What King Lear can tell us about assisted dying

Can we unburdened crawl toward death?

“Know that we have divided in three our kingdom…” According to this map Cordelia was getting Wales. This could explain her reticence.

That’s Life

There has been a sea change in attitudes to assisted dying among the political classes. It is hard to pinpoint the causes, given the general public in the UK has been in favour for some time, but it was comfortably rejected by Parliament when last debated in 2015. Some commentators thought it inevitable that we would end up passing euthanasia laws. But observing the slide down a very steep slippery slope in Canada (from terminally ill people, extended to mental suffering and even being poor), surely politicians would learn these lessons?

With the country in arguably the biggest mess since World War II, one would think an incoming government would have other priorities. But Sir Keir, a man of such charisma and imagination he makes John Major seem edgy and exciting, had other things in mind. The new PM told us he had made a solemn promise to Esther Rantzen to put assisted dying to the vote in Parliament. So, the MP for Spen Valley, Kim Leadbeater, who won the ballot to have her private members bill debated first in this new term, suddenly converted to the cause of assisted dying. Her bill will be voted upon on 29 November without much parliamentary debate or scrutiny, which you would think is unusual for such a monumental decision. Many of us wonder why Keir Starmer’s early priority in power was to fulfil a promise to Esther Rantzen, who may be unfamiliar to people under 45 years of age or those not British. In case you didn’t know, she presented a highly popular (there were only three TV channels back then) ‘humorous’ consumer show called That’s Life! and was a friend of Jimmy Saville. Many of us are also wondering why Starmer chose to keep a promise to Esther when he has broken every other promise he has made as Labour leader, but that’s life!

KENT
Think’st thou that duty shall have dread to speak
When power to flattery bows? To plainness honor’s bound
When majesty falls to folly. Reserve thy state,
And in thy best consideration check
This hideous rashness.

Disclosure

Having been accused already on X of heartlessness and of never having experienced relatives die in pain and indignity, I will state here, for the record, I have experienced it. I will also say that a cash-starved system of health and social care failed my loved ones. Likely I would personally benefit from assisted dying laws. I have no children. I’m an atheist. My partner is older, and, in all likelihood, I will be at the mercy of strangers under state care at the end. Given a family history of dementia, I would not hesitate to sign-up for an assisted dying scheme to kick in if I were ever to lose my mental capacity. But there is something more fundamental at stake here than anyone’s personal experiences of pain and fear, however anguished they be. I have changed my view on euthanasia seeing its operation in other countries and the terrible consequences. A slippery slope is inescapable and it has profound implications for how we view human life.

The Tragedy of King Lear

King Lear explores themes of aging, physical and mental deterioration, and family drama. The play has been considered so grim that for over two centuries on the English stage a happy-ending version was performed instead of Shakespeare’s original. I will argue that, viewed through a different lens, it reveals something more hopeful and fundamental about human experience, about suffering and endurance. There are plenty of deaths in King Lear (barely anyone survives), but the most important is the death that is prevented.

I will end this piece by concluding that suffering is a political choice imposed on us.

Synopsis of the play

In an early form of Swedish death cleaning, Lear, the pagan King of the Britons, divests himself of his kingdom before death. Instead of abdicating in favour of one child, he will divide the realm equally between his three daughters. The eldest, Goneril, is married to the noble Duke of Albany. The second eldest, Regan, is married to the less favoured Duke of Cornwall. The youngest, Cordelia, is Lear’s favourite and is currently wooed by two visiting rulers of France and Burgundy.

LEAR
Know that we have divided
In three our kingdom, and ’tis our fast intent
To shake all cares and business from our age,
Conferring them on younger strengths, while we
Unburdened crawl toward death.

The plot may well have been intended by Shakespeare as a cautionary tale about the perils of divided kingdoms (King James I had united England and Scotland on ascending the throne after the death of Elizabeth I). It is a tale that seems to have passed by Tony Blair like the idle wind. Nevertheless, put it this way, dividing bits of your house into three in your legacy is unwise, given the offspring and their families must then live together in the same space (this was before the days of Rightmove and they couldn’t just flog it off to France and split the money. Flogging off parts of the country to foreign capital would have to wait until the 1980s). Not only this, but Lear demands they care for him and a hundred of his uncouth mates until whenever it is the old bastard finally pops his clogs.

