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Good morning. Last week the terminally ill adults (end of life) bill in England and Wales fell at the final hurdle \u2013 just weeks after Scotland\u2019s parliament voted down similar proposals to legalise assisted dying.<\/p>\n
For those opposed to a change in the law, it was a victory. For supporters, it has prompted anger \u2013 not just at the outcome, but at the process, with campaigners arguing that the unelected House of Lords had thwarted democracy by blocking legislation that had already passed the Commons.<\/p>\n
For today\u2019s newsletter, I spoke to Nathan Stilwell<\/strong><\/em>, who has campaigned on the issue for Humanists UK, and Lucy Webster<\/strong><\/em>, political journalist and the author of The View from Down Here: Life As a Young Disabled Woman, who was opposed to the bill in this form, about the ethics of assisted dying and what comes next. But first, the headlines.<\/p>\n Monarchy<\/strong><\/em> | King Charles and Queen Camilla arrived at the White House on Monday for a state visit in Washington with the transatlantic alliance showing fresh signs of strain.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n US news<\/strong><\/em> | The suspected gunman at the White House correspondents\u2019 dinner had, according to the FBI, written that \u201cI am no longer willing to permit a paedophile, rapist, and traitor to coat my hands with his crimes\u201d. Cole Tomas Allen, 31, from Torrance in southern California has appeared in court charged with three federal crimes including attempting to assassinate the president.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n UK politics<\/strong><\/em> | Keir Starmer will face a vote on whether to launch a standards investigation into his appointing Peter Mandelson as ambassador to Washington. The speaker, Lindsay Hoyle, has granted a debate today on potentially referring the prime minister to the privileges committee.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n Education |<\/strong><\/em> Half of headteachers say parts of their school are either out of use or unfit for purpose due to leaks, damp, mould, asbestos, ageing boilers and malfunctioning fire doors, according to a survey by the National Association of Head Teachers(NAHT).<\/p>\n<\/li>\n Conservatives<\/strong><\/em> | Police are assessing evidence about donations to Robert Jenrick\u2019s campaign to become Conservative leader in 2024 after a referral from the elections watchdog, the Guardian can reveal.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n <\/span>The assisted dying debate has drawn demonstrators from opposing views.<\/span> Photograph: Wiktor Szymanowicz\/Future Publishing\/Getty Images<\/p>\n There was a point last summer when it felt highly likely that assisted dying \u2013 legal in many other countries, such as Canada, Germany, the Netherlands and most of Australia \u2013 would be made legal in England and Wales. So when the assisted dying bill was scuppered last Friday night, stalling in the House of Lords after more than 1,000 amendments, some campaigners struggled with it.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s hard not to get emotional about it,\u201d Nathan Stilwell tells me. \u201cTerminally ill people were given hope last year when elected politicians voted for this, and we could never have imagined that a bill of this importance would end in this way \u2013 simply being talked out, without a vote and without anything meaningful we could do to stop it.\u201d<\/p>\n The defeat in Westminster followed a similar setback in Scotland. In March, MSPs rejected a bill by 69 votes to 57, despite having previously backed it for further scrutiny. With defeats on both sides of the border, Stilwell says it feels like a \u201cretrenchment\u201d.<\/p>\n Even among the bill\u2019s many critics the mood was far from celebratory after it stalled.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t think anyone is delighted,\u201d Lucy Webster tells me. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t feel like a good win \u2026 for most of us it is not about being against the principle. I\u2019m actually in favour of assisted dying, because I don\u2019t believe anyone should suffer unnecessarily.\u201d<\/p>\n Instead, she argues, the concern was about how the legislation had been drawn up. \u201cIt was specifically about a bill which was poorly designed, poorly consulted on, and [which] didn\u2019t take into account very legitimate concerns about groups of people who would have been made incredibly vulnerable.\u201d<\/p>\n What was being proposed?<\/strong><\/p>\n The bill would have allowed terminally ill adults in England and Wales \u2013 defined as those with a life expectancy of six months or less \u2013 to request medical assistance to end their own life. To qualify, a person would have had to be mentally competent, acting voluntarily and free from coercion, and to make a formal, witnessed declaration of their wishes.<\/p>\n Two independent doctors would have had to confirm the diagnosis, prognosis and the patient\u2019s capacity, with further scrutiny from a multidisciplinary panel including medical, legal and safeguarding expertise before approval was granted. Medication would then be prescribed but taken by the individual themselves, rather than administered by a clinician.<\/p>\n Even if it had passed, the law would not have come into effect immediately. Implementation was expected to take several years, with unresolved questions about how the service would operate in practice \u2013 including whether it would sit within the NHS or alongside it \u2013 and what systems, training and safeguards would need to be put in place for it to work.<\/p>\n How did the <\/strong>bill fail in Westminster?