So when Townsend, who has been outspoken in her not unusual opinion that “women are adult human females”, was elected into the role in May, few were surprised. A few months later, she became the first PCC to give an interview denouncing Stonewall’s influence on policing policies.

But while her constituents greeted her comments with admiration, the reception from other quarters was hostile: she has faced calls for her resignation, an inquiry by Surrey Police and Crime Panel (PCP) and a slew of anonymous threats to her life. After receiving over forty formal complaints, in October Surrey PCP finally cleared Townsend of “any breach of public conduct”.

Now, four months on, she’s set to be dragged through the process again — this time at the behest of a fellow Conservative: Crispin Blunt MP.

Blunt, who is chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on LGBT+ rights, is one of a small number of politicians within the Conservative Party who fervently supports Stonewall and their stance on gender self-identification: he believes that it is discriminatory to exclude those who are male but identify as trans from women’s services and spaces. His constituency, Reigate, sits within Townsend’s jurisdiction as PCC.

Townsend sighs when I ask her about her latest battle: “I know I’ve done nothing wrong. But it’s the process itself which feels like the punishment — it’s exhausting.

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“Crispin called me after I first went public with my views on Stonewall. He put his case and I listened. I thought we’d agreed to disagree and was content to move on. Then I retweeted something by JK Rowling before Christmas and he called me again.”

The post in question was neither incendiary nor ill-informed: all Rowling did was highlight the absurdity of a policy introduced by the Scottish police which allows male rapists to self-identify as women. To Rowling’s tweet she added her own words: “It’s not a ‘niche’ issue, it’s not hysterical for women to be taking to the streets about it. We will not accept this gaslighting from men who keep telling us they are women, or from those who enable them.”

Blunt clearly disagreed. “He called again and effectively told me to stop speaking out. I explained that I wasn’t prepared to do that. I reminded him that I have a duty to defend women’s right to access single-sex refuges, hospital wards and prisons — not just because it matters to me, but because it matters to many of the people I represent.

“He responded with something that sounded like a threat. He said something along the lines of: ‘well, in that case I’m sorry for what I’m about to do’. And then the call was ended.”

Townsend is used to weathering the slings and arrows of politics, but nonetheless, Blunt’s comment left her unnerved. “More than anything, I felt sad because, as a young woman, I used to work for Crispin in Parliament. We’ve known each other for a very long time. When I stood for election as PCC, he was incredibly supportive and there are definitely areas where Crispin and I have shared goals.”

A week after the ominous phone call, Townsend was informed that Blunt had submitted a complaint about her tweet to the PCP. In a lengthy formal letter, Blunt complained bitterly that his attempts to “counsel” Townsend had been rebuffed and that “she remains absolutely determined to take part in this most contentious of public debates”. Blunt argued that Townsend’s “messaging propagates dangerous myths that trans women represent a physical threat to cisgender [non transgender] women”.

Echoing criticism levied at Townsend by Pride in Surrey, he added that by expressing her opinions on the topic, “Lisa Townsend is in breach of her personal obligations under public sector equality duty” and that “tweets like these are an abuse of her position as an elected official whose duty is to oversee the police service under the law”.

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Townsend, who has two law degrees, refutes the allegation that by expressing her opinion she is in breach of her legal duties. “If people disagree with me and want to stand against me that’s fine — that’s democracy. But I am tired of being told not to talk about this because it is really important. For Crispin this is clearly just a trans issue. For me, it is a women’s safety issue.

“At present, we’ve got a situation where, thanks to the lobbying of Stonewall, anyone who decides they identify as a woman must be allowed into female spaces. I cannot see anything more misogynistic than a policy that insists that the feelings of a male legally, morally, ethically trump the rights and safety of women and children.

“I absolutely support the right of trans people to live in the way that makes them feel comfortable; to dress, live and love as they want. But everybody’s needs and feelings deserve to be considered. It is wrong to prioritise one group above another. As an elected official it is my duty to speak up for those who Stonewall and their supporters too readily forget.”

What do those “forgotten” constituents make of her campaign? Well, behind her desk is a noticeboard with scores of thank you cards pinned to it; when her staff logged correspondence in the weeks following the interview, they found that 90% were supportive. “I was overwhelmed by support, and was sent cards, chocolates and even a bouquet in the colours of the suffragettes; people were so grateful that I’d used my position to amplify their concerns.”