This is bound to end in domestic disaster. The ungrateful children would rather rule the roost alone, unencumbered by a senescent dad, his unwanted entourage, and their despised siblings and in-laws. All but one anyway. Cordelia, the one true daughter who isn’t a sociopath, refuses to play the silly game of ‘tell me how much you love me or you won’t get any inheritance’ that Lear stages before a despairing court. I cannot heave my heart into my mouth, she states, after her elder sisters profess false filial love. Unaware of how this act of reticence would provoke the dragon’s wrath, she forfeits her share as Lear disowns her in a fit of childish rage. Poor Cordelia is banished without so much as a sleeping bag. Fortunately, the King of France still wants to marry her without a dowry, and whisks her off over the Channel to what could have been a nice life of cheese-eating and wine-bibbing (alas, this wasn’t to work out). Flattery, it seems, will get you everywhere. Goneril and Regan’s empty platitudes earn them equal share of the kingdom, to rule with their dukely husbands.

KENT 
Kill thy physician, and thy fee bestow
Upon the foul disease. Revoke thy gift,
Or whilst I can vent clamor from my throat,
I’ll tell thee thou dost evil.

The only person with the balls and integrity to call out Lear’s foolishness is his loyal subject, the Earl of Kent. Telling Lear he is acting like a loon, he implores him to revoke his decision to banish the good daughter. The price of Kent’s honesty is for Lear to exile him too.

Old age as regression to childhood

Old age as a return to infancy occurs in other parts of Shakespeare’s work, notably As You Like It and the seven ages of man speech by Jaques:

Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

As You Like it, Act 2, Sc 7

Fear of becoming mentally incapable haunts Lear throughout. Cordelia refers to her father as child-changèd, though she speaks of it as a malady from which he can be cured. His other children believe it to be a permanent disposition or the inevitable result of senescence.

Goneril, Regan & Edmund: the coercive family

Goneril and Regan, tigers, not daughters, obsess over the infantile folly of old age early on.

GONERIL  You see how full of changes his age is; the
observation we have made of it hath not been
little. He always loved our sister most, and with
what poor judgment he hath now cast her off
appears too grossly.
REGAN  ’Tis the infirmity of his age. Yet he hath ever
but slenderly known himself.
GONERIL  The best and soundest of his time hath been
but rash. Then must we look from his age to
receive not alone the imperfections of long-engraffed
condition, but therewithal the unruly waywardness
that infirm and choleric years bring with them.

There is a parallel subplot. The Earl of Gloucester has two sons, Edgar, the legitimate son, and Edmund, a bastard who has been sent away for the last 8 years. While Gloucester appears to have some affection for the strapping young Edmund, he is set to send him away again, in his earshot making bawdy jokes to Kent about Edmund’s conception out of wedlock. Edmund is fond of a soliloquy, and we soon learn he is not going to stand for being cut out (or sit neither: Now, gods, stand up for bastards!). The Machiavellian son writes a fake letter in the style of his half-brother’s handwriting and lets Gloucester find him with it. The gist of it is that sons should get rid of daft old fathers and take their rightful inheritance.

Having released poison into Gloucester’s mind, Edmund finds Edgar and tells him their father is, for some reason possibly to do with astronomical events, in a terrible mood and that he should stay away while Edmund tries to calm the old man. The unsuspecting Edgar makes himself scarce, surely wondering which of his dad’s vintage record collection he must have scratched to incur such wrath.

Through further incredulous episodes in which Edmund plays off father and son, faking a sword fight complete with cutting himself and pretending Edgar attacked him, witless Gloucester disinherits Edgar, who is forced to flee into the wilderness. Edmund is elevated to heir.

Thus, like Cordelia, the innocent and guileless child is banished, while the corrupt and deceiving offspring advance in their father’s favour.

