Press it, Principal Skinner!

Press the Independent Thought Alert button, Principal Skinner! Reviewing the papers on Radio 4's Broadcasting House this morning, political journalist Julia Hartley-Brewer stepped out of line. Fellow guest, former BBC weatherman Michael Fish, bemoaned the descent of the Copenhagen protests into violence, saying that he had been on a similar march himself, with no trouble. He warned that global warming will cause millions of children to die of preventable diseases such as malaria, to which she responded that 40,000 children die every day of preventable diseases already:

"So why," she said dryly, "aren't people marching in protest about that?"

For anyone dozing at the back there, it's because dead African children aren't currently fashionable, there being too many of them to fit into a photo shoot.

And one of the reasons there are quite a lot of dead African children is that you can't get a patent for salt, sugar and water so there's no money in selling the rehydrating powders that would save the lives of the thousands who perish from diarrhoea.

Another reason is that DDT, the one thing that would have prevented the spread of malaria across equatorial Africa by killing the mosquitoes which spread it, was banned after it was found to kill most of the plants as well. But you know, boys and girls, being grown ups involves making difficult choices, some or all of which are politically unpopular. In fact, that's entirely what being grown up is about, and we clearly have rather a long way to go.