‘Miscalculation’ over government’s handling of assisted dying issue
It’s a mess, they know it, some regret it and it’s Sir Keir Starmer’s fault.
That’s the view of some at the top of government watching, dismayed, as the red-on-red conflict drags on over the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, aggravating a sore which crosses party lines, dominates the airwaves for the foreseeable and creates problems which bear some of the characteristics of the Brexit days.
Whatever way you look at it, there’s a feeling there’s been a miscalculation over their handling of the assisted dying issue, and some at the top of government are quite open about this to me.
Politics latest: PM branded ‘desperate’ after talks with China’s Xi
As some now acknowledge, the politics were always going to be fraught but they failed to spot this early enough, with the consequence the issue is now taking up more bandwidth than was assumed.
It has become a distraction from the main priorities of the Labour government – improving people’s living standards and securing the borders.
As a result, there will be few tears shed in influential parts of Downing Street, including by chief of staff Morgan McSweeney, if a week on Friday the assisted dying bill fails its first Commons test and ends its journey there.
If MPs do not kill it then, the issue will hang over the government for at least the whole first half of next year, and quite possibly to the point of implementation in early 2026.
The sheer amount of parliamentary time it will take up has unnerved the whips’ office. The public don’t distinguish between government and parliamentary priorities.
The Labour leader’s ‘mistake’
The mistake was made in March. Sir Keir promised broadcaster and campaigner Dame Esther Rantzen to “make time” “…early in the next parliament”.
At that point they thought they were being smart – not to commit a possible future Labour government on the issue one way or another ahead of an election and leave it to MPs’ consciences – and inside Labour HQ this must have sounded like a pain-free promise ahead of polling day by a party not wanting to annoy any section of the electorate.
But they appear not to have gamed the consequences.
Social liberals v Blue Labour social conservatives
This issue pits social liberals against Blue Labour social conservatives, with each side digging in and Sir Keir (previously on record in favour) now set to vote in the opposite side of the chamber to his deputy Angela Rayner.
Wes Streeting will be set against his own fellow health ministers, and symbolically – a Labour prime minister against a Tory leader of the opposition.
Health Secretary Wes Streeting
That there are two sides to this isn’t a surprise, even if the volume of complaining is now unnerving them.
Ministers can’t sidestep debate
A bigger issue for the government is they underestimated how ministers are being dragged into the centre of the debate, even though they are meant to be remaining neutral.
Ministers are finding they cannot simply sidestep this debate, as happened in previous votes of conscience such as gay marriage and abortion.
👉 Click here to listen to Electoral Dysfunction on your podcast app 👈
This is because of the active and complex involvement of the government legal and health systems if the legislation passes and assisted dying is permitted in law.
This may be a private members’ bill, but it will be for the government to determine which doctors perform the assessments, and who carries out the end-of-life service for those that qualify.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
What is assisted dying?
Take one question that has been left hanging: whether a newly formed part of the NHS provides the end of life drugs, or whether it is something that can be done by the private sector.
According to allies of Kim Leadbeater, the Labour MP fronting the legislation, it is up to the secretary of state for health to decide whether this is done publicly or privately.
I’m told there’s a presumption this is done in the public sector, yet other countries have private services like Dignitas carrying out the procedure for a fee, and in an era of constrained resources, could this be an option?
Read more:
Assisted dying opponents believe they have the momentum
Cabinet minister reveals she will vote against assisted dying
This part of the debate seems largely to have been passed over – yet there are huge cost benefits should the government allow the private, not public sector, to carry out the service.
Overall I’m told there will be no impact assessment – which sets out the costs of assisted dying legislation – until and unless the legislation passes second reading.
At that point it will be done by government, not parliament. This means MPs will be engaging in one of their most totemic votes of this parliament without access to all the facts – and being asked to commit on partial information. This has left some unhappy, unsurprisingly.
This was an easy promise – but it’s proving much harder to deliver than expected.
Lawmakers in the US states of Minnesota and Alabama filed companion bills to identical existing bills that if passed into law, would allow each state to buy Bitcoin.
The Minnesota Bitcoin Act, or HF 2946, was introduced to the state’s House by Republican Representative Bernie Perryman on April 1, following an identical bill introduced on March 17 by GOP state Senator Jeremy Miller.
Meanwhile, on the same day in Alabama, Republican state Senator Will Barfoot introduced Senate Bill 283, while a bi-partisan group of representatives led by Republican Mike Shaw filed the identical House Bill 482, which allows for the state to invest in crypto, but essentially limits it to Bitcoin (BTC).
Twin Alabama bills don’t explicitly name Bitcoin
Minnesota’s Bitcoin Act would allow the state’s investment board to invest state assets in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies and permit state employees to add crypto to retirement accounts.
It would also exempt crypto gains from state income taxes and give residents the option to pay state taxes and fees with Bitcoin.
Source: Bitcoin Laws
The twin Alabama bills don’t explicitly identify Bitcoin, but would limit the state’s crypto investment into assets that have a minimum market value of $750 billion, a criterion that only Bitcoin currently meets.
26 Bitcoin reserve bills now introduced in the US
Introducing identical bills is not uncommon in the US and is typically done to speed up the bicameral legislative process so laws can pass more quickly.
Bills to create a Bitcoin reserve have been introduced in 26 US states, with Arizona currently the closest to passing a law to make one, according to data from the bill tracking website Bitcoin Laws.
Arizona currently leads in the US state Bitcoin reserve race. Source: Bitcoin Laws
Pennsylvania was one of the first US states to introduce a Bitcoin reserve bill, in November 2024. However, the initiative was reportedly eventually rejected, with similar bills also killed in Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming.