LEAR 
When were you wont to be so full of songs, sirrah?
FOOL 
I have used it, nuncle, e’er since thou mad’st thy
daughters thy mothers… 

Lear and his entourage of a hundred bawdy knights first stay at Goneril’s gaff. To cut a long story short, they are made distinctly unwelcome. The King then decamps to Regan, who is indeed made of that self mettle as her sister, and she subjects him to similar mistreatment. Goneril arrives, and both daughters berate Lear. His company of knights can go from a hundred, they sneer, to fifty, to twenty-five, to ten, to none, mocking and emasculating their father. His narcissistic omnipotence wounded, Lear flees into the night in a delirious fugue, in realisation that he has handed his powers to sociopathic daughters.

The blinding of Gloucester

Regan and Goneril’s treatment of their father shocks Gloucester. Regan’s husband Cornwall refuses to let Gloucester go after the king, who has wandered out into a storm with only his fool and loyal Kent (who did not go into exile but disguised himself as a peasant).

As the mad old king wanders in the storm, goading the elements to strike him down, elsewhere Gloucester, fatefully, confides in Edmund that he has a letter revealing an invasion by France to restore Lear to the throne. Cordelia is come to the rescue.

EDMUND
The younger rises when the old doth fall.

Edmund sees his chance to get rid of the father and take the inheritance. He shows the letter to Cornwall as proof of Gloucester’s treachery. When the traitor is found, he is tied to a chair and Cornwall gouges out his eyes in a scene which is the most horrifying in all the plays¹. Significantly, this takes place in Gloucester’s own house.

The coercive family

The coercive family in King Lear is a pretty nasty bunch. But callous relatives who see you as a barrier to their inheritance or a burden on their time and energy are surely common; those, like Edmund, who believe their current need is far more pressing than the relative frittering money away that could be better used by the younger generation. Times are hard. If a person is struggling to get by, the grandchildren don’t have money to go to university or put a deposit on a house, they may resent an elderly relative spending their inheritance on care costs, sitting on a house that’s a gold mine. The old have had their life. They owe it to help the younger generation who still have their lives to make. This is the gist of the Matthew Parris piece in The Times earlier this year, unashamedly pro euthanasia for old people who should do us a favour and shuffle off this mortal coil already.

Cordelia & Edgar: the loving family

CORDELIA 
How does my royal lord? How fares your Majesty?
LEAR 
You do me wrong to take me out o’ th’ grave.
Thou art a soul in bliss, but I am bound
Upon a wheel of fire, that mine own tears
Do scald like molten lead.

Then there are the Cordelias and the Edgars of this world. Loving and caring, who don’t consciously or otherwise give their ailing relative even a hint they’re a burden. Relatives who still value the presence in their lives of their loved one, albeit decrepit in body or mind. Let’s agree we all want to avoid coercion (not everyone does, Parris for one). Aren’t loving relatives the majority? Are we worrying too much about a small number of cases where someone may be coerced into assisted dying? Isn’t this outweighed by all the terrible cases of suffering it could relieve? It remains to be seen how statistically uncommon coercive relatives are. However, I think this is somewhat beside the point because it is how the dying person conceives of their situation that matters. In some cases, a bullying family might make a person more determined to endure pain and hang on just to spite them. A loving family may have just the opposite effect. Even the most loving relatives will find it hard to disguise the strain of caring for an ailing relative or witnessing their suffering.

Gloucester’s prevented suicide

Gloucester wanders eyeless into the wilderness led by a servant. He comes upon his banished legitimate son Edgar, who, disguised as the beggar ‘Poor Tom’, feigns madness. Gloucester asks the poor wretch to lead him to Dover, where he intends to throw himself off a cliff.

GLOUCESTER 
There is a cliff, whose high and bending head
Looks fearfully in the confinèd deep.
Bring me but to the very brim of it,
And I’ll repair the misery thou dost bear
With something rich about me. From that place
I shall no leading need.

