‘Assisted dying’ is a euphemism for the crimes of murder and assisting suicide. The Voluntary Euthanasia Society, now itself euphemistically rebranded as ‘Dignity in Dying’, has been campaigning since the 1930s for these crimes to be diluted to allow doctors to kill patients (euthanasia) or to help patients kill themselves (physician-assisted suicide). Their arguments have been exhaustively examined, not least by the House of Lords. They have been repeatedly, recently and rightly rejected.

Having failed to persuade Parliament, the campaigners are now pressuring the prosecutors.  Spearheading the campaign is Debbie Purdy. She has MS and says at some point she may (or may not) want her husband to assist her to commit suicide by helping her travel to Switzerland (where assisting suicide is permitted). She asked the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) to publish his policy on when it is the public interest to prosecute assisting suicide. He refused. She sought judicial review.

Astonishingly, the Law Lords granted her application. Their ruling, reversing the Court of Appeal, was unprecedented and  unsound, if not unconstitutional.  As the Lord Chief Justice had wisely observed in the Court of Appeal, granting her application would in effect create exceptions to the crime. Creating exceptions was something only Parliament could do, and it had not chosen to. (Indeed, it has repeatedly chosen not to.)  The Law Lords, by contrast, seemed to think it a proper function of the judiciary to help someone evade prosecution for the future commission of a serious crime. Their ruling looks even odder when seen against Parliament’s contemporary effort, culminating in the Coroners and Justice Act 2009, to expand the crime.

Last September the DPP put out an interim prosecution policy for public consultation; his finalised policy is imminent.  If England is not to follow the Dutch down the slippery slope to legalised euthanasia, his final guidelines must meet three important objections to the interim guidelines.

First, they should state in terms that, notwithstanding the Law Lords’ decision in Purdy, assisting or encouraging suicide remains a serious crime to which only Parliament can create exceptions.

Secondly, the interim guidelines  assume that the cases which will raise public interest issues in future will be similar to those in the past, like the case of Daniel James. Daniel was the paralysed and determined young man reluctantly accompanied to Switzerland by his loving parents. But given that Purdy may well be misinterpreted by many as opening the door to assisting suicide, and given that some are already trying to force that door by testing the limits of prosecutorial discretion, the  guidelines must leave no doubt that prosecution will be the rule unless the circumstances are wholly exceptional. This they signally fail to do.

For example, they misleadingly state that the question is whether prosecution ‘is needed’ in the public interest. But the current Code for Crown Prosecutors makes it clear that if there is enough evidence of a crime to provide a realistic prospect of conviction  ‘a prosecution will usually take place’ unless there are public interest factors tending against prosecution which ‘clearly outweigh’ those tending in favour.  To ask whether prosecution ‘is needed’ in the public interest reverses the Code’s presumption in favour of prosecution. 

Further, several of the factors the interim policy lists against prosecution – such as that the deceased had a severe and incurable physical disability; or had previously attempted suicide and was likely to do so again; or was helped by a spouse or close relative – are objectionable. 

Lord Carlile has aptly commented: ‘This is discriminatory against the sick, the disabled and the suicidal:  the proposals fly in the face of the principle that the law must afford equal protection to all, irrespective of age, gender, race, religion – and state of health’. As the Royal College of Psychiatrists noted in their evidence to the DPP, depression is strongly associated with wanting assisted suicide and when it is treated 98-99% change their mind. Lord Carlile has also cautioned that the assumption that family members invariably have the deceased’s interests at heart is belied by everyday experience. Former senior judges Lord Mackay and Baroness Butler-Sloss have joined him in warning that the interim guidelines pose ‘serious dangers for public safety’.

Thirdly, the guidelines should state that the presence of any one of the major factors listed in favour of prosecution (such as the deceased having had no ‘clear, settled and informed wish to commit suicide’) should generally result in prosecution, irrespective of the number of factors against. 

The stakes of getting the guidelines right could hardly be higher, as the dire experience of The Netherlands confirms. There, voluntary euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide have been practised for a quarter of a century. The sorry saga began in 1984 with ‘guidelines’ drawn up by the Dutch medical establishment, endorsed by prosecutors and courts and defended by the government.  Foreign concerns about the risks of abuse were brushed aside with assurances that euthanasia remained ‘illegal’ and that doctors would be prosecuted unless they complied with these ‘strict’ guidelines.  The assurances soon proved vain.

The claim that only those who pressed for euthanasia with an ‘explicit request’ would get it has been exploded by Dutch research revealing that euthanasia has been pressed on thousands of patients incapable of making a request.  Indeed, Dutch patients are now advised to make it clear while they are still competent if they do not want euthanasia should they become incompetent.

In 2002 the Dutch passed a statute, based on the guidelines, openly legalising voluntary euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide. Their experience shows how easily prosecutorial exceptions can become statutory rules.  Former Dutch minister of health and architect of legalisation, Dr Els Borst, recently admitted that they had given too little attention to palliative care and had permitted euthanasia ‘far too early’. 

If we are not to slide, greased by euphemism, down the Dutch slippery slope and if equal protection of the law is to be guaranteed to all (not least the most vulnerable), the duty of the DPP is clear: resolutely to uphold Parliament’s clear prohibition on assisting suicide.

