Esther Rantzen is completely wrong about Wes Streeting - and here's why

I am starting to lose it with Esther Rantzen, someone I have always admired even though I strongly disagree with her over assisted dying. I am deeply sorry for her present situation but her attack on the Health Secretary, Wes Streeting, was gross and unwarranted.

Esther complains that he is "forcing her to die alone at Dignitas", repeats the myth that her loved ones will be accused of "pressurising" her and ends with asking "what kind of health minister" he is.

Well, Esther, I can answer that last question. He is a responsible kind of health minister who knows that it is his duty to take everyone into account including yes, the terminally ill, but also the mentally ill, those with severe disabilities, the elderly who may think they have become a burden and have a duty to remove that burden, etc.

He also recognises that palliative care is not yet comprehensive enough and he doubtless takes into account what has happened in other countries where a slippery slope has mirrored what happened in this country with abortion, despite what looked like rigid safeguards.

In short he has done what government ministers are supposed to do: weighed it all up and arrived at a conclusion.

Kim Leadbeater, the sponsor of the Bill, has shown good manners and a willingness to listen, meeting the Archbishop of Canterbury and others profoundly opposed to her measure, which contrasts favourably with some commentators who have suggested that it is not for the Archbishop to give a view (although I would bet a magnum of Champagne to a glass of sour orange juice that they would say quite the opposite had he come down on their side!)

There are two views on this issue and it is in the interests of democracy and public safety that both are heard.

My own stance is well known: in principle I have no difficulty with someone ending his or her own life in extreme and unrelievable medical circumstances but in practice I've never found a shred of evidence adequate and durable safeguards can be guaranteed.

Therefore, I maintain my stand that the law should stay as it is but with the light touch currently practised.

The Prince of Wales mentions his brother by name in a recollection about Diana and immediately people get out their handkerchiefs and talk of reconciliation. I was more stunned by William's awful grammar when he recalled that "she took Harry and I" to see the homeless. What on earth do they teach them at Eton in return for those hideous fees?

I have nothing against informal English, especially in the spoken word, but muddling up I and me is a howler. Sir, it is very simple: you cannot say "she took I", so therefore you cannot say "she took Harry and I".

Perhaps when William V is on the throne his Christmas broadcast will sound a bit like this: "Me and Kate did a Common-wealth tour this year because, like, the Commonwealth is a thing. It were amazing, yeah UH-MAZ-ING. All these people came out to cheer I and us was much moved."

I must be a bear of very little brain because I am extremely puzzled by the BBC investing time and money in a documentary in which the son of the murdered nanny, Sandra Rivett, claims that an elderly Buddhist living in Brisbane is the missing Lord Lucan.

In 2020 the Met said that, following extensive inquiries and investigations by the Australian Federal Police on behalf of the Metropolitan Police, the person was conclusively eliminated from the investigation. Furthermore, a Home Office approved facial recognition company said the person was not Lucan.

Rivett's son thinks he knows better but the reason that I must be a bear of very little brain is that I cannot see the problem, given the existence of DNA. A match with Lucan could be confirmed or ruled out immediately. If there is some procedure stopping the police from taking his DNA, has he been asked to give it voluntarily? After all, there is no need for anything intrusive: examination of a hair would do. Perhaps that is to be the denouement? That Rivett's son, Neil Berriman, nicks something and has it compared? Unlikely, since that would leave the BBC withholding information from the police.

Since the disappearance of "lucky Lucan" in 1974, there have been numerous alleged sightings and I once read a book purporting to prove he had died in Africa.

I am not therefore inclined to watch yet another "exposé" but my very simple question remains.

Oh, dear me, so Kemi Badenoch is not such a nice lady after all, being the first to get personal in the Tory leadership race with some sneering references to Robert Jenrick amidst a paeon of self-praise. Had Jenrick been wiser he would have taken a more in sorrow than in anger approach, instead of which he accused Kemi, above, of talking garbage.

They never learn, do they?

Chris Kaba was a decidedly nasty criminal. Yet the instant he died in a police shooting those who automatically cry "racist" at the drop of a hat were shouting from the rooftops.

Fostering a culture of grievance and victimhood on behalf of racial minorities does not promote good race relations and successful integration but rather the exact opposite. It lets loose the wolves of distrust and alienation clad in the sheep's clothing of social justice. It encourages bitterness. There is no reason to accuse the police of "racial profiling" every time they stop and search a black person.

When I was a student driving an ancient Morris Minor, I was several times stopped by police in the early hours. The conversations were always cheerful when they realised I was a sober girl and not a
long-haired bloke with a stash of weed in the boot.We will have true integration when nobody notices whether you are black or white and that won't happen as long as the left remains determined to label every black person a victim, regardless of circumstance.