Related: North Carolina bills would add crypto to state’s retirement system
Montana, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, South Dakota and Wyoming are the five states thathave rejected Bitcoin reserve initiatives. Source: Bitcoin Laws
According to a March 3 report by Barron’s, “red states” like Montana have faced setbacks to the Bitcoin reserve initiatives amid political confrontations between the Democratic Party and the Republican Party.
Additional reporting by Helen Partz.
Magazine: Financial nihilism in crypto is over — It’s time to dream big again
Update (April 3, 5:43 am UTC): This article has been updated to add information on the STABLE Act and GENIUS Act.
The US House Financial Services Committee has passed a Republican-backed stablecoin framework bill, which will now head to the House floor for a full vote.
The Committee passed the Stablecoin Transparency and Accountability for a Better Ledger Economy, or STABLE Act, with a 32-17 vote on April 2, with six Democrats voting in favor.
The bill was introduced on Feb. 6 by committee Chair French Hill and the chair of its Digital Assets Subcommittee, Bryan Steil — reportedly drafted with the help of the world’s largest stablecoin issue, Tether.
Source: Financial Services GOP
The bill would provide rules around payment stablecoins, a crypto token tied to a currency such as the US dollar, and aims to ensure issuers give information about their business and how they back their tokens.
During an earlier markup session, the committee’s leading Democrat, Maxine Waters, who later voted against the bill, criticized her Republican peers for “setting an unacceptable and dangerous precedent” with the STABLE Act.
She said President Donald Trump could use the bill to allow his family’s stablecoin to be used in government payments, and argued the bill validates Trump “and his insiders’ efforts to write rules of the road that will enrich themselves at the expense of everyone else.”
In late March, the Trump family’s World Liberty Financial crypto venture launched a stablecoin, World Liberty Financial USD (USD1). Meanwhile, the US Housing Department, which oversees social housing, was reportedly looking to experiment with using stablecoins for some of its functions.
Stablecoin GENIUS Act also weaves through Congress
Other stablecoin-related bills are also working their way through Congress, including the Republican-led Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for US Stablecoins, or GENIUS Act, which lays out oversight and reserve rules for issuers.
Related: Crypto has a regulatory capture problem in Washington — or does it?
The US Senate Banking Committee voted through the GENIUS Act in an 18-6 vote on March 13, after Senator Bill Hagerty, one of the bill’s co-sponsors, updated it following consultation with the Committee’s Democrats.
Before the vote, Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand said the updated GENIUS Act made “significant improvements to a number of important provisions” in areas such as consumer protections and authorized stablecoin issuers.
Both the STABLE Act and GENIUS Act will now wait until debate time on the floor of the House and Senate, respectively, before they head for a floor vote.
Crypto journalist Eleanor Terrett reported on X that two unnamed crypto lobbyists said there is likely to be “a coordinated push behind the scenes over the next few weeks to get the two bills to mirror each other, as there are still some differences between them.”
Doing so would “avoid having to set up a so-called conference committee which is formed so members from both chambers can negotiate to create a final version of the bill everyone agrees on,” she added.
Magazine: How crypto laws are changing across the world in 2025
Tulip Siddiq has told Sky News her “lawyers are ready” to handle any formal questions about allegations she is involved in corruption in Bangladesh.
Asked whether she regrets apparent links with the Bangladeshi Awami League political party, Ms Siddiq said “why don’t you look at my legal letter and see if I have any questions to answer… [the Bangladeshi authorities] have not once contacted me and I’m waiting to hear from them”.
The London MP resigned as a Treasury minister in January after being named in several corruption inquiries in Bangladesh.
In her first public comments since leaving government, Ms Siddiq said “there’s been allegations for months on end and no one has contacted me”.
Last month, the interim leader of Bangladesh told Sky News the MP had “wealth left behind” in the country “and should be made responsible”.
Lawyers acting for Ms Siddiq wrote to the Bangladeshi Anti Corruption Commission (ACC) several weeks ago saying the allegations were “false and vexatious”.
The letter said the ACC must put questions to Ms Siddiq “by no later than 25 March 2025” or “we shall presume that there are no legitimate questions to answer”.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Staff from the NCA visited Bangladesh as part of initial work to support the interim government in the country.
In a post online today, the former minister said the deadline had expired and the authorities had not replied.
Sky News has approached the Bangladeshi government for comment.
The allegations against Ms Siddiq are focused on links to her aunt Sheikh Hasina – who served as the prime minister of Bangladesh for 20 years.
Ms Hasina was forced to flee the country in August following weeks of deadly protests.
She is accused of becoming an autocrat, with politically-motivated arrests, extra-judicial killings and other abuses allegedly happening on her watch. Hasina claims it’s all a political witch hunt.
Electrocuted on their genitals and mouths sewn up: Inside Bangladesh’s ‘death squad’ jails
Ms Siddiq was found to have lived in several London properties that had links back to the Awami League political party that her aunt still leads.
She referred herself to the prime minister’s standards adviser Sir Laurie Magnus who said he had “not identified evidence of improprieties” but added it was “regrettable” Ms Siddiq had not been more alert to the “potential reputational risks” of the ties to her aunt.
Ms Siddiq said continuing in her role would be “a distraction” for the government but insisted she had done nothing wrong.
-
Sports2 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports12 months agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports1 year agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports4 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Environment2 years agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike
-
Business3 years agoBank of England’s extraordinary response to government policy is almost unthinkable | Ed Conway