Not revealing his identity, Edgar agrees to lead him to Dover. He does not leave him on the precipice as requested but deceives his blind father that he is on a cliff edge when he’s really on solid terrain. When Gloucester throws himself over what he thinks is a cliff, he topples only to the ground in front of him. Edgar continues the deception, affecting the persona of a fisherman on the beach, he pretends to have seen Gloucester fall off a high cliff and yet be still alive by some miracle.

GLOUCESTER 
Away, and let me die.
EDGAR 
Hadst thou been aught but gossamer, feathers, air,
So many fathom down precipitating,
Thou ’dst shivered like an egg; but thou dost breathe,
Hast heavy substance, bleed’st not, speak’st, art sound.
Ten masts at each make not the altitude
Which thou hast perpendicularly fell.
Thy life’s a miracle. Speak yet again.
GLOUCESTER 
But have I fall’n or no?
EDGAR 
From the dread summit of this chalky bourn.
Look up a-height. The shrill-gorged lark so far
Cannot be seen or heard. Do but look up.
GLOUCESTER 
Alack, I have no eyes.
Is wretchedness deprived that benefit
To end itself by death? ’Twas yet some comfort
When misery could beguile the tyrant’s rage
And frustrate his proud will.
EDGAR
Give me your arm.
Up. So, how is ’t? Feel you your legs? You stand.
GLOUCESTER 
Too well, too well.
EDGAR
This is above all strangeness.
Upon the crown o’ th’ cliff, what thing was that
Which parted from you?
GLOUCESTER 
A poor unfortunate beggar.
EDGAR 
As I stood here below, methought his eyes
Were two full moons; he had a thousand noses,
Horns whelked and waved like the enragèd sea.
It was some fiend. Therefore, thou happy father,
Think that the clearest gods, who make them honors
Of men’s impossibilities, have preserved thee.
GLOUCESTER 
I do remember now. Henceforth I’ll bear
Affliction till it do cry out itself
“Enough, enough!” and die…

Blindness of the mind and not the eyes

Edgar refuses his father’s request to assist suicide. Instead, he coaxes him to the see the sanctity of life. Being led astray by some demon, the gods having preserved him from death:

GLOUCESTER 
You ever-gentle gods, take my breath from me;
Let not my worser spirit tempt me again
To die before you please.

Lear has survived the tempest and is likewise spared. He comes upon the pair near Dover, and is now lucid about his own downfall and that of Gloucester.

LEAR
Take that of me, my friend, who have the power
To seal th’ accuser’s lips. Get thee glass eyes,
And like a scurvy politician
Seem to see the things thou dost not…

The right to die

It is an extreme form of libertarianism that declares suicide a right. It is one society generally has shunned. However, recent times have seen the shedding of ancient taboos in the name of autonomy and choice. In a secular world nothing is sacred, and sooner or later everything must fall to liberal individualism.

GLOUCESTER
O you mighty gods!
This world I do renounce, and in your sights
Shake patiently my great affliction off.
If I could bear it longer, and not fall
To quarrel with your great opposeless wills,
My snuff and loathèd part of nature should
Burn itself out.

Gloucester and Lear fail in their attempts at suicide. Significantly, the only one who succeeds is Goneril. She takes her own life at the end to avoid punishment for immoral acts, her lover Edmund fatally wounded, having poisoned her sister and planned to murder her husband Albany.

Despite anchoring morality in references to pagan gods, I would argue Shakespeare’s play is secular. The crises of the characters, the lessons about life and suffering it imparts, are not predicated on a promised heaven or a threatened hell, or anything at all beyond death.

What is Shakespeare telling us? Life is suffering and we cannot escape nature. People who are loved can endure. Genuine love is not flattery and deception, but plainness and honesty, tolerance of infirmity and imperfection, acceptance of weakness and kindness in response. There is only the flawed human condition and there’s nothing else.

Which of you politicians shall we say doth love us most?

Though each father and the good child is reunited in heartbreaking, tender moments, there is no happy ending to the play.

EDGAR 
Away, old man. Give me thy hand. Away.
King Lear hath lost, he and his daughter ta’en.
Give me thy hand. Come on.
GLOUCESTER 
No further, sir. A man may rot even here.
EDGAR 
What, in ill thoughts again? Men must endure
Their going hence even as their coming hither.
Ripeness is all. Come on.
GLOUCESTER  And that’s true too.

