Have a heart
Sir: I was longing to disagree with Rod Liddle that organ donation should continue to depend upon a positive act to opt into the programme (‘Hands off my organs’, 19 January).
However, Mr Brown’s plans include New Labour’s usual targets and tick-boxes. This means that hospitals would be allocated funding according to the number of organs that they harvest, making life-and-death decisions the property of accountants and commissioners. It would be a matter of time, for example, before families of ‘vegetative’ patients were reminded of their duty and encouraged to let their loved ones’ organs be used to save others, despite the fact that the science of awakening such patients is still in its infancy and already producing unexpected successes.
Further afield, last August the US saw its first court case where a doctor was accused of hastening the death of a disabled person in order to obtain the kidneys for another patient. In many hospitals in Canada, organs are harvested not after brain death but after loss of cardiac function, which may be treatable; and in 2006, the BBC claimed to have obtained proof that newborn babies were being killed for their stem cells in hospitals in the Ukraine.
Under normal circumstances I can see no problem with an ‘opt out’ clause, which has been proposed many times; but ‘normal’ is not one of the words which I would use to describe circumstances in Britain under the present government. Until we have leaders who evince some humanity, I have no option but to agree with Mr Liddle.
Gerry Dorrian
Fulbourn, Cambridgeshire
Sir: With respect to the new default assumption that our organs can be used for transplants after our deaths, a simple alternative policy which would both boost donor rates and be acceptable to more people seems to have been overlooked. Currently, when you register with an NHS GP practice, you have an introductory chat with the nurse.
She could explain the issue of organ donation to you and ask if you would be willing to sign a consent form. My guess is that the majority of the population would agree; it seems unjustified to insist upon more desperate measures before such common-sense solutions have been tried.
Helen Jackson
Cambridge
Banning bells?
Sir: Charles Moore (The Spectator’s Notes, 12 January) contemplated the banning of church bells in Oxford by politically correct cowards unwilling to turn down the application for the use of artificially augmented calls to prayer from the mosque.
I cannot understand what all the fuss is about. There is nothing in the Koran about the use of loudspeakers. There is nothing to prevent imams from competing with the noise of traffic and calling their prayers as imams did for many centuries. Of course, I would hope that the city authorities would indicate, as they turn down the applications for loudspeakers, that they would be likely to grant an application for bells to be rung from the mosque.
Rt Hon. Lord Tebbit CH
House of Lords, London SW1
Taxing aliens
Sir: Irwin Stelzer’s article (‘The true impact of Brown’s policies’, 19 January) makes a host of valid points, which the likes of the PM will doubtless ignore. That said, Mr Stelzer’s discomfort in regard to his and other non-doms being taxed on income and capital gains earned outside the UK should perhaps have been tempered by his highlighting the fact that foreigners in the US (or aliens as the US authorities characterise non-US citizens) are taxed by the Internal Revenue Service on their global assets and income, while also receiving no recognition of their charitable donations unless they happen to be to US-based charities. The US thus takes a similar view as the Inland Revenue where external gains are concerned.
Anthony J. Burnet
Garvald, East Lothian
Blair’s conversion
Sir: Charles Moore is wrong to condemn Ann Widdecombe’s remarks on Blair’s ‘conversion’ to Roman Catholicism (The Spectator’s Notes, 12 January). Blair’s government has done more than any other to diminish Christian influence in our society and his government adhered strictly to the secular/humanist/gay rights agenda for change. Why the Catholic Church should accept him, without any evidence of repentance, is beyond belief. Cynics would say that it has more to do with enhancing Blair’s quest to become the President of Europe than any real conviction in the doctrines of Roman Catholicism.
R. Crawford
Co. Down
Parrisites write
Sir: Sniglet, Matthew, is the answer to your problem (Another voice, 19 January). Sniglet is a word to describe a much-needed word which does not exist. It was coined at least 20 years ago in an excellent little book aptly called Sniglets. This book gave my family hours of entertainment. Our favourite definition was ‘hound-winding’, to describe the actions of a dog as it settles into its bed.
Anthea Del Mar
Hampshire
Sir: Following the appeal by Matthew Parris for examples of missing English words, it struck me that there is no collective noun for those who enjoy his witty and interesting articles. Could we be ‘Parrisites’?
Dr Norman Dawes
Bury St Edmunds
Fat, fatter, fattist
Sir: So Diana Rigg ‘can’t bear’ fat people, although she should be told that it is not only the hugely obese who wear those horrible leggings which do none of us any favours.
There are those of us who ‘can’t bear’ self-righteous, pretentious luvvies, but might be too kind to say so. May I suggest that we take out a fat-wa against her?
Patricia Kershaw
London NW7
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