Well, it’s happened. The Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill has passed by a substantial margin of 55 votes. A win for Kim Leadbeater and the new intake of MPs, who were twice as likely to vote for the measure than those who’ve been around for some time. The debate was respectful and impassioned, an unusual combination. But it was also an insight into the thinking of British parliamentarians.

The word and the concept invoked by the Bill’s proponents was choice. “This is about choice”, said Kit Malthouse, the Conservative co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Choice at the End of Life. Kim Leadbeater declared that “the right to choose does not take away the right not to choose”. Except it almost certainly will in the case of those who will be made to feel a burden. As Labour’s Rachel Maskell pointed out in what was among the best speeches of the debate, this is a measure for the strong, not the weak.