Likewise, many within the Conservative Party have applauded Townsend. Nearby Guildford MP Angela Richardson thanked Townsend and urged Surrey Constabulary to record offences by sex rather gender identity (in this she is supported by Home Secretary Priti Patel). Townsend also has the backing of other PCCs, including chair of the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners (APCC) Marc Jones.

Throughout the Tories more broadly, Townsend believes “the overwhelming majority of grassroots members and elected politicians recognise that women’s safety is compromised by gender self-identification”.

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Yet it was the support of the heads of domestic abuse refuges and women’s organisations in Surrey, women who had previously kept quiet on the issue, that most inspired Townsend. “I read every single card I received. Some of those who wrote to me were women who had needed the support of refuges and rape crisis centres. Others were desperate parents, worried that their children were being forced to use mixed sex facilities in schools which had been advised by Stonewall. They didn’t feel able to share their views openly due to the potentially career-ending accusations of transphobia.

“So many women who’ve got in touch have told me they’re ‘politically homeless’, that they’d probably never vote Tory but were fed-up by the failure of other parties to acknowledge their concerns.”

Despite Blunt’s attempts to censure her, Townsend maintains that the Tory party is a broad church where debate is actively encouraged. As such, she says she feels “frustrated” by attempts by a minority within her own party to shut down debate, and that this is “both un-Conservative and undemocratic”.

She adds: “It just wouldn’t occur to me to complain about another person, let alone another elected conservative politician, because they’d said something with which I’d disagreed. And it’s telling that more widely, nearly all of those who’ve told me to stop talking about this, or who have complained, are men. This issue has really brought home to me just how many men feel threatened by women with opinions.”

And it’s an issue that isn’t going disappear soon — not least within a Conservative Party that could soon find itself in the throes of a leadership election. The sexual politics of transgenderism span far beyond the borders of Surrey, and Townsend is confident that future politicians will be asked for their views on sex-based rights. “It’s an issue every politician has been contacted about,” she says, “and I’m afraid anyone who says otherwise is lying.”

“At some point, whether it’s weeks, months or years, the Conservative Party will select a new leader. As a member of the Conservative Party, I will have a vote. And I can tell you now, I will be looking very closely at the candidates who put themselves forward. I will want to know what their view is on single-sex spaces and how they define ‘woman’. And I will vote accordingly.”

And what if the number of terminally ill people who sought recourse to assisted dying were to increase over time? Would that be a cause for concern? Or would it vindicate the legislation, simply showing that people were exercising rights previously denied to them?

These are the kind of critical questions MPs failed to ask in last week’s debate on assisted dying – the first in four years. Any serious consideration of the way legalisation could transform our whole culture in relation to ageing, chronic illness and dying was sorely missing.

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Instead, MPs lined up to explain why they had dropped their previous opposition to assisted dying. From Nick Boles to Sir Vince Cable, one by one they registered their volte-face on the subject. And by doing so they abdicated their responsibility as leaders: to paint a vivid picture of possible future scenarios. They repeatedly refused to accept the invitation – one offered by Lyn Brown for example – to foresee the difference such a monumental step could make; indeed, even to acknowledge it would be a monumental step.

Assisted dying is a highly emotive and deeply distressing issue. I cannot begin to imagine the acute pain, profound fear and bewildering loss of control that is said to come with motor-neurone disease or the late stages of cancer. That suffering, those stories, must not be left out of deliberation. Nor should we dismiss the strength of such unwell patients’ desire for control over the manner and timing of their deaths.

But nor should we ignore the wider effects that a change to the law might have on society; how it would transform the experience of ageing, the dynamics of the family and the practice of medicine.

In his revealing speech to the House, Crispin Blunt invoked what he clearly viewed as the spectre of an ageing society: “By 2040 nearly one in seven people will be 75 or over,” he said. “More of us will have to grapple with surviving with the pain and indignity of crippling progressive infirmity later in life.” The solution to this? Care will only ever be one part. Providing an “escape from pain and indignity” through assisted dying will be necessary, he said.

