Share this page!

Enter URL or ID to Unroll

You can paste full URL like: https://x.com/threadreaderapp/status/1644127596119195649
or just the ID like: 1644127596119195649

How to get URL link on X (Twitter) App

  1. On the Twitter thread, click on or icon on the bottom
  2. Click again on or Share Via icon
  3. Click on Copy Link to Tweet
  4. Paste it above and click "Unroll Thread"!
  5. More info at Twitter Help
Dan Hitchens Profile picture
Dan Hitchens
@ddhitchens
Senior editor @firstthingsmag | Co-author, Cambridge Introduction to Samuel Johnson (out in 2025) | https://t.co/yj4GPUYs00
Jun 25 • 26 tweets • 12 min read
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:
B is for Burden.

Under the bill, if someone meets the criteria and their sole motive is feeling like a burden, they qualify for an assisted death.

If unamended this could open the way for large numbers of people to receive lethal drugs out of mere guilt.
Jun 20 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
1. Fact check: Kevin McKenna MP says of the panel:

“This reflects the best practice…that we have a multidisciplinary team.”

But the experts invited by Kim Leadbeater have said the panel falls far short of good clinical practice, and is *not* a proper multidisciplinary team. 2. Palliative care specialist @doctor_oxford, who was invited to give evidence to the committee by Kim Leadbeater, has said the panel is not an MDT and in fact betrays “a gross misunderstanding” of what an MDT is.

Jun 18 • 15 tweets • 6 min read
1. What happens, under the assisted suicide bill, if someone requests lethal drugs *because* they feel like a burden? Image 2. The first thing to say is that—if they have a 6-month prognosis—they absolutely qualify.

Here Kim Leadbeater confirms the point: if your sole motive is altruistic—i.e. “others would be better off if I was dead”—the doctors/panel don’t have any freedom to refuse your request.
Jun 17 • 17 tweets • 7 min read
1. How do assisted suicide laws affect palliative care?

Big question this week, with Gordon Brown warning that the Leadbeater bill prioritises death over palliative care, and Leadbeater arguing “this is not an either-or”.

Where does the evidence point?
2. The most comprehensive recent study is by the bioethicist Professor David Albert Jones.

Prof Jones found “clear indications in several jurisdictions of palliative and end-of-life care deteriorating in quality and provision following the introduction of AD / AS.” Image
Jun 17 • 13 tweets • 6 min read
1. Who are @dignityindying? And—as campaign groups are an accepted part of politics—why does this particular group matter so much?

Thread prompted by coming across this (Dr Sam Ahmedzai): “Invited by Kim Leadbeater…travel and one night accommodation covered by Dignity in Dying” Image 2. Originally DID was the Voluntary Euthanasia Society—co-founded by Killick Millard, who lobbied for the release of an SS camp doctor he saw as a fellow-traveller.

Then EXIT, featuring the even more sinister Mark Lyons:

But that’s all a long time ago!
Jun 15 • 8 tweets • 3 min read
Explainer thread: Care costs and the Leadbeater Bill.

Care is very expensive: around £949 a week in a care home and £1,267 in a nursing home, says Age UK.

Councils can sometimes help—but that model faces an unprecedented crisis, with 500,000 people on assessment waiting lists. Image 2. This provides a significant incentive for assisted suicide.

The Orders of St John Care Trust—Britain’s second biggest not-for-profit care provider, with 61 care homes—has warned that people will request lethal drugs for financial reasons.
Jun 10 • 11 tweets • 3 min read
The Leadbeater bill is on a knife-edge; but if it passes, you can expect in 10-15 years to hear its backers saying, “Of course, in retrospect…” and “Hindsight is 20/20” and “Had we known then what we know now…”

Thread on what we know now, June 10 2025: 1. Important medical bodies—the Association for Palliative Medicine, British Geriatrics Society, Royal College of Psychiatrists and Royal College of Physicians—have said the bill fails to protect the vulnerable.
Jun 7 • 13 tweets • 4 min read
1. To be clear, the criticisms of the process are not about the number of hours allotted, but about the manipulative amateurishness of it all.

Things like announcing psychiatrists would staff the panels without consulting @rcpsych, who then come out against the bill… 2. …like selecting a witness list unbalanced 80-20 towards bill supporters:
Image
Jun 5 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
1. For this week’s @spectator I interviewed as many hospice staff as I could, and found an extraordinary strength of feeling about the Leadbeater bill.

Amy Proffitt, former president of the Association for Palliative Medicine, says: ‘It has the potential to destroy the sector.’ Image 2. I spoke to staff—pro-bill, anti, and somewhere in between—at 17 adult hospices across England and Wales, a tenth of the total.

Again and again I heard fears that, as one consultant at a Welsh hospice put it, ‘This could be the end of hospice care as we know it.’
Jun 3 • 14 tweets • 5 min read
1. Who is actually taking responsibility for the assisted suicide bill?