Having cured his father’s despair, Edgar later reveals his death. Gloucester’s heart burst with the extremes of joy and grief when Edgar revealed his identity. Death came presently for Gloucester anyway, but the circumstances matter. They will almost certainly matter to Edgar in the long run.

Finale

In the inevitable showdown between the good and the bad brother, bastard Edmund is mortally wounded. While dying, he admits he gave orders for Lear and Cordelia to be hanged, if they are quick it can be prevented. But this warning comes too late. Cordelia has been murdered already along with Lear’s fool. Lear carries Cordelia’s lifeless body on stage and desperately searches for signs of breath. Shakespeare’s scene is unsurpassed in its depiction of the visceral anguish of grief.

LEAR 
Howl, howl, howl! O, you are men of stones!
Had I your tongues and eyes, I’d use them so
That heaven’s vault should crack. She’s gone
forever.
I know when one is dead and when one lives.
She’s dead as earth…
…
Why should a dog, a horse, a rat have life,
And thou no breath at all? Thou ’lt come no more,
Never, never, never, never, never

Clutching Cordelia’s body, he dies pitifully of a broken heart. Coming as it does after false hope that Lear and Cordelia would be spared, the ending is all the more shocking. Little wonder it led to an act of collective repression on the English stage lasting over two centuries.

“We are never so defenceless against suffering as when we love, never so helplessly unhappy as when we have lost our loved object or its love”

Sigmund Freud, Civilization and its Discontents (1930, trans. James Strachey)

Lear, compelled by childlike insecurities, banished the good object and set in motion events that destroy it. The realisation we have attacked and damaged that which is most precious to us is core to the crisis that Melanie Klein called the depressive position. Lear and Gloucester’s journeys can be read as the passage of the paranoid-schizoid mind through to lucidity, guilt and the wish for self-annihilation that follows when reparation is impossible.

What is suffering? What counts as intolerable?

Freud, from Civilization and its Discontents:

We are threatened with suffering from three directions: from our own body; which is doomed to decay and dissolution and which cannot even do without pain and anxiety as warning signals; from the external world, which may rage against us with overwhelming and merciless forces of destruction; and finally from our relations to other men. The suffering which comes from this last source is perhaps more painful to us than any other. We tend to regard it as a kind of gratuitous addition, although it cannot be any less fatefully inevitable than the suffering which comes from elsewhere.

Gloucester and his son Edgar disguised as Poor Tom

EDGAR
And yet I know not how conceit may rob
The treasury of life, when life itself
Yields to the theft…

Feelings of failure and being a burden on loved ones is an antecedent of suicide in healthy people, especially after negative life events like job loss or business failures. Guilt at harming our loved object is the prototypical manifestation of depression. In the play, there is a reversal of the roles of child and parent. Both Cordelia and Edgar act as the good enough parent that, through mental infirmity or poisoning of mind, neither Lear nor Gloucester can be. Their filial devotion is realistic and resilient. Aware of their fathers’ imperfections, the attacks by the infant/father are borne with tolerance and kindness.

Human beings derive personal meaning, identity and dignity from our relationships. Our self-worth is dependent on our perception of our place in the social world. What am I costing others? How is my pain affecting the ones I love? What must other people think of me?  Above all, humans are social animals. What makes suffering intolerable is not the actual pain or physical failings, it is how we perceive it, which is tied to how others respond. Our lack of dignity is in the social circumstances that induce shame. Our intolerable pain is intolerable because we see the effect on those around us (or sometimes indifference).

Men must endure.

Freud suggested that the goal of psychoanalysis was to transform neurotic misery into everyday unhappiness. What we judge as intolerable is relative. People can tolerate more than they anticipate. In Buddhist teaching, pain is physical but suffering is mental. The physical pain is the first arrow, and the mental pain is the second arrow - pain in anticipation of the hit before it happens.

