Suicide

Last year Benedict Cumberbatch came under fire for giving an impromptu expletive-filled rant on the government’s handling of the refugee crisis following a performance of Hamlet at the Barbican. While critics suggested that the theatre was not the right venue for the rant, at least Cumberbatch’s airing happened after the show had finished. Alas the same cannot be said for Derren Brown. Steerpike understands that the illusionist has a regular slot in his Miracle show where he shares his views on journalists who work for the Daily Mail. Disgruntled audience members — who have attended on different nights — were surprised to hear Brown say that Daily Mail hacks should commit suicide. What’s more, the charming mentalist adds that they need not

Because, it says, of its ‘liberal values and respect for human dignity’, the Economist has put out a film about Emily, a 24-year-old Belgian woman, who wants assisted dying. She is physically healthy, and comes, the film assures us, from a happy family. She has suffered from severe depression since childhood, however. By her own account, her self-made video (two years ago), in which she says ‘I don’t want to live a lie’ and ‘It keeps feeling empty whatever I do’, made her feel empowered. It inspired her to seek death at the hands of doctors. Belgium is one of two countries in the world which permits assisted dying for

As Charles Killick Millard conceded, there was an issue about grandparents. Millard, the leading figure of the Voluntary Euthanasia Legalisation Society back in the 30s, realised that people might cajole their elderly relatives into choosing death. But this had its benefits, he argued: ‘It would make querulous old folk more careful how they dilated upon their aches and pains.’ Havelock Ellis, one of the Society’s celebrity supporters, was blunter: he expressed his annoyance that ‘we are terribly afraid of killing those citizens whom we all regard as financially unpromising.’ There is a callousness in those remarks which resurfaces whenever assisted suicide is put forward. You can hear it in Baroness

As MPs prepare to consider a private member’s bill to license what is being euphemistically called ‘assisted dying’, in Belgium a young woman with mental health problems has been cleared for euthanasia some time this summer. The Belgium-based outlet DeMorgen outlined the situation of the 24-year-old, identified only as ‘Laura’. Aside from depression and the feeling that ‘she wanted to die ever since childhood’, ‘Laura’ is physically healthy, enjoys coffee, friends and going to the theatre. According to the New Yorker, 13 percent of Belgians who died by euthanasia last year didn’t have a terminal illness — and 3 percent suffered from mental disorders. Belgium legalised euthanasia in 2002.  Since then the

A pal recently told me a story. It was about a friend of theirs who had been travelling on a train last summer, one of those old fashioned trains, with the windows that let you open the door from the outside. He was leaning on the door with his arm resting outside when another train suddenly passed by and clipped his hand. His wrist snapped. There was blood everywhere. He turned back into the carriage and was relieved to see his fellow travellers reaching for their phones. He assumed they were dialling for help. But he quickly realised he was wrong. They were in fact taking photos. I was reminded of this somewhat grim story today, after

There was much discussion recently about the rise in male suicide rates, after official figures published last week showed they were at their highest level since 2001. But one aspect of this has attracted little attention: the lack of support for men abused by their partners. In a poll of 130 Citizens Advice Bureaux workers, 63 per cent said it was easy to get help for women reporting domestic abuse, compared to 13 per cent for men. It’s bad enough that men struggle to find help once they pluck up the courage to ask for it. But they are also less likely than women to look for support in the first place – and more likely to be

According to an email I received earlier this afternoon, I should be worried about the mental state of someone I know. An alert popped up in my inbox from an app called ‘Radar‘ which the Samaritans launched this week, telling me a tweet from someone I followed might suggest they were contemplating suicide. Here’s the tweet: Clearly the Samaritans need to work on their formula, otherwise I’ll be receiving daily alerts whenever Jim Murphy warns against Scottish Labour committing electoral self-harm or one Conservative faction warns another faction that it is being politically suicidal. The Samaritans say they pursued the app, which monitors certain words and phrases in tweets before