This is a global player original podcast.

Three minutes after ten is the time. A very good morning to you.

Has there ever been a more perfect example of a question or a subject that is binary, in essence,

but incredibly complicated in reality than the assisted dying bill, the assisted

dying story, the issue of assisted dying. Do you approve of it? Do you want it or not? Yes or no.

And then, of course, reality kicks in. And in many ways, this highlights the dangers of populism, doesn't it?

Simple answers to complicated questions, because it's not a simple question, even though at

first glance it is binary. We can't currently even find much agreement on why it has failed to

pass its way through Parliament. Has it been stymied by critics and opponents at the House

of Lords level, where opponents of the bill are accused of delaying tactics? Or is it the case that

the bill, as it stood when it arrived there, was not sufficiently substantive to provide the

safeguards considered necessary by people who would otherwise be in favour of it.

Have the debates exposed further problems with the legislation,

or have the debates being used as delaying tactics to avoid the legislation altogether?

It passed the House of Commons by a majority of 55 originally in principle,

and then it cleared the Commons on the 20th of June last year with a majority of 23.

I don't know whether there's a word for this. But do you ever find that your view on something is created more by reaction to other people's views

than it is by a sort of organic formation of your own view?

Does that make sense?

I think I could probably put that a bit better.

It's as if I don't really know what I think about something. Very occasionally this happens until

I listen to what other people think and that sort of frames me or gives me what I need.

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