What suffering is, in a species like ours with its capacity for higher order meaning-making, is intrinsically connected to the narratives we tell ourselves: about which situations are tolerable, and which are not; about what pain is for, exactly, and what lessons it can teach us; about what level of mental attention it is respectable or otherwise desirable for an individual to expend, fretting about his problems as opposed to repressing the feelings or looking away.

Kathleen Stock, There’s No Dignity in Assisted Dying (2024, UnHerd)

As the philosopher Kathleen Stock points out, conceptions of unbearable suffering are subjective and change over time. This is influenced by societal trends and social media, and we need only look at the internet to see where this is headed. Indeed, the assisted suicide of 29-year-old Zoraya Ter Beek in The Netherlands prompted a wave of autistic and depressed people in online Reddit communities to question if euthanasia wasn’t the only solution to their life suffering.

The failure of our physical body is not a failing of us as human beings:

In effect, this is the bastardised version of “dignity” we seem to have inherited: one where you only count as having it if all your bodily functions are currently under control. Dignity in dying is a concept we hear a lot about — indeed it’s the name of one of the most prominent organisations campaigning for a change in legislation — and yet dignity is also a culturally porous entity, changing its shape according to prevailing norms and ideals. The Enlightenment philosopher most famous for representing dignity as a universal human value was Immanuel Kant, but he would be horrified at the idea that its possession — or not — somehow depended on your contingent physical state. Yet when a cross-party group of MPs dramatically complains that, under present legal conditions, “so many are forced to die without dignity”, it seems likely this is exactly what they mean.

Kathleen Stock, There’s No Dignity in Assisted Dying

Dignity in death should be a given, and is eminently achievable without killing people.

Scurvy politicians: suffering and indignity is a political choice

No one should have to endure indignity and pain. Physical pain can be relieved with good palliative care. Physical indignities are bearable if compassionate care is provided. Moments of joy can be found even in the darkest circumstances. There is no reason why physical disablement should strip anyone’s dignity. Equating physical ability with dignity is another step on the slippery slope. It is no surprise that many disabled people oppose this - if only Starmer had made a promise to watch Liz Carr’s film. Linking human value to physical capability will have far-reaching consequences politically and socially.

The argument proceeds: it is an unfortunate fact that we don’t have money for adequate end-of-life care. We must relieve this terrible suffering another way and put people out of their misery. You’re heartless if you don’t support it. This is an exceedingly dangerous principle (even leaving aside emotive appeals). We know because the worst has already happened in the countries that have introduced assisted dying. It isn’t speculative, take MAiD in Canada, or the cases in Belgium and The Netherlands where young people with depression have been euthanised at their own request. Before the private members bill had even been tabled, MPs were calling for it to be expanded beyond the terminally ill. We are already on the slippery slope. No safeguards are adequate to prevent this and certainly not two doctors’ signatures and a high court judge. This law will inevitably expand to people with chronic but not terminal illnesses, disabled people, the mentally ill or distressed, and those living in poverty (like the case of 41-year-old Rosina Kamis in Canada). MAiD is now being offered to patients as a treatment option - this is coercion by the state. As I write, Leadbeater’s bill has been published. In it, unbelievably, is the same option to offer assisted dying to patients who haven’t asked for it. Given death will be considerably less expensive than, for example, chemo or radiotherapy, we not only contend with coercive relatives now but coercive medical practitioners, coercive state and coercive society.

Presently, end-of-life care is inadequate in the NHS, as Health Secretary Wes Streeting admits (admirably, he is against assisted dying because of it). But with legal euthanasia, what motivation do politicians generally have to provide adequate care for citizens at the end of their lives? Or at any point in life for that matter? Why give money to mental health care? Why try to alleviate poverty? Why fix any of this when we can give people the option to end it all, end their suffering, stop being a burden. Matthew Parris was at least honest. The politicians using compassion as an excuse are at best deluded and, at worst, dishonest. It is hard not to see this law as part of a joined-up policy to reduce the burden on the NHS of an ageing population (see other policies²). Is this the main motivation? Unlikely, but I would wager it is one of the factors that the politicians have in mind. The emotional grandstanding can be thus seen as a defence mechanism, as a way to justify and distract from their cold calculus. They withhold dignity and care from people who are suffering and emotionally blackmail us into degrading the sanctity of human life; a Hobson’s choice of end it all or suffer a bad death. We must not allow them to terrorise us so. We must not allow them to strip life of its intrinsic value. There is no return once we cross this threshold. That other countries have gone down the road to hell does not mean we should follow. This is not humane; it is the opposite.

