Small businesses need all the help they can get to survive and their objective is to be around when the green shoots appear.

Many will fail.  BDO STOY HAYWARD forecasts that 40,000 will go to the wall in 2009.  If that doesn’t set alarm bells ringing in the Chancellors ears, nothing will. 

Cash is king and without a healthy cash flow, businesses die.  It’s that simple.  Yet we see Lord Mandelson kicking small businesses when they’re down by refusing to cut the increase in business rates. 

In fact, it gets worse because he is retaining a 5% rate increase at a time when inflation is less than half that level.  And that will mean that vital cash flow will slow down for many businesses.

So much for the government’s fine words about helping the sector, when in truth they are making it more difficult for small businesses.  Doesn’t he know that for many of them the name of the game is survival?

Most small and medium sized businesses simply want to be here this time next year and the FSB is calling for a freeze on business rates this year to help them.  I agree, but of the Chancellor doesn’t want to go the whole hog, the least he could do is cut the increase to the prevailing rate of inflation. 

That would be a common sense approach.  But I fear that common sense is a quality sadly lacking in this government.

Last night the attempt by Patricia Hewitt and Evan Harris to liberalise the law on assisting suicide was deliberately talked out in the House of Commons. While those of us who uphold the sanctity of human life must be relieved that their amendment did not get anywhere, it was a pity that we did not have opportunity to make our arguments against it.  Because they are overwhelming.

I have often expressed the concern, shared by many, that we must uphold the value of human life and defend it from practices which would cheapen and undermine.

I am sure we all agree about the need to show compassion to those who develop suicidal intentions. Any suicide is a tragedy of destruction; tacit proof of society’s failure to respond to the circumstances that prompted an individual to take their own life.  UK law as it stands quite rightly prohibits anyone from aiding or encouraging someone else to commit suicide, and the Coroners and Justice Bill rightly seeks to update that legal position by adding provisions outlawing the encouragement of suicide via websites and other means.

The amendment proposed by Patricia Hewitt and Evan Harris directly contradicts the spirit and intention of these new provisions by specifically legalising one kind of assistance to commit suicide.  With the addition of their New Clause, a law expressly intended to discourage suicide would also contain a provision allowing precisely the opposite – encouragement and assistance to commit suicide abroad.  The appearance of such a self-contradictory law on the statute book would be absurd.

But the proposals raise greater concerns than just the element of legal farce.  They are truly dangerous.

The proposals bear, of course, some connection with recent high-profile cases of UK citizens travelling or seeking to travel to end their lives in countries where assisted suicide is legal.  Without wishing to consider any of them in particular detail, such cases consistently involve determined and resolute individuals who suffer from terminal illnesses or an incapacity which they believed rendered their life no longer worth living (though I should point out that medical experts have suggested that some of these individuals may in fact have been suffering from depressive illnesses and might not have been so determined to end their lives had they accessed appropriate psychiatric help).

The point is this: those who advocate assisted suicide, voluntary euthanasia and associated practices always assure us that they desire only to legalise the most clear-cut cases involving the most competent and independently-minded people (of course, I would disagree that any case of suicide can be “clear-cut”, regardless of how competent the individual might appear to be).  We are constantly assured that assisting suicide can be legalised within stringent safeguards which prevent any possible abuse or exploitation of people who are not competent or who are subject to coercion.

Any examination of the detail of the Hewitt/Harris proposals blows such arguments out of the water.  Where are the safeguards?

Their New Clause does not require that the person travelling abroad be mentally competent.  It does not require that they suffer terminal illness, or any illness at all.  It does not require any sort of proof that they actually intend to take their own lives. It does not even require them to be over 18, so that children could be taken abroad to commit suicide. So much for safeguards – and yet consider the kind of people who would be exposed to this proposal.  Ill people, elderly people, vulnerable people.  It is not difficult to think of situations where such vulnerable people could be convinced to take advantage of such a law, either because they erroneously believe themselves to be burden, or because someone else has a vested interest in hastening their end.

Let no one suggest that this gaping lack of safeguards might be made good by the legislation in the countries to which these individuals might travel to end their lives.  We hear much about the Dignitas clinic in Zurich and its apparently rigorous procedures.  Dignitas is of course currently under investigation for profiteering from patients’ deaths, and has been the subject of very serious accusations of malpractice from a former staff member.[1]    

When Oregon’s Death with Dignity Act was first introduced, about one third of patients requesting the help of a doctor to commit suicide were referred for psychiatric assessment; there has not been one such referral in the last two years.[2] As the medical profession has become calloused by its involvement in the process, patients are simply placed on the conveyor-belt from request to death.

The simple fact is that the legislation in places where assisted suicide is legal has been proven to lack sufficient safeguards and the Hewitt/Harris proposals would simply surrender vulnerable UK citizens to these inadequate regimes.

Lord Carlile of Berriew QC, the Liberal Democrat Peer, made a very sensible argument in a letter to The Times in November 2008.  Referring to “paper thin” safeguards in an assisted dying Bill in another place, he wrote: “The real concern is, and remains, public safety”. 

He went on: “Laws aren’t like precision-guided missiles.  Once a statute, they can quickly be used to encourage acts they were designed to enable and control… This is not about religion or autonomy or medicine: it is about public safety, legal certainty and the protection by the law of the vulnerable.  It behoves Parliament to think very carefully once again, rather than be stampeded by highly emotional campaigns mounted by single-issue pressure groups”.[3]

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[1]Daily Mail, 25 January 2008 [2] Jeffrey, D, Against Physician Assisted Suicide: A palliative care perspective, Radcliffe Publishing Limited, 2009, page 66; The Daily Telegraph, 21 February 2009 [3] The Times, 5 November 2008

My wife laughed when the thick embossed invitation card arrived. It was to the opening of the new toilets at Lincoln Cathedral.

