Matt Hancock’s latest idea is the most insulting yet

After the handsome fee he pocketed for doing I’m a Celebrity while parliament was in session, it seems former health secretary Matt Hancock is now interested in more serious media pursuits. The whipless wonder from West Suffolk is reportedly planning a series of documentaries covering a bewilderingly diverse array of subjects – everything from dyslexia to assisted dying.

It really is a sad reflection on the state of broadcast journalism that the people who fund this sort of thing are apparently open to throwing money at a man last seen on TV eating animal genitals above more talented but less high-profile filmmakers scrabbling for commissions.

Unfortunately, that’s far from the worst of it. I think we could all do with a little quiet from Matt Hancock but when it comes to the subject of assisted dying. Hancock says he was initially opposed to the idea, but changed his mind while serving as health secretary.

Now, I understand the argument that his previous job would have conferred upon him a certain amount of expertise on the subject, at least when he wasn’t busy with the sort of lockdown-breaking extracurricular activities that led to his departure from government. I’m assuming that he will have met people calling for a change in the law.

But on the flip side, Hancock has not spoken to Not Dead Yet, a group of disabled people seeking to hold the line chaired by Baroness Campbell, who once woke up in hospital to find that a do not resuscitate order had been attached to her notes without her consent. This happens a lot. It was troublingly commonplace during Covid. Rather than help to die, Not Dead Yet wants disabled people to be given the assistance they need to live.

There should be no discussion about the former until the latter is available. It is not yet, and Matt Hancock should know that. His full job title was secretary of state for health and social care, and the social care system is on the brink of collapse – thanks largely to government underfunding and neglect. Disabled people are getting crushed by the wreckage as it slowly falls over.

For Hancock, I would suggest a visit to Canada. Liberal, progressive Canada has been serving as a sandbox for liberal and progressive policies that really aren’t liberal and progressive if you think about it. Assisted dying, or euthanasia, is a good example.

First legalised there in 2016 as Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID), the law has been repeatedly loosened up to extend access, which drives a coach and horses through the argument of those who claim that it would be fine in the UK so long as the legislation contained “safeguards”.

Laws can change. Safeguards can be relaxed. It’s still happening in Canada, which is now looking to extend MAID to those who aren’t terminally ill but instead suffer “severe” mental illness. The problem with that, as noted by the liberal Globe & Mail, which is generally supportive of MAID, is that mental illness is treatable. It’s just that treatment is hard, if not impossible, to obtain through the country’s health system.

That is particularly relevant given horrible problems have already emerged with MAID. Take the heart-breaking story of Amir Farsoud. Farsoud is 55 and suffers from various physical and emotional disabilities and health conditions. Reliant on threadbare assistance from the Ontario Disability Support Program and facing with homelessness, he applied for and was accepted as a candidate for MAID.

Mercifully, the media picked up on the story, a fundraising drive was launched and he lived to tell his tale for Independent Voices. “The real issue isn’t whether or not someone like me should be able to access MAID. It’s whether or not we, as a society, wish to continue making people’s lives miserable and hopeless enough that suicide – assisted or otherwise – becomes a viable option,” he wrote in a piece that almost had me in tears.

Or how about corporal Christine Gauthier, a disabled veteran who competed at the 2016 Paralympics in Rio. Also in need of help, per the CBC, she testified before a committee of Canada’s parliament that an unnamed veterans affairs case worker had offered in writing to provide her with a medically-assisted dying device instead.

“I have a letter saying that if you’re so desperate, madam, we can offer you MAID, medical assistance in dying,” Gauthier, 52, told the veterans affairs committee. Hancock needs to speak to these people. Perhaps Canada might do us a favour and let him stay while he’s over there?

On a more serious note, I hope the members of the UK parliament’s Health and Social Care committee, which is preparing a report on the issue, book themselves flights. I hope they think carefully about what they see when they return. They’ll say that could never happen here. You want to bet?

Meanwhile, Britain’s disabled people are facing the dilemma of whether to heat, eat or ventilate. Why are they not focussing on that? Medical Assistance in Dying sounds comfortingly bland, but there’s nothing bland about the consequences. They are chilling. As a disabled Briton myself, the prospect of something like Canada’s law here scares the life out of me.