As a democratic socialist, I believe human suffering should be alleviated by the intervention of the state to improve our living conditions and ensure a fair distribution of resources. It is not idealism. Humanity already has the means to do it. Those at the top, who hoard all the wealth, enough to end world poverty, want to convince us it is pie in the sky that everyone can live well, but this is a lie. And now another lie: that only the rich can afford to die well. All that’s left for the rest of us is to step off the cliff. Assisted dying is free market libertarianism par excellence. As in all areas of life, to preserve human value, it must be resisted.

EDGAR 
The weight of this sad time we must obey,
Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say.
The oldest hath borne most; we that are young
Shall never see so much nor live so long.

1. Even Lavinia’s amputations in notoriously bloody Titus Andronicus happen off-stage

2. There is an overarching logic to Labour’s policies since forming a government. There is the inheritance tax on little farmers while taking money from Big Pharma to push drugs on people with obesity. Instead they could subsidise domestic production of healthy food and boost the farming industry, but no, rather they would make people dependent for life on a drug that removes appetite completely. That sounds really healthy and not at all unnatural. Poor people can get by on a bowl of gruel a day - this is what fuelled the Industrial Revolution, after all. (Britain was at its most economically successful then! Bring back dark satanic mills, top hats, TB, and child labour - where is the latest Tufton Street pamphlet on this?!) If these people die early, it’s no loss as they’ll be too ill and physically decrepit to work by age 50 and already voting Reform, so best off out of it. Why should Labour care about farmers - they only vote for the LibDems or the Tories anyway. Fund the NHS and social care? No, kill off old people by freezing them to death or telling them to just die and stop being a burden. It’s cheaper, and they also vote Tory or Reform so another bonus. You can see the logic here. Which groups have Labour been benefiting so far? Privatised bus companies - inexplicably removing the cap on fares because they’re so hard done by those foreign-owned bus companies, raking in profits that go straight abroad (perversely to fund their publicly owned transport systems). It’s mainly old people who use buses. Clearly the gov want to make them even more lonely and isolated so they end it all. Another group in current favour with Labour is university Vice Chancellors, scared about academic freedom because it will annoy the Chinese government and they’ll pull the feeding tube. After helpfully putting the kibosh on the academic freedom of speech act (HEFoSA), which would have simplified legal protections, the gov is increasing the cap on tuition fees. It’s only a piffling little increase, admittedly. But saddling young people with debt before they even have a job is bound to be beneficial. Sure, they’ll never be able to afford a house or have kids - which is a bit of a problem for the continuation of the species, but it’s ups and downs. Again, if there are fewer people alive, it lessens the burden on schools and the NHS… though there’s no-one left to work or pay tax (oh well, back to using immigrants then). Anyway, big sigh of relief among the VCs, Pro VCs, and the armies of Deans of Made-up Shit. They can carry on cutting academic, technical and admin staff while paying themselves massive bonuses for at least a few more years until the inevitable bankruptcies from two decades of running universities into the ground. Other winners from the new gov are private healthcare providers owned by foreign venture capitalists, given more NHS services to mismanage for profit and run at a higher cost. Also blesséd are the property developers who have spent decades lapping up subsidies and, in return, built only prime location unaffordable accommodation some of which stands empty. In a much-needed boost, the gov will axe any remaining regulation, giving them carte blanche to build anything they want, anywhere they want, any way they want. Which all of us know is going to end really well. It will definitely solve the housing crisis, you can bet your house on it (if you’re lucky enough to have one). And, finally, let us not forget Esther Rantzen. Yes, Labour is very clear about priorities. (This footnote has become another blog post. At least you’re getting BOGOF which is probably where assisted dying will end, in two-for-one offers on the Sinclair C5 death pod)