It still feels unreal. Almost two years since Kim Leadbeater first announced she was going to bring forward her assisted suicide bill, almost two years since we started organising the lawyers' letter to the Observer where serious concerns over the bill were first expressed, and it's finally been defeated. Doubtless supporters will try again, but the appetite is clearly not there in Parliament, the Senedd, the Scottish Parliament and across the country as a whole for such reckless social change. Yesterday was a real victory for society's most vulnerable. This bill, under the pretence of alleviating suffering, would have endangered those most at risk of coercion, social pressure and their own dark thoughts because of their race, sex, social standing, disability or mental ill health. Canada, Oregon, and other jurisdictions show the ineluctable propensity of assisted suicide laws to expand further. I'm certain that the Terminally Ill Adults Bill would have snowballed into a capacious assisted suicide and euthanasia regime in this country as well. It was right for the Commons to think again, to heed the House of Lords' concerns, and to decide not to cross that moral Rubicon. I'm glad to wake up this morning in a country where the spectre of a state that assists terminally ill people to end their own lives has been banished. But now it's time for us all to commit to the state truly assisting terminally ill people to die with dignity and peace. Excellent, universal palliative care is sorely needed in this country. If advocates of yesterday's reckless bill were to put even half the same effort into campaigning for true dignity in dying, the political pressure to improve palliative care would be unstoppable. It's time for us all to commit to that project.