<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/span>Some question if decisions around assisted dying can be separated from wider social attitudes.<\/span> Photograph: Wiktor Szymanowicz\/Future Publishing\/Getty Images<\/p>\n Stilwell is unequivocal that a Lords \u201cfilibuster\u201d was, in practice, what ended the bill\u2019s passage in Westminster. \u201cIf you look at the nearly 1,300 amendments, with more still being introduced last week, many were clearly unworkable,\u201d he says. He cites amendments requiring pregnancy tests for all applicants, including people over the age of 80, and increasing the number of doctors involved from two to seven.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was effectively wrecking the bill,\u201d he tells me. What was disappointing, he says, was that \u201cit has been deeply serious legislation, but the way it was handled veered into the absurd\u201d.<\/p>\n But even if Lucy was unhappy with the way the bill ended up being stalled, her concern revolves around whether decisions about assisted dying can truly be separated from wider social attitudes. \u201cThese medical decisions are not made in a vacuum,\u201d she says. \u201cThey are shaped by society\u2019s biases around disability.\u201d<\/p>\n For many people, she argues, the issue is trust in the system itself. \u201cDisabled people know going to the doctor is not a neutral ground \u2026 It\u2019s not about me, but I\u2019ve had doctors tell me I must have a poor quality of life \u2013 I\u2019m a journalist and an author. I have a great life.\u201d<\/p>\n Could advocates have gone further to reassure critics?<\/strong><\/p>\n Supporters argue the bill had already been designed to be highly restrictive.<\/p>\n \u201cThe eligibility criteria were already among the strictest in the world,\u201d Stilwell says. The process itself was deliberately rigorous, involving multiple assessments, waiting periods and oversight before any approval.<\/p>\n \u201cThere was already so much in the bill that if you added more, a terminally ill person simply wouldn\u2019t be able to access it. We\u2019re at the limits of what someone in that situation could reasonably go through.\u201d<\/p>\n But critics remain unconvinced. Concerns about coercion, the protection of disabled people and the wider impact on healthcare have continued to dominate opposition to the proposals.<\/p>\n The Nuffield Trust, which retains a neutral position on the ethics of whether or not assisted dying should be legalised, has carried out extensive research into assisted dying in practice (pdf). It found that, internationally, assisted dying systems are complex, resource-intensive and uneven in practice. There is a heavy reliance on clinicians, which can act as a restriction, and the insistence on multiple stages \u2013 requests, assessments, waiting periods, approvals \u2013 can make it slow and administratively heavy.<\/p>\n What happens next?<\/strong><\/p>\n It seems very unlikely that the government will put a new bill forward itself. Although it kept officially neutral on the issue as it went through parliament, there are prominent cabinet members \u2013 including Wes Streeting and Shabana Mahmood \u2013 who have expressed opposition.<\/p>\n That means any future attempt to bring back the bill would most likely come again via a private member\u2019s bill \u2013 an uncertain route that is dependent on the luck of the parliamentary ballot. But Kim Leadbeater, the Labour MP for Spen Valley, promised that the fight was not over, arguing in this piece for the Guardian that the bill had faced \u201ca relentless campaign of misinformation.\u201d She also claimed to have had conversations with MPs who voted against it last time,who are now so angry with the bill having been delayed that they would support it being picked up again in the next session and sent back to the upper chamber.<\/p>\n Recently, the Isle of Man and Jersey have each voted to allow assisted dying. Once enacted, their residents will be among the 300 million or so people across multiple countries that have access around the world to legally assisted deaths.<\/p>\n In researching this topic for today\u2019s newsletter, one paragraph has stayed with me more than all else. Frances Ryan wrote at the start of this latest round of parliamentary debate: \u201cThe truth is, there are no goodies or baddies here. There are just human beings \u2013 some of them in pain, scared or angry \u2013 trying to do right by themselves, their loved ones and their community. Life is not easy. It is messy.\u201d<\/p>\n The messy conclusion to this latest attempt to legislate on the issue means it remains unresolved, but it will not be going away.<\/p>\n <\/span>\u2018Every day that passes I feel more strongly that I should emigrate,\u2019 says one young medical student, right, in Tehran.<\/span> Photograph: Anonymous<\/p>\n The uneasy ceasefire<\/strong> between the US and Iran ceasefire has been dominated by concerns about the economy. But this article with the perspectives of six ordinary Iranians is a timely human reminder of what is at stake. Patrick<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/li>\n I pride myself on keeping up with music culture. Half-human, half-horse nag pop provocateur DJ star HorsegiirL<\/strong> may be the moment I finally concede I don\u2019t understand what is happening any more. Martin<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/li>\n I loved the story of how Wembley<\/strong>\u2019s ground staff keep the grass looking so good. It\u2019s precision lawn-mowing at its finest. Patrick<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/li>\n This true crime retelling of the sensational case of the Denver Spider-Man<\/strong>, a murder that shocked Colorado in the 1940s, reads as if it could have been an X Files episode. Martin<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/li>\n Kimberley Brown tells the moving tale of a jailed mother and her daughter<\/strong> in Ecuador. As one legal expert puts it: \u201cThe entire [prison] system is designed to produce the worst possible outcomes in terms of breaking the social fabric.