Death casts long shadow over our carefree season of fun and sun

THE statement issued by Dr David Kelly’s grieving family is dignified.

But its effectiveness lies not in this dignity but in its re-direction of public attention. The statement effectively points out that the dead man may have been media fodder because he liked to help journalists understand the complex. He may have been parliamentary committee fodder because to MPs he was just a caricature, not quite real, useful merely as a focus for grandstanding. But, the statement points out, to his family he was real. He was a husband, a father, a gentle, humane man.

David Kelly's suicide was one of several particularly sad deaths this last week.