Melvyn Bragg supports assisted suicide

Melvyn Bragg, the broadcaster and novelist, has entered the debate over assisted suicide, claiming that he would consider ending his life in a Swiss clinic if he were terminally ill or incapacitated. In an interview with Clive James filmed by the Times, he said: "I would want to do it without any fuss or sensation. Switzerland might be one answer. Of course, I might change my mind in ten years' time but at the moment . . . I don't see anything wrong with saying, 'Why don't you let me sort things out in a quiet way?'

"I see now, because of the circumstances in my own family, a lot of extraordinary old people who are in a terrible state. It's quite right that they should be living but, frankly, I really do not want to go there."

Bragg's comments follow the news that the the Director of Public Prosecutions, Keir Starmer, will not prosecute Mark and Julie James, who took their paralysed son to a suicide clinic in Switzerland. He said it would not be in the public interest to do so. They also come on the day when a controversial documentary about assisted suicide in a Swiss clinic is due to be screened on the Sky Real Lives channel. Right to Die? tells the story of the death of Craig Ewert, a 59-year-old suffering from motor neurone disease. It is believed to be the first time the instant of death in an assisted suicide has been broadcast on British television.

Bragg, 69, emphasised that he had no immediate plans to end his life and that he prefers to avoid the word "suicide". "The taboos around deciding when to take your own life are terrible and we should blow air into them. I am not thinking it every day . . . it occurs to me from time to time when I'm having a melancholy interview with Clive James.

"To me, living for the sake of living on is not a terribly interesting or attractive thing to do. I think attitudes will change within a generation. I'm quite certain that as a society the sort of tentative thoughts I have are shared by many, many people and it could become a common preoccupation." ·