The public sometimes think of it as a Labour project. But the PM always stresses it’s a private member’s bill – eg here where he declines to give Kim Leadbeater a hint of comradeship:
2. So is it Leadbeater’s responsibility? Well, sort of. But then at times she makes basic errors about the text of the bill...
Jun 1 • 7 tweets • 3 min read
Six things to know about the marketization of assisted suicide:

1. It is a real possibility if the bill becomes law.

Stephen Kinnock, the minister who would lead the implementation, says he is ‘comfortable’ with AS being outsourced. Image 2. There would be no limit on profits.

Kim Leadbeater thought of imposing such a cap—and according to the Times considered tabling an amendment to that effect.

For reasons which have never been explained, she decided not to. Image
May 20 • 20 tweets • 7 min read
1. Kim Leadbeater claims—without giving details—that criticism of the bill has not been “well-informed or accurate”.

Who are these ill-informed critics throwing around inaccuracies? An incomplete list: 2. The Royal College of Psychiatrists, the professional body for psychiatrists (who will be on the panels).

They say they have “repeatedly” raised multiple issues—the capacity test, the lack of help for depression, etc etc—which have not been addressed.
May 19 • 32 tweets • 11 min read
Today Libby Purves describes the bill as “being steered from the back like a clown car.”

Other descriptions include “amateur hour” (Matthew D’Ancona), “beyond a joke” (John Lamont), “never seen a bill less up to scratch” (Richard Garside), etc etc.

Is all this fair? A timeline: Image Oct 3: Kim Leadbeater announces the Bill, less than two months before the first Commons vote.

It takes 17 days to find a lawyer—Elizabeth Gardner—willing to draft it. By that stage key details, eg on the NHS and drugs, have to be left out.
May 18 • 10 tweets • 4 min read
1. How does Kim Leadbeater mislead the public/MPs?

After six months, you can see a pattern.

She tends to make statements which are just-about defensible in a technical sense, but also likely to confuse or distract people regarding the key issues. Image 2. Eg “I’m not proposing that we take out the role for the judge at all.”

True-ish in that the panel would be distantly overseen by someone who is/was a judge.

Totally misleading (as @SophyRidgeSky said) about the scrapping of the High Court safeguard.
May 17 • 11 tweets • 4 min read
MPs who have publicly turned against the Leadbeater bill (so far): Image Peter Lamb (Lab). Voted yes, will now vote no.

“Assisted dying has always seemed to be the next great liberal reform and…I had considered proposing the bill myself…[but] the road from compassion to dystopia may well be far shorter than we think.” Image
May 15 • 11 tweets • 4 min read
10 moments that revealed the truth about the Leadbeater Bill: Image Nov 12: Christine Jardine, a co-sponsor of the bill, flounders in response to basic questions.

(Prof Jane Monckton-Smith, leading coercive control expert, says the bill could turn out to be “the worst thing...we have ever done to domestic abuse victims”)
May 12 • 8 tweets • 3 min read
1. Let’s take a look at some of these “scaremongering and ideological opponents”.

First up, the Association for Palliative Medicine.

The APM opposes the bill due to “concerns about protection of vulnerable, frail, elderly, disabled and terminally ill people”. 2. Former prime minister Gordon Brown.

The bill contains “insufficient protection” for the “frail and vulnerable”, he says.

It would also “alter society’s attitude towards elderly, seriously ill and disabled people”, and damage the identity of “the caring professions”. Image
May 10 • 11 tweets • 4 min read
1. Kim Leadbeater has frequently misled the public and MPs. Even so, this interview is almost unbelievable.

To recap: her bill could force hospices and care homes to either offer assisted suicide or close down; she has refused to offer an opt-out.

Here she attempts to deny it. 2. Leadbeater tells the podcast, repeatedly, that hospices *will* be able to opt out:

“There is absolutely nothing in the Bill that says that they have to … I don’t think we should be dictating to hospices what they do and don’t do around assisted dying.”
May 6 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
The disturbing implication is that Kim Leadbeater has taken a long hard look at the bill’s conscience protections...

...and doubled down on refusing *institutions*—hospices and care homes—any right to opt out. Image As a reminder: Leadbeater and allies have refused institutions the right to opt out of facilitating access to lethal drugs.

It seems likely that hospices and care homes could be sued or defunded if they want to have a “no assisted suicide here” policy:
May 5 • 10 tweets • 3 min read
1. The impact assessment suggests there could be up to 4,559 assisted suicides per year by 2039.

Already somewhat higher than the “40 patients per year” predicted by Leadbeater ally @SadikAlHassanMP.

But there is good reason to think 4500 is a serious underestimate. Here’s why: Image 2. The civil servants based that figure on a crude calculation: Oregon has a little under 1% deaths by assisted suicide, this bill is similar, so let’s say a little under 1%.

They don’t make any great claims for this method. Nor should they—because there are crucial differences. Image
Apr 3 • 10 tweets • 4 min read
1. Several misleading comments from Kim Leadbeater yesterday, but maybe the most glaring example was her comments to Martha Kearney later in this interview.

Kearney said there were fears that hospices “would find themselves dragged into the obligation to provide assisted death.” 2. Leadbeater: “Yeah, that isn’t the case at all.”

She then pointed to the “very clear section of the bill which talks about conscientious objection”.

That section of the bill very clearly only refers to *individual* conscientious objection, not institutions such as hospices: Image