ALTHOUGH Easter, with its Christian origins and more recent chicks, eggs and baby rabbits, is traditionally about new life, Liberal Democrat MSP Liam McArthur marked the occasion in Scotland by choosing Maundy Thursday as the day to launch his long-awaited Assisted Dying Bill.

Assisted dying, or assisted suicide for those who prefer to avoid euphemisms, continues to be a cause celebre for many of our elites, for whom the thought of having to be dependent on others for help is apparently a horror to be avoided at all costs — even if the cost means introducing a law that would leave minority groups vulnerable to pressure to end their lives early.

Of course, assisted suicide is not only a cause celebre but also a “cause celebrite” with new members of the fashionable elite regularly wheeled out on the front pages of Establishment newspapers, while those in actual wheelchairs find themselves, ironically, wheeled out of the debate altogether, their voices silenced in favour of the rich and famous.