Britain Goes Maddy

Just as James Bulger was never called "Jamie" while he was alive, nor do his relatives refer to him as such to this day, so Madeleine McCann's name is not "Maddy". But that is almost a detail. The two really important points are, first, that there is almost never anything like this sort of reaction to any child abduction carried out in Britain, and secondly, that, on examining the circumstances of this abduction, the McCanns should thank their lucky stars that they are doctors.

If exactly the same behaviour had had exactly the same consequence, then there would have been much less sympathy for nurses, and less still for a hospital's or a medical practice's clerical staff (although the media probably would not have bothered to report it in that case), while hospital porters would have been flayed alive in the very newspapers now gushing over yellow ribbons, cuddly toys, pointless three-minute broadcasts at the FA Cup Final, and so forth.

Yet those same newspapers are read rather more by hospital porters than by doctors.