Month: February 2010

Towards the end of Disney’s The Jungle Book, there is a climactic fight between the tiger Shere Khan, and Baloo the bear, who is protecting Mowgli from the tiger’s claws. The bear is no match for the tiger, and soon lies stricken on the jungle floor; only Mowgli’s use of man’s great secret, fire, causes the tiger to flee. But it is too late to save Baloo. A wise and consoling Bagheera comforts the grieving Mowgli, and sings a song of valedictory praise to Baloo’s greatness. Only, Baloo isn’t dead. Unlike Bagheera and Mowgli, we see the bear’s eyes open, and hear his mumbling delight at his own magnificence (“…he’s crackin’ me up…I wish my mother could’ve heard this…”). As the panther draws to a close, and he and Mowgli start to leave, Baloo suddenly looks up and calls out: “Hey! Don’t stop now Baggy, you’re doing great! There’s more – lots more!”

There’s nowt so queer as folk. We expect Scousers’ ‘mawkish sentimentality’; and the red-tops to bleed for mothers who kill ‘with love in their heart’. But what we do not expect – well Dr No did not expect – was a doctor going online with an account of how he too assisted suicide with a “secret gift to a dying friend’ and had ‘never for a moment regretted’ his actions.

Keir Starmer QC, the Director of Public Prosecutions, looks a beefy sort of chap. He’s going to need to be, because he’s the one with his finger in the dyke.

Until last year, the law in England on homicide and suicide was clear. Homicide – the killing by one human being of another human being – is, except in a small number of clearly defined cases, a crime – murder (requires intent) or manslaughter. The related crime of attempted murder is just that – an attempt to murder. Killing oneself – suicide – was decriminalised by the Suicide Act 1961, although assisting – aiding, abetting, counselling or procuring – a suicide, remains a criminal act.

Killing, it seems, is an idea whose time has come. Hot on the heels of the Inglis and Gilderdale cases, we have seen veritable death-fest. The celebrities have been wheeled out in force. Sir Terry Hatchett this morning called for suicide tribunals, and will tonight deliver his Richard Dimbleby Lecture ‘Shaking Hands with Death’ from – Dr No kids you not – The Royal College of Physicians. Only last week, Martin Amis – whose bad breath is said to be capable of assisting suicide at twenty paces – warned of a ‘silver tsunami’, and a need for euthanasia booths on every street corner.