The promises of jam tomorrow were getting frustrating last week, there seems to be work on the horizon but there was a frustrating lack of anything to be getting on with.  I spent some time thinking about how I use my websites, and thanks to some really inspiring input from an ex law student of mine I have what I think is a really exciting project in the pipeline, which I’m sure I’ll bore you with in a future blog.  I also decided to start baking my own bread, which is both simple and highly rewarding – I’d recommend it.

I enjoy food, all aspects of food from growing it to eating and especially sharing it with others, turning up to my parents with a freshly baked loaf and waving goodbye to my sister, an apple and rhubarb cake tucked under her arm, were rewarding moments.  As my reader will know this relationship with food, especially meat, has caused me to constantly question what I eat and what I feed to the toddler.  I blogged here seeking input on the ‘meat dilemma’, those who know me will appreciate that I can be bloody-minded but on this occasion I reflected on comments and decided I would change my position.  Thank you to all those who contributed.  My objection isn’t to eating flesh but to inhumane farming methods and to putting crap into mine and the toddler’s bodies.  I am going to change our eating habits so I eat less meat and only eat high welfare meat, either that which was hunted wild or butchered from organic, free-range animals.

This weekend we had the sort of shared meal that I would like to have more often – I love having family and friends round the dining table, eating and drinking.  On Sunday morning Pa Cartwright and my sister both completed the Cransley Hospice half-marathon, I’m immensely proud of both of them.  Afterwards we all came back to venison stew served with home-made spelt bread and followed by apple and rhubarb cake – family chat over good food is what Sundays should be all about.  I know we could have had as much enjoyment around a vegetarian meal – we have in the past – but I have no objection to eating responsibly culled deer and I know what went into the toddler because everything, including the stock, was home-made, the potatoes were even ones the toddler had dug up.

I’m excited about our new food journey, an organic fruit and veg box delivered fortnightly guiding our meal plans, a small amount of good meat, plenty of fish and home baked bread and cakes. Yum.

Sadly Lord Bingham died yesterday and tributes abound, praising him for his opposition to the war in Iraq and for his defence of human rights.  My gushing doesn’t go as far as tagging him as my favourite judge, that honour (?) is reserved for Butler-Sloss, but he ranks highly in my judicial dream team.  I respect him most for his judgment in Jackson - the case were the Countryside Alliance challenged the legality of the fox hunting ban.  In their judgments the Law Lords, especially Bingham, made it clear that they viewed the role of the judiciary as a kind of watchdog of the constitution, and that they would resist any attempts by governments to erode our cherished constitutional norms such as the rule of law and basic human rights.  Criticised by many, this was the unelected judiciary giving a bloody nose to our elected representatives after all.  But if like me you doubt whether we live in a true democracy and hold certain key values to be important, regardless of the will of the majority then this is sentiment is important.  The problem is that whilst the judiciary reigning in the power of what Lord Scarman described as an elective dictatorship is great when the judiciary share your values, it is rubbish if they don’t.  I will miss Lord Bingham’s contribution to legal discourse, but I will also miss Butler-Sloss’ and even Hoffman’s, both now retired, judgments.  I hope their brilliance is replicated in the next generation of judges otherwise our politicians may act unchecked.

Oxford was disappointing, my good friend who I was meant to be meeting had to cancel at the last minute and I was left alone to discover why Lebanese cuisine had never really taken off in a big way.  A quick hotel breakfast of salmon and scrambled egg and I began what turned into a marathon 3-and-a-half hour drive, still unsure as to the shape my presentation was to take. Inspiration came from Radio 4, Stephen Hawking’s new book was being reviewed. Apparently Hawking not only refutes the existence of God but also argues that science is making philosophy redundant. On both counts Hawking is clearly wrong. He may have demonstrated that a creator is not necessary to explain the origins of the universe, but as necessity is not a condition for existence this goes no way to proving, or disproving, the existence of God. I was less concerned though with whether he had disproved the existence of God, scripting a rebuttal to Hawking’s claim that philosophy would no longer be relevant once the ‘theory of everything’ had been completed.

At the tender age of 23, having secured my first permanent teaching post, the Dean of the Law Faculty breezed into my office and asked ‘so what exactly is jurisprudence’, I gave the simplistic answer that it was the philosophy of law and she turned on her heel and breezed back out, remarking ‘oh just that airy fairy nonsense’. Like Hawking she believed that if we could explain what everything is then we have all the answers – the why questions that allow us to explore what everything ought to be were unnecessary. The law tells me what I am permitted to do and imposes sanctions if I disobey, but it is not only for fear of sanction that we recognise and respect laws. Aristotle hit the nail on the head when he asked ‘why should I obey the law?’ Hawking may be able to explain what human life is, he may even be able to break rational thought down to a description of the firing of neurons but this does not explain why we should value human life. Kant gives a categorical imperative, a fundamental moral obligation, that we should respect others as ends in themselves and not merely treat them as ends in themselves. I believe Kant’s right, not because I understand what makes humans rational agents but because I believe rational agents should have their autonomy respected.

