Rudi Eliott Lockhart

Awful to hear this news about Dawn. All love & strength to her, Roy, and the rest of her family.

Letter of the week: Class dismissed Write to letters@newstatesman.co.uk to have your thoughts voiced in the New Statesman magazine.

Nice to be letter of the week in @newstatesman.com.
www.newstatesman.com/politics/202...

I reckon it's fair that I'm not entirely sure how to pronounce the name of the ancient Greek actor Hegelochus, a man famous for a career-destroying bit of mispronunciation.

Counsel’s opinion on the right of conscientious objection at work - Lawyers Are Responsible Core documents Our position statement In September 2023, a team of scientists quantified, for the first time, all nine processes that regulate the stability and resilience of the Earth system. These n...

This is fascinating on the importance of lawyers being able to conscientiously object to taking work for clients that might be facilitating climate catastrophe.
www.lar.earth/conscientiou...

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Oh! Here's how to wish the very best happy Christmas...
catherinegogerty.bigcartel.com/product/m-r-...

But in the context of a comedian's poster it feels a push to see the picture as "seriously offensive" (it's very easily Googleable, though I won't post it here).

Blasphemy laws returning through the back door would be very bad & thoroughly illiberal.

This is a bad decision.

I assume it's this bit of Advertising Standards.

www.asa.org.uk/type/broadca...

I would understand if a publisher decided they didn't want to print this (that would be their right).

I would understand if people wanted to boycott Fern Brady's show (though I'd love to see it).

I don't think it's something that incites religious hatred.

Comic Fern Brady’s poster banned for upsetting Christians The advertising watchdog ruled that the Scots comedian’s tour poster, based on a painting of St Bernard and the Virgin Mary, was likely to cause offence

I genuinely do not understand this ruling.

We don't have blasphemy laws anymore. Why is an advert being banned over the possibility that it could cause "serious offence" to (some) Christians?
www.thetimes.com/article/0183...

I would like the #AssistedDying Bill to pass to grant us all a fundamental right. But I would then like to do everything possible to make palliative care as good as it can be and to make sure assisted dying is the very last resort.

But it's a right we all ought to have.

I accept the argument that palliative care isn't good enough, but don't agree that this is a reason to stall on this Bill. The fear that people will be driven to assisted dying by poor palliative care is better fixed by improving palliative care than by blocking assisted dying.

The safeguards in the Bill are strong. I do not accept the 'slippery slope' argument anymore than I would elsewhere in medical ethics (e.g., legal options for abortion in certain cases does not lead to a complete right to abortion in all cases before birth)

Others may want to impose their own morality on all of us and say that it is always wrong in all circumstances for someone to take their own life and that the state should not aid this.

I respect their right to hold that view, but respectfully reject their right to impose it.

If our parliamentarians say no to this Bill they might think they are protecting some from the risk of coercion (though coercion would be illegal), but they would certainly expose all of us to the risk of greater suffering and indignity towards our ends.

Death is an uncomfortable topic but we cannot deny it. As we try to live well, it matters that we make sure we can die well too.

I appreciate the fears about coercion & the pressure people might feel under to not be a burden to others. But these fears are offset by safeguards & must be balanced by recognition of the suffering we require by not giving people to right to end their own lives.

A High Court Judge has to make a ruling, & can question the dying person (& others).

A doctor would prepare the substance to end the patient's life, but the person would have to take it themselves.

It would be illegal to pressure or coerce someone into declaring they want to die.

This Bill has safeguards in it:

To end your life you need to be terminally ill & expected to die within 6 months.

You have to formally express your desire to die twice, with witnesses & signatures.

You need 2 doctors to sign off on it with a week between each doctor's assessment.

This is my life and I would like the right to choose how to deal with its end.

As things stand, some of us will have prolonged, miserable, and painful ends. And while the wealthier might be able to travel overseas to end things, the majority who find themselves in that position will simply have to bear that suffering.

I support the #AssistedDyingBill.

Living with dignity means being able to die with dignity too.

While I'd like to cling onto life for as long as possible, I'd also like the right, when the time comes, to be able to end things on my own terms. A right I hope never to exercise!

As I get a bit more involved on this site, while reflecting on the owner of the other place, I have one word in mind:

Kakistocracy - government run by the worst, least qualified, or most unscrupulous citizens.

As ever, I think it shows how important it is to study history. How important it is to be able to understand the way people frame narratives about the past, and identify the agendas they might be pushing. And it shows how political history is (even medieval history).

What's then really interesting is to think through *why* people have wanted to tell these different narratives & use these different terms, and what it might mean that some people today are so viscerally against dropping the term Anglo-Saxon.

It's not a surprise that historians in the 19thC who popularised the term Anglo-Saxon had a different agenda to the one had by those in the 21stC who want to retire the term.

History is always really about how we talk about the past. It's an active process and reveals a lot about who we are now & why then we look at the past in the way we do.

It seems pretty clear that as a term "Anglo-Saxon" is now freighted with quite a lot of political baggage. It's a bit of a statement if you use it.

So I'm not surprised to see some university departments deciding to try to avoid it. That's not terribly surprising in the context.

‘Anglo-Saxon’ isn’t racist. It’s a source of English pride The term doesn’t refer to a race, but to a magnificent culture with a powerful legacy for these islands

There has been some pushback, of course. Often it comes from non-historians, but in the interests of balance here's an example from a very eminent medieval historian (albeit one who has been very active in the Culture Wars in some disappointing ways):
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/05...

Or this very useful Twitter thread from
@erikkaars.bsky.social here (Do links to X work here?):
x.com/erik_kaars/s...

Misnaming the Medieval: Rejecting "Anglo-Saxon" Studies ‘Anglo-Saxons’ has long been associated with the early English people, but this label suffers from a long history of misuse. Mary Rambaran-Olm explores the racist legacy of this term.

Or this:
www.historyworkshop.org.uk/anti-racism/...