Pressure is building in Britain for the legalisation of assisted suicide. The Government's official “voice of older people” is pushing it hard. In an article in the London Times Dame Joan Bakewell has expressed her disappointment that Australian euthanasia activist Dr Philip Nitschke was so shabbily treated by immigration authorities and local government officials on his tour. “It’s no way to treat someone who is telling many people what they want to know,” she says.

Dame Joan says that debate over assisted suicide and euthanasia will not fade away because baby-boomers, “a generation of assertive and insistent individuals”, will not accept “their declining years with timid submission”.

She also gives a publicity fillip to the visit of a Dutch doctor who is an expert in sedating people to death, thus tiptoeing past the current ban on euthanasia. Dr Boudewijn Chabot will be giving a free workshop on May 16, “One Way to Die — Stop Eating and Drinking”, which give detailed information on using drugs as well as committing suicide by starvation.

In an interview with the Evening Standard, he said “I'm not an activist like Mr Nitschke — my approach is very different. It's always a difficult decision to inject lethal medication but it's the compassionate thing to do in these cases.”