WHAT will the poor, grieving parents of more than 2,000 dead children, whose body parts were removed without consent, gain by dragging the NHS through the courts now?

They are launching a legal battle to win more compensation than the £1,000 payouts they have been offered, although they stress it is not about the money. The appalling practices that caused so much hurt have been discontinued. That much has already been put right. No more families will face the same upset again.

Yet one campaigner argues she is angry about the effect the scandal is having on so many people. "Lives have been wrecked. This has led to suicides, divorces and people never working again. It's a disgrace," she said.

But surely nothing can be worse than losing a child in the first place. That, rather than what happened to body parts, is what this is all about. These heartbroken parents are angry because they lost their children. They desperately want them back. But this money won't do that.

In the meantime, wouldn't the millions of pounds spent on compensation payments be put to better use helping the NHS to care for the sick, save lives, and perhaps sparing a few more parents from having to suffer such unbearable pain in future?

CAN we imagine anything more cruel and unjust than wrongly accusing a genuinely traumatised and bereaved mother of murdering her child and then sending her to prison for life? Largely due to the successful appeal last year by solicitor Sally Clark, falsely convicted of murdering her two children, the cases of hundreds of parents convicted on the basis of discredited paediatrician Sir Roy Meadow's evidence are now to be re-examined.

Campaigners argue many deaths may have been caused by toxic poisoning, allergic reactions or other medical conditions, possibilities that were often not investigated at the time. Middle-class, rich and highly educated, Mrs Clark and her family could afford to organise a widely publicised and highly effective campaign. Her voice was heard. Yet hundreds of less well off, ordinary women have languished in jail for years, many for more than a decade, their protests of innocence ignored until now. Why has it taken so long for them to be listened to? And what does that say about our justice system?

MOVING to the countryside, according to a survey by Country Living magazine, improves your sex life. "House guests can't bear to be alone in a four-poster bed and have been known to dance on the lawn at 3am wearing nothing but Wellington boots to attract a partner," says the report. Four-poster beds? House guests? A Royal shooting party, perhaps, but that's not the countryside I know. I suspect the reason people have more sex out here in the rain-soaked, windswept Dales is that we are so cold we will do anything to generate body heat.

CHANNEL 4's Boss Swap made superb viewing this week. Slobby Tyneside car dealer Mike Porritt did little work, told very bad, smutty jokes and sacked a female manager who was great at her job because she should have been at home "having babies and getting on with her life". It was as if he had walked straight out of the pages of a Viz comic strip. He was having us on. Wasn't he?