Aren't the McCartney sisters magnificent as they stand up to the IRA and the see-no-evil policy that has gagged the population of Northern Ireland for a century? They are putting themselves in the spotlight - and for all I know in danger - and they're not doing it for fame or fortune. There is no simper of self-satisfaction on their stoic faces, no hint of holier-than-thou. What they're doing, they're doing for love of a brother. Robert McCartney's life was ended brutally by knife-wielding thugs, allegedly from the IRA. He was a law-abiding citizen by all accounts, a family man returning to his home after a night out when he was drawn into a fracas. He lost his life and the chance to see his children, aged two and four, grow up. His story might have ended there, as so many similar stories from Northern Ireland have, but his sisters were having none of it. When witnesses failed to materialise the McCartney sisters came out fighting, exhorting decent people who had knowledge to come forward with it. One of them, Paula, said: "If these men walk free, Ireland should fear the consequences." Brave words and probably prophetic. If the sisters carry out their projected visit to America it could seriously damage fund-raising there, a money stream the IRA depends upon. In addition it could weaken the support America has always given to the Republican cause. Sinn Fein is at pains to distance itself from the crime, one of its leaders, Gerry Adams, exhorting anyone with information to come forward. What the courts and the police have failed to do in the past, a handful of women have accomplished in four weeks. They have made it respectable to speak the truth. Between them the sisters have 17 young children. They must have pondered the risks of speaking out. How easy it would have been for them to cower in their homes, mourning their brother but leaving justice to fate. No one could have blamed them for so doing. Instead they have decided that justice matters. That the risk of depriving their children of a parent is worth it when balanced against the risks of growing up in a country where a man can be killed on the street and no one lifts a finger. Once upon a time many people in Northern Ireland saw the men and women of the IRA as their defenders. That perception will not fade overnight. But the extent to which the IRA has become a gangster organisation whose members obey no rules, not even those of their own organisation, is being brought into the public arena by five sisters who kept faith with their brother. And slowly but surely others are coming forward to tell what they know. Ireland is a beautiful country but the courage of the McCartney family is surely a jewel in its crown. ********* Mass killer in the lungs According to a study at the University of Oxford, smoking has killed six million people in the UK in the last 50 years - that's 120,000 a year. I'm prepared to believe that figure because nicotine has widowed me twice. Years ago we didn't know what damage the humble fag could wreak. Now we do. Which leaves me wondering why so many people still embrace tobacco. Each time I'm driven from the London television studio to catch my train at King's Cross the car takes me through one of the office areas of central London. Most offices now have no-smoking policies, so outside every door is a huddle of young men and women drawing on their cigarettes with an intensity that has to be seen to be believed. Don't they realise they are taking part in a mass slow suicide? They're young, they hold down important jobs, they have futures - and they're throwing it all away for a sweet lungful of smoke. ********* Price of the truth I'm not over the moon about the reputed £4,500 paid by the BBC to Brendon Fearon, the serial burglar shot and wounded by farmer Tony Martin on the night that Fearon's accomplice, 16-year-old Fred Barras, was shot and killed. However, if the documentary is a fair examination of what happened on that night it will have been money well spent. A fair examination will surely ask Fearon the questions he should have been asked long before now. Why did he take a teenager on a robbing expedition and, having done so, does he feel responsible for the boy's death? Why has he since shown little remorse but pursued every alley he thought might lead to his own advantage? Thirdly - and most importantly - how does he sleep at night? ********** Last week I sat open-mouthed as the saint of the kitchen, Delia Smith - she of the Peter Pan collar and the rounded vowels - yelled on TV, "Let's be having you" at the Norwich fans who she thought weren't pulling their weight. She was rowdy, dishevelled, tired, emotional and passionate from her soles to her hairline. And I warmed to her so much more than I ever did when, in dulcet tones, she was teaching me how to boil an egg. ********* Extremist victory! Shabina Begum has called her win in the courts a "landmark victory." For what, I wonder? Islam calls for modesty in dress, and few of us would argue with that. If I never again see an ornamented belly button it'll be okay with me. But Shabina's school, under a Muslim headteacher, had agreed with Muslim parents and the local Council of Mosques an acceptable uniform - the modest shalwar kameez - that satisfied all the demands of the Muslim faith. Shabina wore it for two years and then suddenly she rejected it. She wanted more. Was she prompted by her brother's connection with the extremist Islamic group, Hisbut Tahrir? That would explain the propagandist phrases which have issued from Shabina's young lips. Other Muslims have expressed their disquiet at what Shabina's "victory" has unleashed and what may follow. Will Muslims who wear the shalwar kameez be considered less religious than wearers of the jilbab? Will the burqa be a next step? For if female limbs are a temptation to the male sex surely the face is an even greater threat. Will school uniform, surely a unifying factor, now be obsolete? I do not doubt Shabina's sincerity or her conviction that she has struck a blow for freedom and justice. But I do question her judgement. A victory it may have been for extremism but not, alas, a victory for those of us who believe in integration and a harmonious, multi-racial society. ********* Lack of sense in fear of flu I'm not suggesting we shouldn't take reasonable precautions against a pandemic of bird flu, but I do seriously wonder if someone somewhere isn't trying to frighten us to death. In particular, I question comparisons with the 1918-1919 Spanish flu epidemic, which killed millions. The conditions of squalor and deprivation created by a world war were the perfect breeding ground for an epidemic. Overcrowding and malnutrition rendered millions vulnerable. Soldiers returning to often isolated rural communities around Europe carried the illness to areas which had been protected from previous outbreaks and had developed no immunity. None of those conditions exist in Europe today. We have anti-viral drugs. In addition we have modern antibiotics for secondary infections and aids to respiration unknown 90 years ago. I'm not suggesting we won't get ill or that some people won't die if bird flu comes - some people die of ordinary flu each year. But creating a climate of fear about this - or any other "maybe" - doesn't make sense to me. ********* Child costs According to the experts it costs working parents £52,000 to raise a child from 0 to five years old. As I was a working parent who brought up five children on a fraction of £250,000 can somebody please tell me - am I a financial genius or is somebody being economical with the actualite here? * Denise Robertson cannot enter into any personal correspondence. | 
