Both sides in the assisted dying debate are completely missing the point

As my regular reader will know, I tend to avoid sensitive subjects, so you won't find anything on religion or politics in my blog. Oh, wait..

The Assisted Dying bill was up before the Lords last week - had it been the Commons the irony would have been more acute in my view. God knows some of our current elected politicians could do with some assistance in that department.

As usual this event saw the arguments being aired on all sides - those who want to protect the sanctity of human life at any cost and those who believe that the individual, whose life it is after all, should have some say in the matter.

The bill is essentially about whether qualified individuals (doctors) should be allowed to help people to die peacfully and with dignity when there is no chance of recovery or the achievement of any real quality of life and where death would be preferable (to the individual) compared to continued struggle and exhausting, futile pain; or whether other people should decide on the matter.

At least that's what it should be about; a principled argument about who has the right to decide whether someone lives or dies, the person themselves or others who don't know the individual circumstances but believe in principle that people should never be helped to die or 'take their own life'.

Instead, because of the many voiciferous campaigns of those on the negative side of the argument in the past, the bill has been reduced to 'helping someone who has less than six months to live, to die at their own convenience and in line with their own wishes'.

Six months. Tops. That means they will be pretty far gone given the technology we currently have at our disposal in order to keep people alive. Whether they want to be kept alive or not.

We would not let a dog suffer like we allow our parents and grandparents to suffer in the name of these fucking do-gooders.

Yes of course there are issues around people being 'killed off' by other family members for nefarious reasons or older people being bullied into believing they're a burden on the family and therefore they should take their own lives, but how widespread is that?

And should a few despicable people take the whole 'control of one's own life' thing out of the hands of the individual whose life it is?

Have you read the book 'Me Before You'? If you haven't you should. It's great, a novel not philosophy, but it brings up many of the issues here at hand.

What about the formerly active, sporting, life-living person who has an accident, becomes paralysed and can no longer enjoy any kind of quality of life? Yet we have the technology to keep that person alive for decades, in pain, depressed but having no control over his or her own destiny, over whether they are allowed to live or die.

The guy, last year, with 'locked in' syndrome who was prevented from dying by 'do-gooders'. Do these people really think they're helping anyone? Or are they exerting their influence and control over people without really giving a shit about what that person really wants?

It might help in your consideration of this issue, if you were to put yourself in the position of the person who wants to die. Who has nothing left to live for. Who is kept alive by medical science and technology, but who, really, just wants to be able to die with some kind of dignity and control over their own destiny instead of being 'forced' to go on living, in pain, desperation and futility. It's like putting someone in a prison from which you are also denying them their only chance of escape. In that respect it is more akin to torture.

If that were me, my conclusion would be to state the following to these 'we will keep you alive at all costs and we'll prosecute anyone who helps you to achieve what you actually want: : 'How fucking dare you decide whether I can live or die?'

'What gives you the right to make that decision for me?'

'What gives you the right to prolong my suffering?'

These people actually think they are doing a good thing. They so are not.

Time for Mr Farage to call Dave?

So not quite an earthquake, but nor has UKIP's rise been a flash in the pan. It has succeeded in getting the crucial issue of our membership of the EU much higher on the agenda than it was before. Yes they have used some pretty hard-hitting issues such as immigration in a way which made me wince sometimes, but politics is a raw meat game so I can understand it, as I have blogged before.

And UKIP certainly did create some serious concern amongst politicians of all political persuasions during the run up to the May elections - a good thing too. They gave voice to many disaffected voters for whom the status quo is anathema.

But, with no national electoral set pieces available between now and the General Election, UKIP is in danger of sinking back into obscurity, and that would be a great shame in my opinion, from the point of view of UK politics as a whole. There are certainly a great many people who support UKIP and its vision for the UK in the world and in particular in our retaining our status as a nation state rather than being subsumed into the federal EU where, frankly, it will not make much difference which UK party one votes for in the future since most laws, financial agreements, foreign policies, trade deals etc., will be decided in Brussels and not Whitehall.

I think it's time that Dave and Nige picked up the phone....

'David..'

'Nigel..'

'We share some common political ground and, in particular, some common voters whose right-leaning views we represent, one way or another, do you agree?'

'I do.'

'And the danger is that we could split the others' vote in the General Election - obviously more damaging to you than to us, but potentially damaging nonetheless?'

