'Esther Rantzen and other dying people have a right to say when and how they go'

Esther’s has been a life well-lived, she deserves the same for her death

Carole Malone in the Daily Express

Esther Rantzen and all other terminally ill people "have a right to say when and how they go", says Carole Malone in the Daily Express, after the television presenter, who has Stage 4 lung cancer, revealed she has signed up for Dignitas. No one should have to suffer a "long, painful and undignified death", and "we must salute this powerhouse of a woman" for using the "time she has left" to campaign for assisted dying in the UK. 

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Why the Colorado decision disqualifying Trump was absolutely right

John Avlon in CNN

The Colorado Supreme Court "just decided that the US Constitution still matters", writes political analyst John Avlon for CNN, in the wake of Donald Trump's removal from the state's 2024 election ballot. Although the former president wasn't at the Capitol on 6 January 2021, "it's clear that he incited a riot" . With the case now heading to the Supreme Court, the decision is "far from a slam dunk". But it is "absolutely right", as "without accountability, coup attempts are just practice".  

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2023 has shown us the misery big-power politics creates. Here's how we can do things differently

Margus Tsahkna in The Guardian 

The "triumph of peace over war" is vital to our "rules-based" world order, writes Estonia's Foreign Affairs Minister Margus Tsahkna for The Guardian, or so the decades-old story goes. Yet "we are witnessing the horrors that this system was supposed to have long ago eliminated", with Russia's "full-scale aggression" and "deteriorating violence and instability" across the globe. At this "pivotal moment in world history", the "only certainty" is that "fundamental change" is needed to strengthen institutions from the UN to the ICC. 

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In defence of Miss France

Kathleen Stock on UnHerd 

The "shock" decision to crown a "short-haired, flat-chested woman" as Miss France has triggered uproar, says Kathleen Stock on UnHerd. Critics claim the beauty contest has succumbed to “le wokisme” in deviating from the traditional winning formula of "voluminous hair, big teeth, an hourglass figure, and eyes sufficiently wide apart that you look ever-so-slightly like a startled faun". But Stock questions whether the status quo is really at threat, because ultimately, "gazing at a truly beautiful face is a source of huge pleasure, and always will be".  

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