\u201d Patrick<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n <\/span>Tyson Fury (left) and Anthony Joshua will meet in a long-anticipated bout in November.<\/span> Composite: Getty Images<\/p>\n Boxing<\/strong><\/em> | Anthony Joshua is to face Tyson Fury this year after the promoter Eddie Hearn confirmed a deal to stage the biggest fight in British boxing history has been signed. Joshua will face the Albanian heavyweight Kristian Prenga in Riyadh on 25 July as a warm-up for his long-awaited showdown with Fury, which is expected to take place in November and be shown on Netflix.<\/p>\n Football<\/strong><\/em> | First-half goals from Casemiro and Benjamin Sesko set Manchester United on their way to a 2-1 win against Brentford at Old Trafford.<\/p>\n Snooker<\/strong><\/em> | Ronnie O\u2019Sullivan\u2019s bid for a record-breaking eighth Crucible title was shattered in Sheffield as John Higgins capped a remarkable comeback with a 13-12 win to move into the World Snooker Championship quarter-finals.<\/p>\n <\/span> Photograph: Guardian<\/p>\n \u201cPM pleads for unity among Labour MPs over critical Mandelson vote\u201d says the Guardian\u2019s<\/strong> splash headline. The Times<\/strong> has \u201cPM battles to block sleaze vote\u201d while the Telegraph<\/strong> goes with \u201cStarmer pleads with MPs to save him\u201d. The Mail<\/strong> calls it \u201cStarmer\u2019s stitch-up to save his own skin\u201d. The Financial Times<\/strong> runs with \u201cMeta\u2019s $2bn swoop on Manus blocked in warning from Beijing over AI deals\u201d.<\/p>\n The i paper<\/strong> splashes on \u201cKing\u2019s warning to America: Charles urges US president and Congress to stick with Europe\u201d. About that, the Mirror<\/strong> says \u201cPeace envoy\u201d under the strapline \u201cKing\u2019s American mission\u201d. The Metro<\/strong> has \u201cIran embassy in chilling call for \u2018martyrs\u2019\u201d. The Express<\/strong> chooses as its lead: \u201cPM is \u2018putting welfare ahead of UK national security\u2019\u201d.<\/p>\n <\/span>Christopher Harborne donated \u00a31m to a private company Boris Johnson set up after resigning as prime minister.<\/span> Composite: LNP\/Getty Images\/Guardian Design<\/p>\n The secretive billionaire bankrolling Nigel Farage<\/strong><\/p>\n A crypto tycoon has given millions to Farage\u2019s political parties. But who is Christopher Harborne and what does he want in return?<\/p>\n <\/span> Illustration: Ben Jennings\/The Guardian<\/p>\n A bit of good news to remind you that the world\u2019s not all bad<\/em><\/p>\n <\/span>Chris Martin was among the celebrities who helped Polish influencer \u0141atwogang raise more than \u00a350m for a children\u2019s cancer charity.<\/span> Photograph: Youtube<\/p>\n A social media influencer in Poland has raised more than \u00a350m during an extraordinary nine-day nonstop fundraiser for a child cancer charity. Dozens of celebrities \u2013 from the footballer Robert Lewandowski to Coldplay\u2019s Chris Martin \u2013 backed the initiative, which now ranks among the largest fundraising efforts in YouTube history.<\/p>\n To raise money, the 23-year-old influencer \u0141atwogang listened to a charity song about children fighting cancer around the clock for nine days, interspersed with appearances by celebrities. The song, a diss track, was pitched at cancer itself, with an 11-year-old rapping: \u201cIf you suffer from cancer just like me, this song is for you. I\u2019m Maja and this is my third relapse, and I have reasons to diss you.\u201d<\/p>\n The money raised will support the Cancer Fighters foundation that supports children with cancer and their parents.<\/p>\n Sign up here for a weekly roundup of The Upside, sent to you every Sunday<\/strong><\/p>\n And finally, the Guardian\u2019s puzzles are here to keep you entertained throughout the day. Until tomorrow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Good morning. Last week the terminally ill adults (end of life) bill in England and Wales fell at the final hurdle \u2013 just weeks after Scotland\u2019s parliament voted down similar proposals to legalise assisted dying. For those opposed to a change in the law, it was a victory. For supporters, it has prompted anger \u2013<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":48826,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[3520,140,142,1043,10086,2063,141,6538],"class_list":{"0":"post-48825","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-crime-justice","8":"tag-agree","9":"tag-assisted","10":"tag-bill","11":"tag-briefing","12":"tag-deeply","13":"tag-divided","14":"tag-dying","15":"tag-tuesday"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48825","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=48825"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48825\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/48826"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=48825"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=48825"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=48825"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Five big stories<\/h2>\n
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In depth: \u2018I don\u2019t believe anyone should suffer unnecessarily\u2019<\/h2>\n
What else we\u2019ve been reading<\/h2>\n
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Sport<\/h2>\n
The front pages<\/h2>\n
Today in Focus<\/h2>\n
Cartoon of the day | Ben Jennings<\/h2>\n
The Upside<\/h2>\n
Bored at work?<\/h2>\n