I went, and it was a fine event. Because of the train timetable I had to come an hour early, and had an opportunity to have a proper tour of the Cathedral.

We gasp in awe at these buildings, but we know, most of us, little about their extraordinary history. I knew that only the great west arches remain of Remigius’ original Norman cathedral. But I didn’t know that when the remaining arches were incorporated into Bishop Alexander’s early English structure, that they got the alignment wrong and the whole thing is slightly off-centre.

Of course it’s a cliché to say that this extraordinary labour of masonry built over 150 years is all in praise of God, but true nonetheless.

Back to the toilets. They are the first new building within the precincts for 100 years. They have cost the best part of a million pounds, and are beautiful. Every detail is of the highest quality and built to last, including the large stained-glass window. Built in sturdy stone, they will stand for centuries. The cathedral, with no difficulty, can last another thousand years.

Why can we not put similar effort into the rest of the public sector? As Macmillan said, people walk in public parks but they tend their own gardens.

The same day the National Audit Office published another report on a failed public sector IT project, which is a year late and has doubled  in price.

Will civil servants ever husband public money as if it were their own? There is the unfashionable comment to be made. The builders of the cathedral were dedicating their work every hour of the day to God. Perhaps they were sometimes over budget and certainly over time. But they  built to last.

‘Except the Lord shall build the house, they labour in vain that build it’ (Psalm 127).

By Edward Leigh MP

Interesting to see Patricia Hewitt quoted in just about every paper today with regard to the amendment she is laying down to the Justice and Coroners Bill on Monday. The amendment is to remove those who assist in elective suicide from the threat of prosecution.

Only it would appear it’s not her amendment.

Today I received a leaked email which dropped onto my computer from the office of Evan Harris MP.

Now, at much the same time as the email arrived so did a phone call. The caller believed that some Liberal Democrats are possibly not too happy with the ‘Dr Death’ title given by some in the media to Dr Harris, due to his enthusiasm for abortion and euthanasia. Apparently, I am led to believe,  they would prefer any high profile ‘death’ stuff to be done in the name of another MP as it tarnishes the image of the Liberal Democrats, that being the one of the ‘nice’ party, which everyone knows they aren’t.

In addition to this, as hardly any MP from any party would support a Liberal Democrat, due to their unfair and unpleasant campaign techniques; it would need to be carried by a Labour or Conservative MP in order to receive any support at all.

The email written by the researcher of Evan Harris is the exact wording of the amendment and I have been led to believe, the handwritten list of names supporting the amendment is in the hand of Evan Harris himself.

So, just whose line is this anyway?

That of Dr Harris the MP who is at least genuine in his pursuit of ending of life issues. Or Patricia Hewitt, who developed an interest in this when exactly?

I hear the sound of a stable door being slammed shut and horses hooves gathering pace in the distance. Lord Turner has produced his masterplan for banking.

How sad that the PM argued a ‘light touch’ when many people were calling for less borrowing four or five years ago.

So, Lord Turner now says that the City was reckless and is arguing for the bulk of bonuses to be paid in shares, which can be clawed back if deals turn out to be loss making. He also says we should consider banning mortgages in excess of 100%. My grandmother could have told him that. And glory be he is calling for the hedge fund industry to be subject to much stricter oversight. I would go one further and place all regulatory control back in to the hands of the Bank of England and scrap the FSA. I would also limit the number of credit cards one person can hold and place a tighter hold on personal borrowing.

The truth is that the PM went easy on regulation because he knew it would help maintain his record of growth.  In other words, this over-rated Chancellor took risks with the British economy to prove him self right. Thank god his record is being seen for what it is, but what a pity we have to pay so heavy a price for the view.

I am slightly irritated that a Conservative MP live blogged on his or her phone from our private meeting with David Cameron yesterday, as reported on the Spectator Coffee House blog.

It’s a sad, sad situation. Sad because it shows a distinct lack of solidarity with the rest of the team. Sad because whoever it was is obviously far more concerned with raising his or her profile than holding this impotent, useless Government to account.

It reflects badly on the rest of us who blog with integrity. This person must be a real Billy no mates if he or she needs so desperately to curry favour with journalists and would betray the trust of their colleagues.

Stupid thing to do because the Chief will most likely track him down and kill him. Probably with his bare hands.

Maybe he should say sorry. As Elton John would say, always the hardest word.

So, courageous British soldiers who lost 12 of their comrades in Afghanistan and Iraq were insulted by a group of fanatics who think they have the right to join our club and then establish their own rules.

And the Archbishop of Canterbury talks about introducing Sharia Law in the UK!

More frighteningly, this government has for 12 years pursued an open door immigration policy to help sustain a record of growth which has fuelled this fanaticism. 

When are we going to get real?  Freedom carries with it responsibilities.   Reward carries with it a pay-back. 

I will fight to ensure that law-abiding British citizens, of whatever colour or religious conviction are fully integrated and receive all the benefits citizenship bestows but I expect them to respect the responsibility it demands and recognise those British values which lay at the heart of our society. 

One assumes they and their parents or grandparents came to this country to enjoy those benefits and the vast majority clearly accept the responsibilities that go with it.  The fanatics who don’t should get out!