'I agree.'

'I think there may be a way in which we could work together in order to avoid this scenario in a way which would be beneficial to both of us; are you prepared to consider this? No tricks, no strings, no binding coalition, just a gentleman's agreement, subject to your agreeing with my proposal?

'I'm listening.'

'OK, thank you. Our overriding objective is to secure a UK exit from the EU in a way which would, we believe, be in the interests of this country. I understand that you do not currently share this view, but you do want to see a reform of the EU in such a way that would bring back a great many powers and elements of self-governance and sovereignty to our own Parliament, as opposed to this creeping federalisation of Europe with ever more powers being taken away from national governments?'

'Yes that is true.'

'And you think you can achieve those reforms. We may differ in that view, but frankly if the powers you have talked about were to be brought back to the UK (we can discuss exactly what they might be later), we may well be persuaded to support that process. We are not anti-Europe, just anti the EU and against some of the powers that they have taken away from sovereign governments. In any case we are very much in favour of an in-out referendum and would be delighted to support your achieving that, which means your getting elected in 2015. Even if we might be on different sides of the in-out vote, the vote itself is very important to everyone in the UK - people want it.

'We have some common ground as you say.'

'The other thing that seems to have emerged from the elections in May is that our support is not limited to traditional Tory seats: We seem to have struck a chord with voters in traditional Labour heartlands who are increasingly realising that Labour is no longer the party of the working man, has as many 'Toffs' on its benches as you do and has, through it's open door immigration policies (actively encouraging incomers not just opening the doors), been extremely detrimental to workers in those parts of the country...'

'I agree.'

'I would argue that UKIP has a better chance of doing real damage to Labour in these areas at the General Election than the Tories - tribalism is still alive and well in many places in the north of course.'

'Indeed it is.'

'We'd have much more chance in Labour's heartlands if we were unopposed by a Tory candidate..'

'You would.'

'And you'd have much more chance of winning in your core areas and in some marginal seats if UKIP wasn't campaigning against you. A sort of 'unite the right' ticket..'

'That's true too, what's your suggestion Nige?'

'OK so here's my initial 'heads of agreement' suggestion: With the exception of a specific seat in Kent, we would be prepared to engage in a 'gentleman's agreement' wherein we would not stand against Tories in your heartlands and we would, subject to sorting out a joint stance of EU reforms (which would - and you'd need to think quite carefully about this - mean you'd have to make clear what your 'red lines' for regaining powers were), be prepared to not stand against you and indeed to endorse the Tory candidate in those areas.

'And in return?'

'We'd want a clear run at our target seats in Labour areas - we'd probably (no offence) not want Tory endorsement as part of this agreement, but to be allowed to roll out our campaigns unopposed by a Tory candidate and to have some form of tacit agreement that we are on the same side: the side of working people. Let's face it we couldn't do worse than you would do in some of these places and we would be able to put forward a clear and fresh message.'

'That would seem, on the face of it, to make sense, obviously some details would need to be worked out. What about the Lib Dems?'

'Let's not change the subject Dave, they're irrelevant and I think we both know it.'

'God I hope you're right - and I think you are. So would this be a formal pre-election coalition? That could be difficult..'

'No, not formal, but obviously it could not be clandestine. We would have to come up with a rationale for public consumption. You would have to have a form of words that you would be comfortable with - the bigger picture, long-term vision, national sovereignty and all that. We would, frankly have to tone down some of our stuff and weed out some more of the nutters and become more professional, but we're doing that anyway and want (and need) to continue that process. But, in principle, if it made your election with a majority more likely, we would both welcome that, and if it made UKIP a more credible party with some credible representation in Parliament, that would be great for us. We could then look at EU reforms positively in the best interests of the UK and if we could work out what we really want and need in terms of reforms beforehand, we could join forces in a positive way. Is it worth exploring?'

'Let's meet, no strings, no PR bullshit, who knows, but it's certainly of interest.'

'Thanks, I'll be in touch.'

The Pyramids, Stone Henge. Church henge. What's the difference? Not much

The patronisingly condescending way historians talk about ancient civilisations such as the Egyptians worshipping the sun God Ra or the druids worship[ping at Stonehenge, and yet there is no such condescention about modern people essentially doing exactly the same thing, with exactly the same amount of scientific justification, worshipping at a modern church henge.

There's very little difference when you look at this closely and really think about it.