THE assisted dying bill coming to parliament this week is just the start of a slippery slope to death on demand for anyone you don’t like. Here’s how it will work: 

2024: Assisted Dying bill passes

Britons with six months to live who are of sound mind win the right to end their own lives. Thousands do so. Millions more are furious other people have been given a right they do not have, which is unfair, and march for it.

2025: Labour lose a by-election

A panicked Keir Starmer searches for anything cheap that will make him popular. Settles on assisted dying, extends it to a year to live and removes the ‘sound mind’ provision. Channel 4 schedules its first live assisted dying in the hope of winning back the Big Brother audience.

2026: Dying hits TikTok

Assisted dying becomes a social media craze, with famous ‘deathgimmers’ attracting millions in sponsorship deals. Nigel Farage, with the practiced ease of decades of bandwagon-leaping, rebrands Reform as Death UK. Their skull-faced masks are everywhere. A parliamentary rebellion sees the clause about ‘progressive illness’ removed.

2027: Daily Mail campaign launched

The Mail and Telegraph decide, given the unpopularity of every other Conservative policy, this is their key vote-winner and launch a ‘Death for Everyone’ campaign. The Daily Express is unfortunately unable to join in as their last reader passed away in March. Gen Z decides that, as Netflix now costs £28 a month, death is their only option.

2028: All restrictions removed

All restrictions around assisted dying are removed, to popular acclaim. Sarco death pods are installed in every branch of Starbucks and queues stretch out of the doors. Anna Wintour proclaims ‘expiring is the new aspiring’. Charli XCX announces the ‘hot dead summer’. ‘But why must I suffer others to live? Whither democracy?’ ask the broadsheets.

2029: Nominations open

A private member’s bill allowing citizens to nominate others for assisted dying passes with widespread support, because everyone assumes nobody will nominate them. Piers Morgan is first to pass the threshold and laps up the publicity. The UK’s population falls to four million. The housing and NHS crises are solved. Net zero achieved. Everyone happy.