'It does look as if it's going to be possible'

Dame Esther hopes extraordinary 'wonder drugs' will keep her alive long enough to see MPs vote on assisted dying

- Hanna Geissler

DAME Esther Rantzen is hopeful she will live to see a vote on assisted dying thanks to a wonder drug - something she once thought "impossible".

The 84-year-old has become a leading campaigner for greater choice at the end of life since revealing her terminal lung cancer diagnosis last year.

In a phone call in the spring, Sir Keir Starmer vowed to make time for the matter to be debated in the Commons, telling the Childline founder he hoped she would be there to see it.

She said yesterday: "I was extremely touched when he said... that he wanted the debate to happen while I was still alive to witness it.

"I thought that was amazing and impossible because I thought I was definitely on my way out.