The presentation went down well and I have been offered an exciting project. The drive home afforded me the opportunity to rationalise my thoughts in response to Hawking’s claim that God is redundant. I think the idea of a necessary creative God is unpleasant; if God is proved or disproved then faith is redundant. The simple fact is God may exist, God may not exist and it is an individual act of faith to decide what we choose to believe in. As Descartes demonstrated all we can know with absolute certainty is the existence of our own mind, everything else could be illusory and simply getting up in the morning is an act of faith.

My own choices about meat are inconsistent, I was brought up a vegetarian until I was approaching double-digits when my parents decided I was old enough to choose to eat meat when at a friend’s house or having a meal out, I have had periods of vegetarianism in my adult life and now choose to eat mainly fish, although I do eat meat.  In fact my moral choices about most things are inconsistent, I gravitate towards a green lifestyle but the eco setting on the shower which reduces a powerful spray of hot water to a tepid dribble is a step too far.

My dilemma is this, if I choose to feed the toddler meat am I encouraging him to do something he may later decide is morally repugnant or am I currently denying him something he may enjoy and, hypocritically, I allow myself to enjoy, albeit in moderation.  In case you wondered my hypocrisy doesn’t extend to showering him on the eco setting.

On 1 September two friends of Douglas Sinclair were arrested on suspicion of encouraging or assisting a suicide.  The police have interviewed the couple and referred the case to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) for a decision on whether to prosecute, a process which is likely to take several months.  While the CPS consider whether to prosecute the two friends – who should be commended for for their act of love and compassion – will remain on police bail.  Having spent 7 months on police bail without ever being charged with any offence I can confirm that it is deeply upsetting and unsettling, not only for the individual bailed but also for their families and friends.  My own experience was that the continuous stress, depression and sleepless nights put immense pressures on my relationships with close family members and negatively affected the health of those closest to me.  It is clear from the DPP’s guidelines that this pair will never be prosecuted yet they will suffer unnecessarily at a time when they should be allowed to mourn the loss of a loved one.

I had hoped the DPP’s guidelines would reassure those seeking an assisted death that those who helped them out of love and compassion would not suffer for their actions when they were no longer here.  My hopes were sadly misplaced and this case serves as a stark reminder that the law in this area requires urgent reform.

The difficulty with the case of Dr Martin is that he was acting on the boundaries of the law in an area of medical practice which is opaque.  What Dr Martin did in some cases was clearly wrong, in others it was morally and legally permissible.  Until these areas of medical practice are openly discussed, assisted dying legalised and appropriate safeguards but in place disquieting practices will continue.  When interviewed for Radio5Live I surprised listeners when I explained it was not only legal but also common practice to administer fatal doses of painkillers such as morphine  to terminally ill patients in the certain knowledge that this will hasten their deaths.  The law utilises the ill-founded ethical doctrine of double-effect which distinguishes between primary intention and foreseeable consequences.  The law will regard the physician who administers  a fatal dose of morphine as acting with the primary intention of relieving pain even though hastening the patient’s death is a foreseen and virtually certain consequence.  It was this doctrine on which Dr Martin relied, saying “I don’t believe I’ve killed any patients.  I believe I’ve made them comfortable in their hour of need.”  What was wrong about Dr Martin’s actions was that he adopted a ‘doctor knows best’ attitude and in at least two cases did not seek the consent of his patients.

The practice of medicine needs to shed its historical connection with paternalism and respect the wishes of competent adult patients.  Dr Martin should be heavily criticised for his doctor knows best approach.  We should also be sympathetic to Dr Martin and all those who practice medicine within a legal framework which lacks clarity and consistency and who feel forced to operate behind closed doors if they are to respect the dignity of their patients and treat them with compassion.

Every sinew of my body is reviled by the idea of a Conservative PM, yet the more I read about this new coalition government the more my rational side tries to temper my desire to scream.  Don’t get me wrong privatising schools, and in a recession, already has me preparing to march on Parliament but the fact that the legislation preventing me doing just that looks likely to be repealed excites me.  There’s some interesting and positive moves in today’s Queen’s Speech but my optimism is cautious – I have heard rumours that politicians sometimes lie.  I’m most emotional though about the cuts to public spending, the public purse is paying for the mistakes of the private sector and yet again our children’s education, the welfare of the most vulnerable members of society and the wages we pay those who do the vital jobs of teaching our kids and nursing our sick look likely to take the brunt for the mistakes of those who got rich quick.  This isn’t party political though, had any of the three main parties been in power the temptation of a quick buck and sod the consequences would have had its appeal.  That’s the problem with a global societal structure based only on money without any other guiding ethic.  Blind adherence to capitalism is what got us in this mess and perhaps it would be better to stand back and watch the system break than bail it out and start the whole cycle off again.

I’ve heard those who defend capitalism do so because they abhor communism, some kind of red mist descends at the mere thought of contemplating an alternative to capitalism.  Feudalism though did not end because everyone was convinced capitalism was better, it was not foreseen, one system simply evolved into the next and maybe we need to let evolution take its course and see if capitalism can give way to something better.

Democracy isn’t just about voting every five years, although we should all turn out tomorrow, even if just to spoil our ballot papers.  But democracy is also about what we do between elections, not sacking your MP or having endless referenda but standing together when what politicians are doing is not in our name, be that bombing Iraq or using our money to fund moat cleaning.  Democracy is about government by the will of the people and when it stops being that I hope we’ll all be standing together on Parliament Square to say so, with or without written permission.