Dan Hitchens
@ddhitchens
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Senior editor @firstthingsmag | Co-author, Cambridge Introduction to Samuel Johnson (out in 2025) | https://t.co/yj4GPUYs00
Joined June 2015
Major unresolved problems with the Leadbeater bill: an A-Z guide. A is for Anorexia. Eating disorder charities and experts have warned that the bill leaves the door open for sufferers to qualify and receive an assisted death: https://t.co/0AjGuNLjt6
1/ @vicderbyshire asked a simple question: why did you vote against every amendment eating disorder experts urged you to pass to close the anorexia loophole? A thread on the many eating disorder experts she chose to ignore ⬇️
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"Tread more lightly on your lives." Bookmark those words.
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Yes. There is a constitutional crisis, and its name is Keir Starmer.
The Labour Government treats constitutional custom with contempt - at precisely the moment that Britain's institutions face the gravest challenge to their legitimacy in generations. It is a perfect storm. My latest for The Critic. https://t.co/5C6nZbkKhV
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Noteworthy from Abigail Buchanan in @Telegraph: she says “critics of the assisted dying bill” argue it may have lost its Commons majority “now that support for Keir Starmer among backbenchers has waned”. “Keir wants it” is perhaps less persuasive when you’re at 18% in the polls.
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And here is a Starmer aide, speaking to the Guardian in Nov 2024: “Keir wanted it to happen. It’s that simple.”
@ddhitchens @kimleadbeater @thetimes I understand Kim was approached by the Whips with the usual handout bills - chose the puppy farming bill - then a subsequent approach was made for this Bill, NOT on the handout list, which the govt had done no work on, but Starmer personally wanted. It stinks.
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2016: Keir Starmer addresses a Dignity in Dying meeting. 2023: Keir Starmer commissions a strategy document recommending he use a PMB to give “political cover” for introducing AS while “control[ling] the parameters of legislation carefully through working with advocacy groups”.
@nmdacosta @RightToLifeUK @ddhitchens @CNKAlliance And here is Keir Starmer meeting with the Dignity in Dying campaign group as far back as 2016.
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@TradSkowronski I have MND, and know a few others, we are all trying to squeeze the most out of our changing lives. Good palliative care and support for our families and carers are what we need, not encouragement to die even earlier. @Tanni_GT FTW.
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In late 2023, Keir Starmer was solemnly intoning “country before party” about every five minutes. We now know he was also planning to introduce a major social reform by the most reckless legislative means possible—while hiding his involvement—to give himself “political cover”.
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I love The Rest is History, mainly for the content but also for morality tale it offers universities. So much pointless effort expended on achieving public "impact". And the secret turns out to be: show enthusiasm, don't guilt-trip the audience, tell a rattling good yarn.
Let's hear it for The Rest is History Dominic Sandbrook and Tom Holland are defining our national story By Robert Colls
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No. The specific limits on the House of Lords would be redundant if there was a general requirement that it must always yield to the Commons. The Lords is under no duty to approve a non-manifesto Private Members Bill. See:
publiclawforeveryone.com
The Assisted Dying Bill has been approved by the House of Commons. But unless the Parliament Act is invokved, it also needs the approval of the House of Lords if it is to become law. What constitut…
A neat rhetorical move, but constitutionally upside down. The Lords’ limits exist because the primacy of the elected House must be insulated from an unelected chamber, not because that primacy is in doubt. The settlement works to prevent precisely the scenario you imply.
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This is politics, not procedure. That’s legitimate, all the signatories are politicians, but it’s dishonest to pretend it’s merely constitutional advice. Any government has a simple answer to fix this: put the bill in a manifesto and win an election. That neutralises the Lords.
NEW: In a joint letter, senior peers including 3 former cabinet secretaries and 3 former Lords speakers have warned peers not to use procedural manoeuvres to thwart the assisted dying bill. With 1,100+ amendments tabled, they warn the reputation of Parliament is on the line.