Justice should be tempered by mercy, not frustrated by it.

The news that Radio 4 is in discussions with the Pope about the Pontiff appearing on Thought for the Day during his upcoming visit to Britain is most welcome. As one would expect, the programme’s producers consider the Pope to be the dream ticket for the show. Let us hope that both parties involved can dot the I’s and cross the T’s on the necessary agreement which would no doubt add to what will be an historic and wonderful visit.

Jonathan Isaby’s verdict: A rowdy session of PMQs in which David Cameron successfully taunted Brown about those extraordinary comments made last night by Alistair Darling.

12.03 Gordon Brown begins by paying tribute to the seven soldiers who have been killed in Afghanistan since the last PMQs.

12.06 David Cameron echoes the tribute to the fallen soldiers. He raises the report into Stafford hospital (the constituency in which he stood in 1997). Does the PM understand that victims are not content with a private inquiry and that there is a clamour for a public inquiry?

12.07 Brown blamed a failure in management for the problems. Cameron says death rates were far too high for years before investigations began. Don’t we need a better way of publishing results and more transparency to stop it happening again?

12.10 Cameron: We also need openness at the heart of government, referring to Darling’s statement last night. He asks Brown to stand up with a straight face and support the Chancellor. Read in full at ConservativeHome.

The Children, Schools and Families Bill, which had its’ third reading in the Commons yesterday, has received a welcome amendment from an unlikely source. The Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families Ed Balls has tabled an amendment regarding the teaching of sex education in schools, specifically with regards to contraception and homosexuality.

Originally the Bill proposed obligations on all schools, faith or otherwise, to teach children about contraception and homosexuality in a way that gave both sides of the argument. This ended the right of schools to opt-out of any type of teaching on either subject. However, it also prevented faith schools from explaining their faith’s position on the matter. What Mr Balls’ amendment does is to allow faith schools to teach on the subject “within the context and ethos of their faith”. In other words, for example, a Catholic school can teach that contraception is wrong, but they must provide its pupils with teaching about contraception.

This amendment is a fine example of common sense prevailing over the drive for political correctness and is the result of our long-term campaigning on the issue.

In a new and encouraging move Parliament has shown a willingness to work together with faith schools (who provide roughly one-third of the education in the UK) and been sensitive to their views.

Gordon Brown’s launch of a Labour election campaign promising economic recovery was in jeopardy last night as a record slump in tax receipts fuelled fears that Britain could slip back into recession.

Official figures showed that the Treasury borrowed another £4.3 billion last month. It is the first time since records began in 1993 that the nation has been in the red in January, traditionally the month when government coffers are swelled by big tax receipts.

Economists, who had expected a surplus of about £2.8 billion, sounded renewed alarm, with some saying Britain’s deficit could exceed Greece’s. Kate Barker, of the Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee, added to the gloom, warning the recovery would be “hesitant” and another quarter of negative growth was possible.

Treasury officials insisted that the Government remained on track to borrow a total of £178 billion, 12.6 per cent of GDP, as forecast by Alistair Darling in the last Pre-Budget Report. However, City experts said the figures showed that the deficit could overtake the 12.7 per cent recorded by Greece. Read in full in The Times.

As part of its drive towards the lowest common denominator in education, Labour has allowed the teaching of history to vanish from the curriculum at many state schools. Thousands of pupils drop the subject at 13, and only three in 10 fifth-formers take it at GCSE.

The thinking behind this classroom vandalism is that history, along with pure sciences and foreign languages, is a “hard” subject, much more likely to be failed than less academic courses, such as leisure and tourism.

Under a regime that focuses on quotas rather than quality, little Johnny at the bog-standard comprehensive is encouraged to play the soft-option system. He gains a fistful of qualifications, but ends up knowing nothing of the past and can barely write a note to the milkman.

This is a shame. History has much to teach us in today’s financial crisis, not least that we have been here before in one form or another. The economy is in a mess, government spending is out of control, and our currency is being devalued. Desperate ministers, fearing disaster at the polls, seek to denigrate opponents by labelling them “toffs”.

Put another way: “Our finances have been brought into grave disorder. No British Government in peace time has ever had the power or spent the money in the vast extent and reckless manner of our current rulers… no community living in a world of competing nations can possibly afford such frantic extravagances… the evils which we suffer today are the inevitable progeny of that wanton way of living.” Read in full in the Daily Telegraph.

Veteran BBC presenter Ray Gosling was yesterday arrested on suspicion of murder after a broadcast in which he said he had killed his seriously ill gay lover.

Mr Gosling, 70, was held by police within 36 hours of confessing to smothering his partner with a pillow as he lay dying of Aids in hospital.

Officers arrested him at his home in sheltered accommodation in Nottingham yesterday morning. He was still being questioned at Oxclose Lane station last night.

On Monday, the broadcaster used a documentary on BBC East Midlands’ Inside Out programme to claim he made a pact with an unnamed partner – who he later described as his ‘bit on the side’ – to end his life if the pain got too severe.

He told Radio Four’s Today programme that he did not fear police action, adding: ‘I don’t do worry – bugger the law.’

He insisted he would not tell police the name, place or date of the killing, which happened ‘a long time ago’. Read in full at the Daily Mail.