The most taboo subject of what, surprisingly, has become quite a lively election campaign has now been revealed.

And I am not talking about race or immigration.

While, plainly, it would never have become a dominating issue in the campaign, voluntary euthanasia and all the passionately held views the subject arouses would have stimulated equally passionate debate.

And it would have come about because of one man - Sir Ludovic Kennedy.

After 45 years of membership, he has just announced his resignation from the Liberal Democrats because the leader Charles Kennedy will not promote voluntary euthanasia.

Sir Ludovic (81), president of the Voluntary Euthanasia Society, is not just a disaffected lobbyist.

He is probably one of the finest leaders the Liberals never had.

He fought two elections but failed to win a seat.

Handsome, intelligent, glamorously married to the ballerina Moira Shearer and with a commanding personality, he could have become a towering figure in the Commons from the 1960s onwards.

Instead, rather like his fellow knight the late Sir Robin Day, he had a successful career as a broadcaster and writer.

So you might have thought his resignation in the midst of a general election campaign would have provoked some lively controversy. Wrong! The almost total indifference to his gesture has been astonishing.

It is as though there was an orchestrated agreement not to talk about such a hypersensitive subject as voluntary euthanasia.

The reality is that in a recent nation-wide survey, 82 per cent of those canvassed wanted a change in the law which bans the practice in Britain.

Of course, most politicians ignore public thinking on the matter.

The Labour MP Joe Ashton brought a Bill before the Commons a couple of years ago which would have permitted doctor-assisted dying.

MPs, including Charles Kennedy, voted 234-89 against it.

And a Lib Dem conference in Eastbourne voted 8-1 for a Royal Commission on the subject - but the party hierarchy subsequently ignored it.

In April, the change in the law in Holland making voluntary euthanasia legal will inevitably be seen as part of a global trend for people to take control of how they live and die.

The new law supports the right of competent adults who face a future of 'unbearable and unremitting suffering' to ask for help to die if no other medical options are left.

The process is surrounded by the strictest safeguards to ensure that 'voluntary' can never become 'involuntary'.

There can be few doctors practising in Britain today, who, at some stage in their careers have not been faced with a terminally ill patient who has begged for help to die with dignity.

I have absolute compassion for doctors faced with this ethical dilemma who quietly decide to comply with the patient's wish.

While for obvious reasons there are no figures available, we know it happens.

Proper debate is opening up around the western world and it is time we pulled our heads out of the sand in Britain.