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Ring
in the New…
What was your biggest surprise in 2004? For me, without any
doubt, it was sitting in the Vatican in Rome, discussing human
fertilisation and embryology with The Pope’s close advisers.
The contrast with the previous day was stark. My Select Committee
had been thrashing out the same thing with Swedish clinicians
and politicians in Stockholm. Geographically and intellectually
our British view is somewhere in between. No surprise there,
then.
The Science and Technology Committee will report to Parliament
early in 2005 on how we believe our nation should set down
the ground rules for scientific intervention in human reproduction.
This year we have been wrestling with really profound issues
of reproductive freedom and ethical judgment. I incline to
the view that people should be free to make personal judgments
about reproductive intervention as long as it is safe and ethical,
and the State should do no more than oversee a framework decided
by Parliament. So, it’s yes to saviour sibling and no
to human cloning.
What was the worst thing that happened - the low point of
the year? Without doubt, the announcement of cuts to the NHS
mental health service in Salisbury. The speed of the buck-passing
was matched by the sickening spin which sought to present forced
closure of beds and cuts in patient care as an enlightened
new policy out to ‘consultation’. This was the
first time I have been seriously ashamed of our NHS. Sympathy
is not enough for either patients or unhappy medical staff.
Are you as angry about it as I am? Watch this space.
And the best thing to happen in Salisbury in 2004? No contest – the
Salisbury Community Choir’s performance of ‘The
Armed Man – a Mass for Peace’ in the presence of
the composer, Karl Jenkins. We are so richly endowed with musical
and artistic talent in our City, that it takes genius to impress.
Director Fiona Clarke did that – and more. The power
of the words and music evoked terrible images of Bosnia, Kosovo,
Iraq – and two thousand years of inhumanity. Transfixed,
I expected the very stones of the Cathedral to cry out and
the tombs of the Crusader warriors to burst open. They rest
in peace – but when silent tears flow from the musicians
as well as the audience, something very great is going on.
This was the most significant artistic performance in Salisbury
since the Symphony for the Spire in 1986.
The common theme in all of this is summed up by the message
of Christmas. Believe it or not, we should all know what it
means. My hope is that during the season of peace and goodwill,
we will all learn lessons from the old year and build a better
future in 2005.
Robert Key MP
12 December 2004 |
