has denied the accusation, saying a switch would have “absolutely no impact” on its revenue.

The thing is, even if Osborne is right, it’s interesting he’s against the ERS part-funding the pro-AV vote. After all, Osborne is a member of a party usually fine with whatever private companies get up to, positively encouraging organisations to do whatever it takes to make huge piles of cash.

But what really stinks is the manner in which the Tories are fighting against AV. Make no mistake: this isn’t about history, democracy, Britishness, complexity, finance, extremism or any other argument you’ve heard. The sole reason the Tories are against AV is because the Tories stand to lose seats. AV will rebalance British politics so that the majority liberal vote gets slightly more weight and the minority Conservative vote gets less. Tories argue this is unfair, ignoring the fact that what’s really unfair is how regularly the Tories have been in government, with majorities, despite not having the backing of the majority of the voters.

Whatever you think about Hugh Grant, your opinion might change after reading The bugger, bugged (New Statesman). Grant, by chance, met ex-News of the World hack Paul McMullan when Grant’s car broke down; he was given a lift and was invited to the hack’s pub sometime. Grant was keen to hear more about the phone-hacking scandal, since he’d been a victim. Being a canny sort, he also figured he could secretly record the conversation when he later visited the pub.

The revelations are astonishing, implicating Andy Coulson (“Coulson knew all about it and regularly ordered it”), Rebekah Wade and the Daily Mail. McMullan is quoted as saying:

For about four or five years [The Daily Mail have] absolutely been cleaner than clean. And before that they weren’t. They were as dirty as anyone… They had the most money.

McMullen revealed he was also a fan of the Daily Mail’s cash mountain when it came to non-stories about celebs:

When I went freelance in 2004 the biggest payers—you’d have thought it would be the [News of the World], but actually it was the Daily Mail. If I take a good picture, the first person I go to is—such as in your case—the Mail on Sunday. Did you see that story? The picture of you, breaking down… I ought to thank you for that. I got £3,000. Whooo!

Presumably, McMullen went to them a second time after Grant dropped by his pub, since The Daily Mail on April 4 reported Grant’s invited visit with the shocking, hard-hitting exposé Hugh Grant racks up bar tab worth £5.45 at local pub in Dover… but leaves without paying. Naturally, it neglects to mention the invitation and the chat Grant and McMullen had (and it referring to the pub as Grant’s “favourite pub in Dover” seems spurious at best). Still, perhaps McMullen will be happy he got his retaliation in first (not least those jibes about Grant’s riches, which he used to justify the invasion of celebrity privacy regarding phone-hacking) even if the Mail’s article comes across like a fey slap to the cheek compared to Grant’s knockout punch.

Oh dear. You’ve got to hand it to the anti-AV lot—they’re pretty sneaky. On today’s inevitable daily BBC article on the matter, ex-Labour minister Caroline Flint wades in with her size whatevers:

The suffragettes fought for One Person, One Vote, not a political stitch-up like AV, which has been rejected by almost every country that has used it.

Yes, if you vote for AV, you are ANTI-WOMEN and ANTI-WOMAN-WHO-WANT-EQUALITY.

Unless,  of course—and I might just be guessing here—what the suffragettes were in fact fighting for was the right to vote at all. They weren’t chaining themselves to unmovable objects and chanting catchy slogans like:

Voting rights for women—as long as the United Kingdom retains the first-past-the-post voting system for Parliamentary elections, otherwise we’re really not that fussed.

Flint moans about Nick Clegg’s most recent defence of AV, where he states generations to come would see the ‘no’ arguments as nonsensical. She reminds everyone that Clegg himself called AV a “miserable little compromise”. This, of course, is entirely accurate: AV is a miserable little compromise. But it’s a step forward. Flint doesn’t seem to understand this:

One Person, One Vote – the bedrock of our current system – has stood the test of time and remains the only way to ensure elections are fair.

So under AV, is Flint arguing that random people are somehow given extra votes? Or is she suggesting that FPTP is the “only way to ensure elections are fair”? Man, those countries using proportional representation to ensure their elected ministers actually broadly represent the voting patterns of the country are SUCH IDIOTS with their unfair elections.

Let’s ignore the fact that, at present, it takes three times as many votes to elect a Liberal Democrat than a Conservative. That, clearly, isn’t unfair. (And if your response has anything to do with the Lib Dems in government being a bit rubbish, do sod off. Under PR, we’d have likely had a Lab/Lib coalition from the most recent election, which would have resulted in very different options; instead, we have a very senior partner and a very junior partner, with the latter sadly run by a gutless twit. It’s the overall argument that’s important—that some parties can have MPs elected far more easily than others, which is hardly democratic in any real sense of the word.)

Let’s ignore the fact that, in 2010, we got one elected Green MP when we should have had six, and absolutely no UKIP or BNP MPs exist, despite the parties securing 3.1 and 1.9 per cent of the vote, respectively. (Also, if you’re thinking PHEW!, that’s fine, but part of democracy is that you don’t always get what you want. If 919,546 people voted for UKIP, is it fair that there are no UKIP MPs at all, even if the party is pretty reprehensible? Not unless you have some interesting ideas about what ‘fair’ happens to mean.)

Instead, let’s keep arguing for an outdated system that will, without question, more often elect a Conservative government backed by a minority of votes (because the more liberal vote is split several ways); let’s argue for a system of exclusion for smaller parties; let’s argue for a system that largely eschews the evils of coalition (read: compromise and, in many cases—as evidenced elsewhere in Europe—some degree of continuity) in favour of wild swings between the Conservatives and Labour, with a new incumbent every 10 or 15 years, keen to throw out everything its predecessor did. Because, hey, that’s been working so brilliantly for the UK since World War 2, hasn’t it, so why bother changing anything?

UPDATE: And as @alexwlchan rightly says on Twitter:

If she really hates AV, why didn’t she argue against it when Labour used it to elect their party leaders?

Unsure on the upcoming referendum on the UK voting system? If so, The Observer’s Do we want a fairer election system? op-ed is well worth a read. It’s a balanced, fair piece, addressing most of the major concerns. Not least among them, the argument that coalition would be more likely under AV and OH MY GOD THE CURRENT COALITION IS EVIL ON TOAST AND FULL OF LYING SCUMBAGS. The Observer points out:

Lib Dem U-turns hardly advanced the public’s faith in politicians’ promises. But it is absurd to blame the fact of coalition, as if every manifesto of every winning party before 2010 was fastidiously implemented.

Coalitions are here to stay even under the current system. A hung parliament was elected because neither of the two biggest parties commanded enough support to be trusted alone in government. The idea that they should seek remedy for that decline by propping up a system that helps them cheat is lazy and arrogant.

And for the pro-reform people who are, bizarrely, considering ‘abstaining’ (i.e. not voting) or even voting for FPTP, because they’re not being given the option of AV+ or STV, or because AV has major problems of its own, The Observer has this to say:

AV is not perfect. No system captures the will of the people with photographic realism. The goal is a fair approximate, and FPTP fails utterly. It distorts, obstructs, obscures and perverts voter choices. It causes tens of thousands of votes to be wasted; it forces people to endorse candidates they don’t like, just to punish ones they like even less.

AV will not solve all of the problems of British democracy. It will not undo the harm of the expenses scandal, nor provoke a renaissance of civic participation. It is only a reform. It promises one thing: by taking account of multiple preferences, it would elect a parliament that more accurately describes the political complexion of the nation. That is a start.