The queen of British broadcasting, Esther Rantzen (84), was interviewed on BBC Radio last Friday after it was announced there would be a debate this month in the House of Commons on a Bill for assisted dying for terminally ill people. She hasn’t lost her touch.
Rantzen is best known for presenting That’s Life!, a freewheeling magazine show that reached peak audiences of 20 million in the 1970s and 1980s. Latterly, however, she has been a high-profile campaigner for giving terminally ill people who want to end their lives the right to ask for help. Her campaign’s poignancy was underlined when she was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer in 2023.
Last week she spoke to BBC Radio 4′s Amol Rajan about the latest developments. “Dame Esther, good morning,” said Rajan, opening their call. He was met with silence; there was a connection issue on the line. “Is Dame Esther Rantzen with us?” he asked.
“Yes, I hope so,” she responded jauntily, as the call suddenly connected. “I am doing my best.”
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Rajan quickly realised his error in using such unfortunate wording to inquire about the whereabouts of a terminally ill woman. Rantzen’s laughter helped to bail him out of a deep pit of mortification, as he lamented “the worst question I have ever asked”.
Rantzen once said that in the same year more than two decades ago, she watched her mother, her husband and her dog all die in short order. The dog, she said, got the best death.
“In the background of my life is the knowledge that I may not be as lucky as my dog.”
The issue was last debated in the House of Commons in 2015, when an assisted dying Bill was defeated by 118 votes to 300. One of its supporters was a rookie Labour MP, a human rights lawyer by the name of Keir Starmer.
During the election this summer, Starmer met Rantzen shortly before he led Labour to victory. He promised her that if he became prime minister, he would ensure a new proposal came before the Commons and that his MPs would have a free vote.
An assisted dying Bill was introduced in the House of Lords by Charles Falconer, a former justice secretary under Tony Blair who is now a Labour peer. However, private members Bills introduced in the Lords almost never make it on to the statute books.
Supporters of a change in the law needed an MP to step up and bring a Bill to the Commons. As the government would probably remain neutral, it wasn’t at all clear how this would happen.
With each new parliament, a ballot is held to prioritise MPs who want to introduce private members Bills on Friday afternoons, when Westminster is normally deserted. This time round the ballot was won by Kim Leadbeater, the Labour MP for Spen Valley in Yorkshire. She is the younger sister of Jo Cox, an MP who was murdered in 2016.
Leadbeater’s Bill would give terminally ill people in England and Wales the right to ask for help ending their lives. The final details haven’t yet been revealed, but it seems it will be similar to Falconer’s proposal, which would give the right to people with six months or less to live, as long as they are of sound mind. Broadly similar changes are under consideration in Scotland and Jersey.
Leadbeater’s Bill is likely to be introduced in the Commons as soon as next Wednesday and the first vote could take place before the end of the year. There is opposition from some disability campaigners, for example, who see it as a slippery slope that could see the value of their lives and the lives of others undermined, and even pressure put on them to end it all.
Other opponents include campaigners for better palliative care services. At least a quarter of Britons who seek end-of-life care are unable to access it. Some campaigners believe having a right to assisted dying will undermine palliative care resources even further.
[ Should assisted dying be legalised? Louise Campbell and Des O’Neill debateOpens in new window ]
Rantzen, meanwhile, told Rajan on BBC Radio 4 that she was “very, very surprised” at the swift turn of events with Leadbeater’s Bill, and that she might live long enough to witness a debate in parliament on the issue upon which she has campaigned so passionately.
Her voice sounded strong and true, yet Rantzen doesn’t think she will live long enough to be legally helped to die where she wants, in her cottage near New Forest national park in southern England. Instead she has joined Dignitas, a Swiss assisted dying clinic, in anticipation of how it might end.