Blunt insisted the vast majority would not take this route. But if assisted dying were being sold as a viable alternative to social or hospital care, that would surely normalise it, making it par for the course for an ageing society. Premature death could well become a cultural expectation.

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True, many of the MPs involved in the debate emphasised the restrictive conditions under which euthanasia might be legalised. Only terminally ill patients with six months to live would be eligible.

But, again, the politicians’ unwillingness to consider the consequences was breath-taking in its naivety. The fundamental logic of assisted dying – that I should have control over my death as I have had over my life – fundamentally clashes with this restriction. If we enshrine in law the principle that I should have control over the manner and timing of my death, why should that not be extended to the terminally ill patient with seven months to live? Or the person suffering from devastating mental rather than physical ill-health? Or someone simply tired of life? Do they not have an equal right to autonomy?

Indeed, at one point Steve McCabe voiced this very challenge to the six-month criteria. “Life expectancy in itself,” he said, “does not tell us anything about suffering.” Rather, if someone is given the right to choose, that right should extend to “a stage where he has no quality of life”. The six-month restriction is wholly arbitrary, McCabe was rightly saying. Thus, within the course of the debate itself, a member of the house, unnoticed, was sliding down the slippery slope from tight to lax restrictions.

The second massive transformation the legalisation of assisted dying would enact would be on the dynamics of the family.

Nick Boles assured the House that any assistance would require an independent assessment of the state of mind of the patient. Doctors and a High Court Judge would have to be absolutely persuaded that the person wanting to die did not “show any signs of coming to a decision under pressure or because they felt they were a burden”.

Boles was confident abuse would show up this way, refusing to countenance a picture of the future informed by the real-life contexts in which end-of-life decisions occur today. When we look unflinchingly at what happens when life draws to a close, we see complexity, dilemma and sometimes even abuse. Wills, inheritances, care costs – arguing over these do not always bring the best out of us.

So let’s fast-forward to a world in which assisted dying is now an option. An 85-year-old grandmother, no longer able to look after herself, has received a diagnosis that she is terminally ill and has only a few months to live. Does she go into a fiendishly expensive nursing home which will exhaust her lifetime’s savings? Or does she bow out? No one in the family has said a word to her. Yet she feels a pressure – her decisions have been complicated by the possibility of assisted dying.

Eventually, she settles on assisted dying. She’s not escorted to the clinic with a son holding a gun to her head. No grandchild has attempted to manipulate her. No one has said anything to her, in fact, so no independent assessment panel will pick up on overt coercion.

And yet, who’s to say that what’s really going on is a grandmother choosing to die prematurely because she feels she has become a burden? Are we really okay with that?

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Finally, and most unsettling, is how the introduction of the law would transform medical practice. Again, no one in the debate mentioned this.

Answering the question of what had changed to justify reopening the assisted dying question, Nick Boles appealed to the Royal College of Physicians (RCP)’s decision in February to shift its stance from opposition to a neutral position on assisted dying.

Now, crucially, this only happened because a cabal at the top of the RCP changed their rules on how they determined their stance – as Fiona Bruce pointed out in the debate (another ignored intervention). Previously it was straightforward. The institution’s leadership adopted the most favoured option of their members – which is opposition to assisted dying. But this time it was decided that the College would default to neutral unless opposition secured a supermajority of 63%. So, extraordinarily, the leadership of the Institution no longer represents the dominant view of its members.

This move has masked the real attitude of most doctors, which is that getting into the business of assisting people’s deaths fundamentally changes the practice and also perception of the profession. According to the Hippocratic oath, the first duty of the doctor is not to harm (primum non nocere). And the distinction between intentional killing (administering barbiturates) versus letting die (turning off the life-support machine) protects doctors from becoming anything other than the helping profession.

If this distinction were to collapse, what would the country look like in 40 years time? Hospitals could be transformed from places of healing and care, to places of last resort, haunted by mistrust and fear.

The virtue of prudence involves making a good judgment about the present based on a sober assessment of the future. It is the virtue we expect from statesmen. Which is why we were let down last week. Instead of imagining future scenarios – not indulging in speculative fancy, but making predictions informed by a sense of history, by a sense of how things tend to go in the world – most MPs buried their heads in the sand. They should be ashamed of themselves.