TONIGHT IS MISCHIEF NIGHT

Growing up in Yorkshire meant that there was a lot happening before snd during bonfire night. 

Apart from the fact that Fawkes and some of the other plotters were old boys of my old school (St Peter's School, York), all Yorkshire children knew that the night before the 5th  of November was when Guy was sitting on barrels of gunpowder underneath parliament.  So the evening of 4th November was time for some childish and sometimes dangerous fun, like putting lighted fireworks through people's letterboxes.

More  childish but easy enough in the days when phone-boxes were everywhere and calls only cost a few old pence to make was to phone people up whom you'd never met. For example if you knew that "Smellie" was a real surname, you could find plenty of targets in a phone directory. Friends could then cram into a phone-box and dial a carefully selected number. When someone answered, the dialogue would go more like this:

    Answerer: "Hello.'

    Caller: "Are you Smellie?"

    Answerer: "Yes, who are you and what do you want?"

    Caller: "Just phoning to say we think it's time you had a bath."  CHILD PUTS DOWN PHONE

    All in phone-box: Loud laughing and giggling.

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Mischief-night on 4th November was a tradition throughout the North of England. But, on going down  South 200 miles to Reading University, I was surprised to learn that most of the other students had never heard of it. 

Was this because people didn't do that kind of thing in southern England or because young adults wouldn't admit to such daft behaviour?

My research suggests it was a real North-South difference, but a remaining question is whether the American obsession with Halloween has become so entrenched here that 4th and 5th November have become much less significant than they once were?

ASSISTED DYING DEBATE: Why was suicide ever a crime?

Lords debates Assisted Dying Bill at second reading

22 October 2021 

Members of the Lords will debate the main principles and purpose of the Assisted Dying Bill during second reading, on Friday 22 October.

The Assisted Dying Bill seeks to enable adults who are terminally ill to be provided at their request with specified assistance to end their own life.

Debate on assisted dying

Members will discuss the key areas of the bill during the second reading debate from 10am. 

Members speaking

Baroness Meacher (Crossbench), chair of Dignity in Dying and the bill's sponsor in the Lords, will open the debate.

Nearly 140 members are expected to take part, including:

• Barones Butler-Sloss (Crossbench), former head of the Family Division of the High Court
• Archbishop of Canterbury, leader of the Church of England
• Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (Crossbench), Vice President of Hospice UK and Professor of Palliative Medicine
• Lord Mackay of Clashfern (Conservative), former Lord Advocate of Scotland and Lord Chancellor
• Lord Paddick (Liberal Democrat), former Metropolitan Police Deputy Assistant Commissioner
• Lord Winston (Labour), doctor, scientist and broadcaster.

Other members taking part represent a wide range of professions and diverse personal experiences.

Baroness Davidson of Lundin Links (Conservative), former leader of the Scottish Conservatives, is expected to make her maiden speecLord Wolfson of Tredegar (Conservative), Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State in the Ministry of Justice, will respond on behalf of the government.

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I was fascinated by yesterday morning's Today programme which had quite a long interview on this debate in the House of Lords - probably because there was a time when I was regarded as quite an expert on the subject (in 1978, the Macmillan Press published a book based on my PhD thesis : SUICIDE AND THE SOCIAL ORGANISATION OF SUDDEN DEATH (London, The Macmillan Press)*.

Brief history of English law on suicide

The 'Burial of Suicide Act' of 1823 had abolished the legal requirement in England of burying suicides at crossroads.

Sir Charles Fletcher-Cooke then an MP was the principal figure behind the emergence, introduction and passage of the Suicide Act 1961 which decriminalised suicide across the United Kingdom. He had been campaigning for it at least decade beforehand apart from some Catholic and conservative Anglican opposition, the bill passed easily.

Before that, suicide was officially a crime which, among other things, gave significant others an incentive to conceal evidence from coroners to avoid a suicide verdict at the inquest. This had less to do with the 'shame' of  haviItng a relative, friend or colleague who'd just done something illegal and was a criminal than the fact that such a verdict had negative financial implications for survivors: e.g. life insurance companies refusing to pay a lump-sum or pension on the death of people who had killed themselves.

MPs knew about the awful post-suicide problems their constituents faced which is no doubt why the bill passed so easily.

What changed in 1961?

1. Suicide ceased to be a crime.

2. But criminal liability for encouraging or assisting in another’s suicide was still a crime.

The second of these is what's currently being debated in parliament.

Why did suicide become a crime in the first place?

This had little or nothing to do with religion, ethics or any other concerns in recent debates, 

In the much more distant past, English monarchs thought a good idea for suicide to be a felony because the wealth and property of those convicted of a felony automatically went into the crown's pocket.

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* https://www.amazon.co.uk/Discovering-Suicide-Studies-Social-Organization/dp/0333345533/ref=kwrp_li_std_nodl

The Queen's Speech: an exception that proves the ruler

This blog is from 22 years ago when the Queen opened parliament by reading a speech written for her by Gordon Brown's Labour government. 

I watched her reading the whole of today's specch prepared by Boris Johnson's Conservative government - not becase I'm particularly interested in their plans for the coming year but because I do like to inspect the standard of speechwriting (which was quite impressive this year) and, just as interesting, whether our 95 year-old Queen still has the ability to deliver a boring, neutral and uninspiring speech. 

On this morning's evidence, the answer to this is a resounding YES!

What follows is the blog I wrote 20+ years ago.

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At the State Opening of Parliament on 3rd December, the Queen, as she does every year, will be reading out her government's legislative plans for the months ahead. Most commentators will be listening to the Speech to find out what Gordon Brown is going to be putting on the statute book in 2009.

How not to speak inspiringly

 

But you can also listen to it as a model of how not to give an inspiring speech.

Public speaking at its best depends both on the language used to package the key messages and the way it is delivered. Using rhetoric, maintaining eye contact with the audience, pausing regularly and in particular places, stressing certain words and changing intonation are all essential ingredients in the cocktail for conveying passion and inspiring an audience. This is why it is so easy to ‘dehumanise’ the speech of Daleks and other talking robots by the simple device of stripping out any hint of intonational variation and have them speak in a flat, regular and monotonous tone of voice.

When it comes to sounding unenthusiastic and uninterested in inspiring an audience, the Queen’s Speech is an example with few serious competitors. She has no qualms about being seen to be wearing spectacles, which underline the fact that she is reading carefully from the script she holds so obviously in front of her. 

 

Nor is she in the least bit inhibited about fixing her eyes on the text rather than the audience. Then, as she enunciates the sentences, her tone is so disinterested as to make it abundantly clear that she is merely reciting words written by someone else and about which she has no personal feelings or opinions whatsoever.

This is, of course, how it has to be in a constitutional monarchy, where the head of state has to be publicly seen and heard as neutral about the policies of whatever political party happens to have ended up in power. The Queen knows, just as everyone else knows, that showing enthusiasm, or lack of it, about the law-making plans of her government would lead to a serious crisis that would be more than her job is worth. So, even when announcing plans to ban hunting with hounds, she managed not to convey the slightest hint of disappointment or irritation that a favorite pastime of her immediate family was about to be outlawed.

The Queen’s Speech is therefore an interesting exception to the normal rules of effective public speaking, and her whole approach is a fine example of how to deal with those rare occasions when you have to conceal what you really feel about the things you are talking about.