Choosing to end your life is likely to become much more acceptable within a generation, according to Melvyn Bragg, the Labour peer, writer and broadcaster.

He believes that suicide “may be the last taboo” and has considered the possibility of ending his own life in a Swiss clinic if he were terminally incapacitated.

“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?’ ”

In an interview with Clive James filmed exclusively for The Times, he said: “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.”

Lord Bragg’s first wife, the French artist and writer Lisa Roche, killed herself in 1971, a pain that he has said “never stops”. This year he published a novel Remember Me . . . that addressed her death in fictional form. It took him five years to finish it, “writing and rewriting and rewriting, and working at it harder than I’ve ever worked at anything”. The book brought no relief, stirring up feelings that he had suppressed for years.

Last night Lord Bragg emphasised that he had no immediate plans to end his life — he prefers to avoid the word “suicide”.

“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.”

The absence of open debate on the morality of suicide was itself a cause of widespread misery, he said. “The taboos around deciding when to take your own life are terrible and we should blow air into them.”

He also told James that he has found himself contemplating his own mortality much more as he approaches his 70th birthday next October.

“I was thinking the other day on a plane that that’s what it says: three score years and ten. And that’s OK. That’s fine. After that, it’s a bonus if it goes on. If it doesn’t, I’ve had a good innings and that’s great. I genuinely think that that’s enough.” The peer also speaks about his childhood in a closeknit Cumbrian mining community, hero-worshipping Albert Camus in 1960s Paris and realising the “thwarted” dreams of his father by getting to the University of Oxford.

They talk about Lord Bragg’s long-running stint as presenter of ITV’s flagship arts programme, The South Bank Show, focusing appropriately, given how the interview eventually unfolds, on how to pose awkward questions to interviewees.

There are more conversations with Clive James on this website.

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