And another thing

A few other points. Mr D. Potter blames Henry VIII for the divorce culture. I am baffled that this basic mistake is made so often, even in history books. Henry was not seeking a divorce from Catherine of Aragon (such things did not exist in his time, and were not permitted by the Church of England then or until very recently). He sought an annulment, which most Popes would have granted him. But the Pope of the moment was locked up by Catherine's own nephew, and so was reluctant to act.

In the end, Thomas Cranmer granted Henry the annulment, as head of the newly independent (but by no means Protestant) Church of England. But Henry, greedy brutal, corrupt, lascivious etc, regarded himself even so as a true son of the Church. The C of E did not become a Protestant church until the reign of Edward VI. And it did not countenance divorce or remarriage until the past few years. (And then only by stealth. Its gold standard marriage service, still in legal force, requires the parties to swear to stay together 'as long as ye both shall live'.)

Whatever you think of the RC Church's view of annulments, they are not the same as divorces. For instance, one effect of the annulment of Henry and Catherine's marriage was that their daughter Mary became retrospectively illegitimate, a particularly nasty and heavy blow.

In reply to S. Brown, who questions the idea that cars have obsolescence built-in, I always thought the MoT test (and its US equivalent state inspections) were a deal between motor manufacturers and the state to ensure that old cars became too costly to keep on the road, thus encouraging sales of new ones. Sure, you can keep a car going for a long time, if you really, really try. But will it last as long as it would have done 30 years ago? Can ordinary people tackle the maintenance of increasingly computerised engines? I agree I have as little experience of cars as I can possibly arrange, and have more or less given up driving them now, but the percentage of old cars on the road seems to me to be much lower than it was when I was younger.

Tony Dodd asks: 'So, to sum up: The Tories are useless, rock stars are depraved scum, marriage is important, antidepressants are dangerous. Where have I heard all this before?'

What is the point of this comment, except to draw attention to Mr Dodd, who hasn't been getting much such attention lately? Of course I repeat some themes here, on the much-discussed Mandelson principle that it is only when you are sick to death of saying something that most people have begun to grasp what you are driving at. I also find that there are invariably readers , probably new to this column, who think I am a Thatcherite, or support the Iraq war, or whatever it is. But the point is that I repeat them by focusing in new and different instances of then problems. In the case of 'anti-depressants', I have made a conscious decision to highlight every case where it seems to me the argument is made for an inquiry into the prescribing of these things. I also think this is flat ungenerous and inaccurate. The main piece (and by the way, where are the people who keep moaning that I never write about economic policy?) says little about the Tories and a lot about the gullibility of media and public.

Someone calling himself 'Big Al' says: 'Much as though I enjoy Peter Hitchens's column each week, once again he confuses what he does for a living with work. I have no idea of Mr Hitchens's salary but I'm willing to bet a tenner that he will get more for spending a morning banging out 1200 words than someone working for 40 hours for the minimum wage. If someone works for 40 hours or more a week they deserve to have a living wage.'

I have no idea what words of mine this is supposed to refer to. Can he tell me? And while my ivory tower is indeed very comfortable, I did not 'berate people who are only three or four wage packets away from the breadline.' I might add that I do regard what I do for a living as work, though I am daily thankful that I am able to do this sort of work, rather than some of the other types I have sampled (or avoided) in a longish life.

Likewise Mr Simon Fay, who says: 'For there is work – as the hard-working migrants from Eastern Europe who do so much of it daily prove. It is just not paid at the fantasy wages we seem to think we are entitled to.

'A glib dismissal of what faces many Brits by someone who doesn't have to compete with anything like as large (and ever-growing) a pool, and someone likely rather better paid than any of those greedy wannabes on the minimum wage. Those most anxious to make Britain part of the Third World are from your echelon, Peter.'

It would be hard to find a more complete misunderstanding of my position. I'm opposed, as I repeatedly say (NB Mr Dodds, now do you see why I need to repeat points?) to mass immigration and do not believe that Poles and other holders of EU passports should be able to travel here to work. I have been known to point out that these migrants would not be so popular with our ruling elite if they were taking the jobs of journalists and politicians. But it is undoubtedly true that these migrants are prepared to do work which British subjects will not do, or are not qualified to do (talk to employers, some time, about why they hire reliable, conscientious Poles, who can read, write and count, even though they are struggling with English, in preference to the products of our comprehensive schools. Cheapness is by no means the only factor). And that is why they are here.

This is an entirely different point from the issue of wage competition. Actually I believe there is very little of this as so many British young people do not wish to work for the wages that Poles accept, and are ill-prepared, by their atrocious schooling, for disciplined hard work anyway. This may not be their fault, but that doesn't make it any less of a fact. Most wage competition takes place when jobs are shifted from this country (and recently Ireland) to Eastern Europe, or China, when established and older workers lose their employment. I am against all this, but it doesn't alter the fact that our society is not producing a new generation of productive workers.

Stephen Hayes writes: 'On antidepressants and depression, please put yourself in the shoes of a typical British GP. The most common reason for consulting a GP, certainly in the council estate practice where I used to work, was "depression" or some variant of it.
A typical presentation might be "it's doin' my 'ed in, I can't 'andle it, you've got to give me something!" Telling the patient that there are lots of people worse off than them, to snap out of it, get a hobby or perhaps try church would lead to a complaint. The doctor is hemmed in and has almost no choice but to prescribe fluoxetine (Prozac) or equivalent. Psychological therapies are unaffordable, unavailable, unreliable, and lack the immediacy most patients demand.

'I am talking about 2 or 3 patients every day coming to see each family doctor complaining - very often in tears - of being unable to cope with life and demanding, expecting and feeling entitled to some medical intervention from the doctor to resolve their emotional pain.

'Obviously, the symptoms of mental ill health (however we define that as, and setting aside the massive question of whether it is normal, even appropriate, to feel depressed in certain circumstances) can be faked deliberately to gain benefit. We read in the Bible that King David feigned madness to escape captivity, so it's an old trick. A few sobs, pills and a sick note.

'No doctor can prove a patient is not depressed, and to insinuate that they are faking would lead to a complaint. This is a big, big issue - but it's not just about antidepressants, it's about our whole modern materialistic and broken way of life.'

I largely agree with him that the issue is fundamentally about our soulless, atomised society, the absence of productive work, family life, genuine networks of friendship and kinship. But the immediate issue is that these worrying pills not only do not deal with these questions, but may have alarming unexplored side-effects.

I think there should be a proper inquiry into this as soon as possible.

In the meantime it is quite wrong for these things to be prescribed.

But he raises another crucial point. If people are unhappy for objective reasons, ie that their lives are unsatisfactory or miserable, it is totalitarian (in a soft, Brave New World way, rather than a hard 1984 way) to dose them into docility and chemical contentment. And therefore it is wrong.

If it is true that no doctor can prove a patient is not depressed, isn't the corollary that no doctor can prove that a patient *is* depressed? Half the problem with this pseudo-science is that the dispensers of these drugs turn out, on examination, to have no real understanding of what they do. And so they give objective physical or chemical doses to people who have no objective bodily symptoms (or had none until they began to take the pills, anyway). The wrongs of society cannot be cured by drugging the individuals who suffer those wrongs. This is not a proper activity for medical doctors.

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