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This article in the Sunday Times fundamentally misstates the constitutional role of the Lords—based, it seems, on an equally misleading open letter from former Cabinet Secretaries and others who ought to know better. The correct position is set out here:
publiclawforeveryone.com
The Assisted Dying Bill has been approved by the House of Commons. But unless the Parliament Act is invokved, it also needs the approval of the House of Lords if it is to become law. What constitut…
A bizarre article in the Sunday Times: “Any attempt by the Lords to block a bill backed by the Commons would breach long-established constitutional conventions”. But there are no applicable conventions here. Lords are free to vote down this Bill.
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There are various limits on the Lords’ powers, both legal and conventional. If it were true that “Respect for the primacy of the Commons is not optional; it is the foundation of our parliamentary legitimacy”, none of them would be necessary. This letter both overstates and
NEW: In a joint letter, senior peers including 3 former cabinet secretaries and 3 former Lords speakers have warned peers not to use procedural manoeuvres to thwart the assisted dying bill. With 1,100+ amendments tabled, they warn the reputation of Parliament is on the line.
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Let's take a look at the record of the signatories to this letter:
NEW: In a joint letter, senior peers including 3 former cabinet secretaries and 3 former Lords speakers have warned peers not to use procedural manoeuvres to thwart the assisted dying bill. With 1,100+ amendments tabled, they warn the reputation of Parliament is on the line.
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"Procedural manoeuvres"? What a cheek. Actually, Lords tabling amendments ARE following the procedure, for a Private Members' Bill, and it's the procedure itself that creates time limits for discussion. Maybe letter signatories can tell us WHICH AMENDMENTS they think are
NEW: In a joint letter, senior peers including 3 former cabinet secretaries and 3 former Lords speakers have warned peers not to use procedural manoeuvres to thwart the assisted dying bill. With 1,100+ amendments tabled, they warn the reputation of Parliament is on the line.
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Elizabeth Gardiner, who drafted the “Leadbeater” bill, worked in the civil service basically her entire career. So the person who brought her in (“somebody who I used to work with”) is probably also someone linked to the government/Whitehall machine.
Here's another aspect. Elizabeth Gardiner, former first parliamentary counsel, was not approached by Kim Leadbeater. And was commissioned to do the work before she met with Kim. Who approached her? Who made the connection?
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Isn't it curious that Dignity in Dying whose accounts publish every detail of their campaign are studiously silent about what happened before Kim announced her bill. We're to believe between 4 July and 3 Oct they played no role? There's a cover-up going on...1/
5 Sept - PMB ballot 17 Sept - Starmer says there will be a bill 3 Oct - Leadbeater announces her bill
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An international Tribunal administered by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague has again ruled in Chevron’s favor in its arbitration against the Republic of Ecuador.
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Would these ex-civil servants like to comment on the secret Labour plan, leaked last week, to evade scrutiny by deceptively using the PMB process while “control[ling] the parameters of legislation carefully through working with advocacy groups and government civil servants”?
NEW: In a joint letter, senior peers including 3 former cabinet secretaries and 3 former Lords speakers have warned peers not to use procedural manoeuvres to thwart the assisted dying bill. With 1,100+ amendments tabled, they warn the reputation of Parliament is on the line.
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Nov 2023: now-leaked Labour strategy doc proposes “private member’s” bill where govt “controls the parameters” by “working with advocacy groups…to draft the legislation”. Jan 2025: Leadbeater reacts with fury after Danny Kruger claims the bill was “written by a campaign group”.
This is maybe the biggest smoking gun in the leak (to mix metaphors). It’s a plan for how to “control” legislation, partly through “advocacy groups”, without the difficulties of consulting the electorate and the Labour party.
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Strange that the sponsors didn’t get in touch with the MP whose amendment they’re high-handedly rewriting. Almost as though there’s some confusion about who’s actually in charge of the bill.
@Tanni_GT @RightToLifeUK I’ve not been approached at all. The changes are material and remove the specificity I deliberately put into the amendments to ensure the training covered coercive and controlling behaviour, financial abuse AND ensured it was mandatory for those involved in the process.
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